On January 24, 1944, the staff of the War Refugee Board met with Ira Hirschmann. Since I haven’t introduced the Board’s staff yet (or at least, the first five), let’s do that.

John Pehle: the leader of the group, he ends up becoming the Executive Director of the WRB until January 1945.  He was originally from the Midwest, then graduated Yale Law School and went to work for the Treasury Dept. During the war, he was the head of Foreign Funds Control.  In his mid-30s, very even-tempered and hardworking.

 

Josiah DuBois: DuBois is the one who finally got the proof that the State Department was suppressing information about (what we now call) the Holocaust. Oldest of eight children, he was a prodigy who graduated high school at 14, University of Pennsylvania at 18.  That’s also where he got his law degree. He joined the Treasury in the 1930s, left briefly to go into private practice, then came back. His memos are distinguished by fiery language. One of his younger brothers is in a German POW camp. He became the WRB’s general counsel.

 

Lawrence Lesser: Originally from New York, he was a graduate of Yale and Harvard Law. He was an assistant DA in New York City, then came to Washington and worked for the SEC and the Treasury Dept.  He was thoughtful and had a strong ethical core. His wife was a lawyer at the State Dept; she gave birth to his first son the week before the WRB was created. An Assistant Executive Director of the WRB.

Joseph Bivens Friedman: I’ve had a harder time getting to know Friedman and haven’t been able to find a photo of him. He was born in Ohio; his father was a German immigrant. He graduated from Ohio State law school and came to Treasury in 1935.  Before the creation of the WRB, he was in Ecuador helping to establish a central bank. An Assistant Executive Director of the WRB.

 

Florence Hodel: Grew up in Millburn, NJ, graduate of Wellesley and Cornell Law.  She’s the only woman with a leadership role in the WRB. She was Pehle’s assistant at Foreign Funds, and after he leaves the WRB in 1945, she is basically running the day-to-day operations. She spends her post-war career at the IMF.

 

So they meet with Ira Hirschmann, a marketing manager from Bloomingdales, who is going to Turkey to look into refugee relief and rescue. Hirschmann was originally going as a member of the Emergency Committee to Save the Jews of Europe, but he split from that organization and was going as a private citizen. Hirschmann ends up becoming the Board’s first overseas representative. It takes 20 days for him to get from Miami to Ankara, and he was appointed by the time he got there.