Speech #960235521

It was at that time that another organization. International Rescue Committee. also had an important role. It had been established in the late 1930s to aid the victims of Italian fascism and German nazism throughout occupied Europe and had done extraordinary work in bringing to this country the refugees from fascismsome of the most distinguished names of that time. some of the great men and women of that era. That is an episode in our history of which we are proud. and there was too much at that time that we had no reason to be proud of and our Government had no reason to be proud of. Yet private citizens did what was necessary. at a time our Government would not. The International Rescue Committee was born as an organization that dealt with the refugees from totalitarianism. And it. also. found as the Second World War ended. when the threat presumably was past that no. it was not. From behind what Winston Churchill in his speech in Missouri called "The Iron Curtain." there commenced to flow an extraordinary stream of men and women seeking freedom in the West. and the International Rescue Committee was reconstituted.