[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 177 (Thursday, December 8, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6908-S6910]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO HENRY JARECKI

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, Henry and Gloria Jarecki are two of my 
longest and best friends. I speak, of course, both because of our 
personal friendship, but also of their efforts with the important 
Scholar Rescue Fund, a program designed to provide fellowships for 
scholars whose are persecuted or threatened at home for the important 
work they do. This commitment is especially poignant, when considering 
that, as a child, Henry fled the Holocaust in Germany, ultimately 
settling in the United States.
  Both Henry and Gloria have worked to bring about recognition and 
understanding of people of different races, religions, and cultures. To 
me, Henry has been more than just a friend. He has been a mentor and a 
confidant. Some of the happiest times for Marcelle and me have been 
with Henry and Gloria.
  Dr. Henry Jarecki recently received the Order of Merit, Officer's 
Cross, in Heidelberg, Germany. The Order of Merit is the only federal 
decoration in the Federal Republic of Germany. This high honor is 
befitting not only of Henry's history, but of his long dedication to 
promoting the simple but sometimes difficult principles of freedom and 
liberty.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of Dr. Henry 
Jarecki's moving remarks upon receiving this prestigious honor be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

   Dr. Henry Jarecki: Acceptance of Order of Merit, Officer's Cross--
                           November 17, 2016


                             OPENING THANKS

       It is a great honor to receive this award from the 
     President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Joachim Gauck, 
     a leader honored by Germany for transforming his experiences 
     with totalitarianism into support for freedom, human rights, 
     and democracy. Thank you, Minister Bauer and Mayor Wurzner, 
     for presenting it to me. Thanks also to Rektor Eitel for his 
     thoughtful welcome. Let me also thank two special individuals 
     who have played a prominent role in this award: the former 
     Consul General of Germany to New York, Busso von Alvensleben, 
     who is here with us tonight, and the current Consul General 
     of Germany to New York, Brita Wagener.
       I am of course thrilled to have so many friends and members 
     of my family here with me at this special event, including my 
     sons Andrew, Tom, and Nick and my grandsons Alexander and 
     Tyler. Most of all, I acknowledge my wife, Gloria. It was on 
     this very day in 1957 that the lovely Gloria Friedland became 
     my. wife After 59 years of marriage, I think she deserves her 
     own award!

[[Page S6909]]

  



                                SYMMETRY

       This is a very personal moment for me. When I look at my 
     life, I see that it has been defined by one thing: the desire 
     to make unruly things symmetrical, to smooth over the bumps 
     of life, and to identify and align the parts that do not fit.
       This is how I made sense of the events that first took me 
     away from Germany and have now brought me back, accepting an 
     award in this most distinguished Alte Aula.
       Over 75 years ago, I had to flee in fear from this very 
     country that is now presenting me with this great honor. The 
     Hitler regime had come to power less than three months before 
     my birth, gaining strength by finding scapegoats for the 
     troubles of the German people that were caused by World War I 
     and the peace treaty, and from the ensuing inflation and 
     depression. The Nazis alleged that the country's defeat, 
     hunger, and chaos were due to traitors and to Jews, whom they 
     called foreigners despite the fact that they had been in 
     Germany ever since the Romans drove them here in the 70th 
     year of the Christian Era. My family, which could trace 
     itself back for generations, was unwilling to believe that 
     this land of Goethe and Heine could be governed by a nativist 
     group of criminals: ``Surely they can't mean us,'' my family 
     said. But they did.
       We didn't believe it until we had all been arrested and 
     stripped of almost everything we owned. Only then did we 
     flee, first to England and then to America. America welcomed 
     us, as it usually does welcome refugees, despite the 
     occasional internal bigot. This rescue and welcome gave us 
     the opportunity to transform ourselves into hard-working 
     patriots.
       The Nazis had forced us out of Germany but they couldn't 
     force the German out of us. We held on to our roots. We held 
     on to some of the language, especially after we heard our 
     parents lapse into German when telling each other secrets. 
     ``Aber nicht vor den Kindem.'' Our father taught us skat and 
     told us about Heidelberg, where he had studied before going 
     to the front in the First World War.
       Unlike some of our fellow refugees, we made sense of what 
     had happened not by rejecting Germany but by re-engaging with 
     it as soon as we possibly could. In fact, my brother and I 
     returned to Heidelberg in 1951 to pursue the same medical 
     studies as our father had.
       Doing so was our way of re-assuming our character as 
     Germans. Philipp Schwartz, the Frankfurt professor of 
     pathology who fled to Zurich in 1933 and rescued over 1,000 
     dismissed German scholars, years later said of his work: ``We 
     committed ourselves to represent the true spirit of the 
     German nation to the world.''
       This re-engagement, which brought my past and present into 
     alignment, is the reason for my award today. In seeking to 
     make the different parts of my life fit, I have engaged 
     actively with both the city of Heidelberg and the city of New 
     York. I have looked for ways to further strengthen the U.S.-
     Germany relationship. And I have felt perfectly at home in 
     both places, perhaps, as my wife and closest friends would 
     say, just a bit more exuberantly in Germany, like the 
     eighteen-year-old I was when I found myself in my lost 
     homeland.


