The Anguish of Saving Endangered Scholars

An article published in The Atlantic, looks back on the Rockefeller Foundation’s rescue of scholars from Nazi Germany. Informed by the involvement of IIE and other international partners in the 1930s, the Foundation set five criteria for selecting scholars to receive its support. As threats to intellectual life span the globe today, these criteria remain astonishingly relevant. Reflecting on Syria, the author asks, "How many future Nobel laureates—how many intellectual lights—are now being swallowed up by the darkness of Syria’s civil war? And what’s the best way to save them?"