share a common desire: freedom. Forced out by terror and persecution，
for their lives. But they seek more than safety. They believe in something
other than the oppression they are suffering. So they flee. To a place they might not know，
have never been to， have never wished to see. But they go because their desire for freedom
cannot be conquered.
For sixty years the International Rescue Committee has been helping refugees and advo-
cating their cause. In places like Hungary and Poland， Vietnam and Cambodia， Bangladesh
and Pakistan， Liberia and Somalia， E1 Salvador and Nicaragua. Life-saving assistance is pro-
vided for people who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. A different turn of
events might have forced you or me onto that dusty road to find our way through the dark.
Founded by Albert Einstein in 1933， the IRC began as an emergency operation to help
anti-Nazis escape. With $2，000 strapped to a leg and a list of those targeted for death， a
young American writer named Varian Fry went to Marseille in 1940 and set up operations
at the H6tel Splendide. From there thousands made their way through the Pyrenees， on to
Lisbon， and across the seas to a place of asylum.
From these beginnings the International Rescue Committee has grown into the leading
nonsectarian private voluntary agency devoted to the cause of refugees. The story of that
evolution is fascinating， filled with suspense and populated bv heroes who risked everything
in the pursuit of freedom. It is a story of rescue and survival. It is the story of the world s
refugees. But even more， it is a record of the twentieth centurv s quest for freedom.
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