                                REFUGEES

       My U.S.-German outlook, as well as my own personal 
     experience as both a refugee and an academic, give me a 
     unique perspective on what is happening in Germany today and 
     have brought me to a new initiative, about which I will tell 
     you in a few minutes.
       Germany finds itself at the center of a new refugee crisis, 
     and this time the country is courageously doing what it can 
     to help. There were 60 million people displaced after the 
     Second World War, 21/2% of the world's then-prevailing 
     population. Today, there are 65 million refugees among the 
     world's 7 billion people, less than 1%. The proportion makes 
     today's situation sound better than it is, however. After 
     World War II, most refugees were resettled within a few 
     years. Today, a refugee's average stay in a camp is over 15 
     years.
       During both times, refugees (we called ourselves ``refs'') 
     remained controversial. Some people think of them only as 
     weak, poor, and burdensome. Others think they are smart 
     opportunists or terrorists just waiting for the chance to 
     become violent or, at the very least, take our jobs.
       We need an alternative narrative. I propose this: Germany's 
     new incoming refugees are smart, strong, ambitious, and 
     young. Our support of them now will yield great results for 
     Germany into the future.
       Throughout history, such refugee flows have always been 
     with us. The world has in fact made the best of them; it has 
     come to use them like an accelerated form of Darwinian 
     natural selection. Faced with the turmoil and xenophobia that 
     is a never-ending part of our flawed psyches and world, only 
     the strongest and smartest, the most resilient and the 
     hardest workers, are able to re-establish themselves. The 
     philosopher Lin-Manuel Miranda, speaking of Alexander 
     Hamilton, said it well: ``Immigrants get the job done.''
       Their youth is part of their strength. Over two-thirds of 
     them are below the age of 33. Germany's rapidly aging 
     population makes these migrants just the people Germany needs 
     for its future. They are, moreover, ambitious, smart, and 
     anxious to learn.


                        COMMITMENT TO HEIDELBERG

       My own life serves as an example of the accelerated natural 
     selection premise.
       As I mentioned before, Heidelberg readily welcomed me and 
     my family and gave me an education that made me thrive. We 
     have done what we could to reciprocate. Soon after he came to 
     office, I asked the Mayor what I could do to express my 
     gratitude. He suggested that I help to develop a dilapidated 
     rail yard into a science campus that would attract talent 
     from all over the world.
       Over the past few years and through the Max Jarecki 
     Foundation, Tony and I have worked with a dedicated team to 
     develop a whole new part of the city--the Bahnstadt. I thank 
     Mayor Wurzner, his chief of staff Nicole Huber, Giles 
     Hemmings, who manages the Max Jarecki Foundation, Tobias 
     Wellensiek, who is not only our legal advisor but also the 
     son of my friend of 60 years Jobst Wellensiek, and city 
     officials who have helped make our Bahnstadt project a 
     reality--including Mr. Mevius, Mr. Dietz, and Mrs. 
     Friedrich--for their help. The Bahrtstadt is one of the 
     greenest developments in this country, with full access to 
     new technologies, and within minutes of Heidelberg's 
     preeminent educational institutions. This project is a 
     great example of Heidelberg's successful integration of 
     tradition and innovation, science and business, the past 
     and the future. As the British writer G.K. Chesterton 
     said, ``Tradition means not that the living are dead; it 
     means that the dead come alive.''
       I am fortunate to have had an outstanding team facilitating 
     our efforts. This team has been led by the talented Tony 
     Detre, who took the ideas proposed by the Mayor and helped to 
     make them a reality. I simply could not have done this work 
     without him.
       Today, I would like to make several new commitments to the 
     city and the university and to undertake a new partnership 
     with the state.
       Earlier today, we dedicated a new creativity-oriented 
     adventure playground in the Emmertsgrund, a part of the city 
     in which many families of modest means live, many of them 
     from immigrant and refugee backgrounds.
       Just as Mayor Wurzner repeatedly looks for new ways for us 
     to help our city, Rektor Eitel finds new ways for us to 
     collaborate in the development of the university. He started 
     by taking me to see the dilapidated Anatomy building and 
     asked me to help restore it. He now asks for help in 
     refurbishing the University's Max Weber House, an important 
     part of Heidelberg's recent intellectual history. I point out 
     to my many American guests that this university, my alma 
     mater, founded in 1386, is the oldest university in Germany. 
     It is indeed one of the oldest in the world. It, too, owes 
     its existence to refugees: it was the Great Schism of 1378 
     that made it possible for Heidelberg, a small city at the 
     time, to gain its own university. Two popes were elected that 
     year--one in Avignon by the French, and one in Rome by the 
     Italians. When Germany supported Rome and not France, German 
     students and teachers in Paris were thrown out, becoming 
     (yes, we see this again) academic refugees. This led to the 
     founding of the university, bringing to full circle its 
     willingness to take in today's refugees.


