Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees

This collection is comprised of papers pertaining to Admiral Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss, his career, and his community and organizational activities. He belonged to such groups as the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Temple Emanu-El in New York, the American Jewish Committee, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the Jewish Agricultural Society, and the Union of Hebrew Congregations.

His papers include extensive correspondence, organizational and institutional records, photographs, and publications which document his personal and public life as well as American Jewish issues that he was involved with such as relief efforts for Jewish refugees from Central Europe, interest and involvement in the Reform movement, and endeavors to combat anti-Semitism, especially as propagated by Father Charles E. Coughlin and Henry Ford.

This collection contains the papers of Joseph Perkins Chamberlain, a professor of law who worked with many refugee aid organizations during the 1930s and 1940s. The papers reflect the work of Chamberlain and the organizations in rescuing and assisting refugees from Europe during this time. Although the bulk of the documents consists of correspondence, the collection also includes minutes of meetings, reports, statistical information, clippings, booklets and transcripts of speeches.

This collection, which is a sub-group of RG 245 HIAS, includes the records of the main HICEM office in Europe prior to and during World War II. There are also some records from the post-war period relating to the dissolution of HICEM, HIAS’s taking over of HICEM’s operations and HIAS’s work with displaced persons.