George Harry Asher (Georg Harry Ascher) was born on November 18, 1907 in Vienna. After studying advertisement and graphic design in Prague, he stayed in Czechoslovakia working in advertising and as a commercial traveler. When the Germans marched into Prague, he found asylum in the French Embassy and, after having been arrested and released by the Gestapo, he fled to France, where he was interred in several French camps. The writer Oskar Maria Graf put Ascher's name on a list of a visa program for intellectuals, and he obtained a visa to the U.S. Coming from Lisbon, he arrived in New York, where - from 1941 to 1947 - he held various blue-collar jobs. In 1942 he married Esther Lea Lewin (she was born 1907 in Nevel, Russia, escaped Germany via London, settled in New York in 1940 and died in 1992). In 1947, Asher started his career as an art director in the advertising industry. He was a regular member of Oskar Maria Graf's Stammtisch in New York, which he hosted after Graf's death in 1967. From 1969-1974 Asher studied at Brooklyn College, where he earned a bachelor's degree in General Studies. George H. Asher died in 1998.
From the guide to the George Harry Asher Collection, 1907-1996, (Leo Baeck Institute)
