Sapir, Boris

Born in Lódz, Russia 1902, died 1989; moved to Moscow 1914; joined the RSDRP (Menshewiki) and the Russian Social-democratic youth movement; between 1921 and 1925 repeatedly arrested, imprisoned and exiled; spent over two years in Solovki, the infamous GULAG camp on the Solovetskiye islands in the White Sea; fled abroad 1925; studied law and obtained a PhD in Heidelberg, Germany 1932; joined the Menshewik movement in exile; following Hitler's seizure of power he settled in the Netherlands; involved with the IISH from the moment of its establishment and became the head of its Eastern Europe Department 1936; when World War II broke out, Sapir was forced to leave the country; left for Belgium and France and arrived final on Cuba in 1942; arrived in New York 1944; active in Menshevik circles; edited for many years the Sotsialistischeskii Vestnik ; worked in New York as director of the research department of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee; returned to the Netherlands in 1967; resumed as a senior researcher his duties at the IISH, where he remained until shortly before his death in 1989.

Since 1914, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) has served as the overseas arm of the American Jewish community; first aim was to help needy Jews in Palestine and in war-torn Europe during World War I; JDC helped local Jewish communities establish relief programs and new health and child care facilities in Poland and Russia; as Hitler consolidated power between 1933 and 1939, JDC accelerated its aid to German Jewry; JDC helped 250,000 Jews flee Germany and 125,000 to leave Austria; late in 1944, JDC entered Europe's liberated areas and organized a massive relief effort; JDC funding helped Jewish refugees leave Europe to South America and Israel; in Western Europe, the JDC helped local organizations assist the devastated communities restore Jewish life, train new leadership and revive communal institutions; with onset of the Cold War, JDC was expelled from most countries of Eastern Europe but was able to provide indirect assistance to Jews behind the Iron Curtain.

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