Faced with ongoing, destructive conflicts in several Middle Eastern and African nations, the world today has witnessed the highest levels of forced displacement since World War II.  At a time when a new wave of anti-immigrant rhetoric continues to build momentum, 10 million of the more than 22 million refugees remain stateless, denied access to basic rights which include a right to education. In response to this crisis, students at Smith College have demonstrated an interest in helping to extend their educational opportunities to their fellow scholars around the globe who do not presently have access. A noteworthy example is the organization Higher Education for Refugees at Smith or HERS, a group formed last year by students looking to establish scholarships to bring refugee students to Smith. Yet, this organization and its aims had a predecessor, and this concern for refugees amongst students is not the first to take hold on Smith campus.

Europe in the 1930s was quickly becoming a place where danger lurked in any political or religious dissidence, a climate so volatile that Smith parents wrote letters expressing concern for their student planning to travel and the school was eventually forced to cancel the Junior Year Abroad program due to the perceived “imminence of war.” As an increasingly hostile Germany completed its conquest of Czechoslovakia and surrounding territories, Jewish individuals and political critics, particularly those vocal against Fascism, fell subject to Nazi hostility and oppression. Yet, not unlike today, the world was largely unreceptive to the idea of helping refugees. Data from a survey about changing immigration quotas, for instance, showed that 83% of Americans were opposed to the idea of allowing refugees into the country.

One vocal opponent to this pervasive mindset was Smith president William Neilson, who described the persecution of intellectual minds by Fascist governments as “intellectual suicide.” Active in efforts both to overturn quota laws, which severely restricted the number of immigrants permitted to enter the United States, and to bring rights and resources to refugees, Neilson assumed an active role targeting the injustices which plagued the world of his time, and encouraged Smith students to the same. “We realise our responsibility for turning out students who are well aware of the problems of their epoch,” Neilson stated, “and we think it is our duty to teach them how to find out the facts concerning social order…” Every Monday morning for over a decade, Neilson hosted obligatory “chapel talks” dedicated to discussing current world affairs. Students were expected to reflect on information they had read in the New York Times or the Herald Tribune, which he made sure were delivered to each house on campus. In an oral history interview, Betty Royan ‘35 credits President Neilson with providing her with a new knowledge of politics, expressing that his “ability to transmit an understanding of what was going on in the world to all of us in Chapel…started waking me up to the fact that there was a wider world than…Northampton.”

Spurred to action by these talks, a new student committee associated with the Joint Peace Commission began advocating for a campaign at Smith to prompt action in “the alleviation of the pressure against Jewish and liberal students in the Reich.” After gaining approval from the administration, the group joined with representatives of the International Relations Club and the Student Christian Association to launch a fundraising effort among the student body to create full scholarships for refugee students. Without arranging a specific monetary goal, the students aimed to enable as many students as possible to come to Smith.

In December of 1938, the campaign began with the full support of President Neilson, who presented the project in Chapel as a chance for Smith students to demonstrate their concern for the events they had been learning about. With contributions collected from every house on campus, students collectively raised over $1500.

Agreeing that full tuition and living expenses would be offered to as many refugee students as funds would allow, the Committee on the Selection of Refugee Scholars was formed and began evaluating potential candidates.

One student who benefitted from a scholarship drawn from the student fundraising campaign was Evemarie Winkler, a refugee and eligible college Junior living temporarily in New York City. College records make clear that Ms. Winkler would not have been able to continue her education without the support of Smith, stating that she was “devoid of all funds” and “supporting herself and in part herparents by painting cheap jewelry at $10.00 per week for a 44-hour week.” Once approved by the selection committee, Evemarie was granted full financial coverage of tuition, room and board, as well as an additional $100 stipend for “incidental expenses” for the 1939/1940 academic year. A later document reveals that Ms. Winkler’s strong academic performance at Smith had earned her another full scholarship for the following year.

Admitted with Evemarie Winkler was Lore Salzberger, the daughter of a German rabbi who had escaped to England. A letter from the chairman of the Committee on the Selection of Refugee Scholars, Walter Kotschnig, reveals that although Ms. Salzberger had previously received a full tuition scholarship on academic merit alone, she was unable to obtain the student visa she needed to benefit from the award. In addition to providing financial support, the committee resolved to help Ms. Salzberger enter the country, expressing a willingness to collaborate with personal friends and pull strings in order to bring her to the United States either under a student visa or as a “non-quota immigrant.”

Although direct funding was limited, the committee also made alternative efforts to welcome refugees. Another student highlighted by the committee was Marianne Liepe, a strong student and athlete who, due to her prior completion of undergraduate study in Germany, would enter Smith as a graduate student and therefore could not receive a refugee scholarship. Supported by Ms. Liepe’s impressive file of accomplishments and letters of recommendation, Kotschnig in another letter proposes that the necessary funds be drawn instead from offering her work in the Physical Education department “in exchange for her fellowship,” a suggestion which Neilson later approved and encouraged.

For the remainder of his tenure at Smith College and beyond, President Neilson continued to work both personally and through the inspiration of his students to ensure that refugee scholars would continue to find “their strongest allies in academia.” Beyond identifying with and advocating a moral obligation to help those in need, Neilson often spoke to the talent that would be left untapped if refugees were to be barred from education. “There is so high a proportion of skilled, learned, and artistically gifted among them [immigrants],” he wrote, that, “they are infusing new life into our universities,…and will do so more and more if we are wise enough to permit them.” Today, with organizations like HERS and others, Smith students continue to promote the basic rights but also the unique contributions of immigrant and refugee students, emulating the efforts and beliefs of their forebears.

References

College Archives Exhibits, Smith College Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Mass. Material collected for exhibition “The Strongest of Allies in Academia.”

Office of President William Allan Neilson, Smith College Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Mass. Correspondence with the Committee on the Selection of Refugee Scholars (1938-1940),” Box 410, Folder B47F7.

President’s Report 1933-1939, Smith College Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Mass. “October 20, 1939 Report.”

Presidents—William Allan Neilson, Smith College Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Mass. Miscellaneous Activities: Refugee (1940-1941), Box 348, Folder 645.

“Responses to the 1930s Refugee Crisis.” Facing History and Ourselves, Accessed 19 Oct. 2017.

Rose, Peter Isaac. The Dispossessed: An Anatomy of Exile. UMass Press, 2005.

The Sophian Newspaper 1938-1939, Smith College Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Mass. “$1508.11 Raised Here for Refugee Students,” December 1938.

“Student Activist Group Aims For Smith Scholarships For Refugees in Northampton.” The Sophian, 30 Sept. 2016.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “Figures at a Glance.” UNHCR, Accessed 19 October 2017.  http://www.unhcr.org/figures-at-a-glance.html.

 

Amanda Carberry ’21 is a prospective Government major with a strong interest in languages, the World War II era, international human rights, and the study of history as it relates to foreign policy today.  She hopes to travel and study abroad in the near future. She is also an avid writer, having self-published a novella, and looks forward to having the opportunity to refine her writing abilities during her years at Smith.

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