[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 91 (Thursday, July 13, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1415]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     TRIBUTE TO DR. WALTER MEYERHOF

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 13, 2006

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the life of Dr. 
Walter Meyerhof, an extraordinary physicist who fled the horrors of 
Nazi occupied Europe and made his mark in the world as an American 
citizen. Dr. Meyerhof died in Los Altos, California on Saturday, May 
27, 2006 at the age of 84.
  Walter Meyerhof was born on April 22, 1922, in Kiel, Germany, into a 
family of German-Jewish intellectuals. Walter's father Otto received a 
Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1922. The elder Meyerhof sought to protect 
his family from rising anti-Semitism in Germany which accompanied the 
growing political power of the Nazi party. In 1936, the family fled 
Germany and went to England for three years, and then in 1939 they 
moved to France, which was attacked by Nazi German military forces not 
long after their arrival.
  In 1941 when France was under Nazi occupation, the Meyerhof family 
came into contact with Varian Fry, a United States consular official in 
France during this turbulent period who played a critical role in 
saving Jewish intellectuals, scholars, and others from Nazi death 
camps. Fry was a Harvard-educated academic who was not Jewish, but who 
recognized his obligation to save Jews who were under the threat of 
death by viciously anti-Semitic Nazi thugs. Fry successfully helped 
save the lives of more then 2000 Jews, including some of the 20th 
Centuries leading intellectuals and artists. Fry saved the lives of 
artists Marc Chagall and Max Ernst, writer Hannah Arendt, sculptor 
Jacques Lipchitz, the Otto Meyerhof family, and many others.
  Mr. Speaker, Walter Meyerhof never forgot the efforts of his rescuer 
and dedicated himself to honor Varian fry by establishing and directing 
a foundation in memory of this man who saved his life. Through the 
efforts of Meyerhof and the foundation he created, Varian Fry was given 
the Croix du Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor as well as the 
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Eisenhower Liberation Medal. 
Also, thanks in part to Meyerhof's efforts, Fry became the first 
American to be honored as one of the ``Righteous among the Nations'' by 
the state of Israel at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial. Perhaps the 
Varian Fry foundation's greatest achievement was the production of the 
film about Fry entitled Assignment: Rescue. The film, which has been 
distributed to over 35,000 schools, is educating hundreds of thousands 
of students about the horror of the Holocaust and the extraordinary 
courage exhibited by Varian Fry and others who fought the Nazis.
  After arriving in the United States, Walter Meyerhof became a leading 
professor and educator. After receiving his doctorate from the 
University of Pennsylvania, he taught briefly at the University of 
Illinois and then accepted an appointment at Stanford University. He 
had a distinguished career at Stanford, served as head of Stanford's 
physics department, and wrote two textbooks which are still in use 
today. In 1977, Walter Meyerhof was given the Dinkelspiel Award, an 
honor given each year to the top Stanford professor in the teaching of 
undergraduate students.
  Mr. Speaker, I invite my colleagues to join me in paying tribute to 
the remarkable legacy of Walter Meyerhof, whose scholarship made an 
important contribution to contemporary physics, whose excellence in 
teaching helped mold the minds of some of our Nation's brightest 
students, and whose unswerving commitment to Varian Fry, the man who 
saved his life during the Holocaust, established a legacy of 
remembrance that is a beacon to all of us who respect human dignity and 
human rights. We join Miriam, his wife of 59 years, his two sons, 
Michael and David, and his grandson, Matthew in mourning the passing of 
Walter Meyerhof.