                             SCHOLAR RESCUE

       This brings me quite neatly to my final topic of the 
     evening: a scholar rescue partnership I wish to create with 
     the state of Baden-Wurttemberg.
       My own scholar rescue work started in 2002. Drawing upon my 
     own background as an academic and a former refugee, I joined 
     together with several other trustees of New York's Institute 
     of International Education, or IIE, to form a new entity that 
     would respond to what seemed like an ever-present need to 
     rescue persecuted scholars. With IIE's long history of this 
     work in mind, and with the blessing of IIE's President, Dr. 
     Allan Goodman, who is here with us tonight, we formed the 
     Scholar Rescue Fund.
       Over the past 14 years, IIE's Scholar Rescue Fund has saved 
     the lives and work of nearly 700 professors from 56 
     countries, placing them in over 350 safe haven universities 
     in more than 40 countries around the world, including 
     Germany. It was this work that led us, last year, to partner 
     with the Philipp Schwartz Initiative, fostered by Foreign 
     Minister Steinmeier and managed by the Alexander von Humboldt 
     Foundation with federal resources. I am pleased to see its 
     Director-General, Dr. Enno Aufderheide, and Director of 
     Strategy, Dr. Barbara Sheldon, here with us tonight. This 
     program enables German universities to host threatened 
     scholars from around the world, thus further emphasizing 
     Germany's role and status as a safe haven country.
       As evidenced by the history of the University of 
     Heidelberg, this is a very old story. From the burning of the 
     great library of Alexandria, scholars have fled persecution 
     to safe havens, bringing their knowledge and skills with them 
     and greatly enriching academic life in their new homes. The 
     sack of Constantinople in the year 1204 caused its best 
     scholars to flee from Turkey to Europe, and is said to have 
     produced the European Renaissance. More recently, the U.S. 
     benefitted greatly from scientists and scholars expelled by 
     the Nazis, as did the Turkish higher education system, which 
     was rebuilt in the 1930s and 1940s by over 1,000 German 
     scholars. As collaborators of the Scholar Rescue Fund for the 
     past 10 years, Jordan's Prince Talal and Princess Ghida 
     valiantly made their country into a safe haven for Iraqi 
     scholars, welcoming hundreds of talented academics into their 
     universities. And now Germany has stepped up to help.

[[Page S6910]]

       The need today is very great. Scholars around the world are 
     facing fresh repression and conflict. More scholars are 
     fleeing Iraq and Syria, a new crisis looms in Turkey, and 
     increasing threats to academics have emerged in countries as 
     diverse as Bangladesh and Ethiopia.
       Today, I would like to tell you about developing a new 
     partnership. Over the past few weeks, several colleagues and 
     I have met with Theresia Bauer, Minister of Science, Research 
     and Art for the state of Baden-Wurttemberg, of which 
     Heidelberg is a part. We have discussed an innovative idea to 
     add to Germany's current scholar rescue efforts by joining 
     together SRF, private funds, and the state of Baden-
     Wurttemberg. We are happy to have the Baden-Wurttemberg 
     Stiftung as a partner who, with the Ministry, will support a 
     new group of persecuted academics to be placed specifically 
     in this state. The supervisory board of the Baden-Wurttemberg 
     Stiftung just decided last week to join the program. I am 
     happy to welcome the Executive Director, Christoph Dahl, 
     today.
       While the details of such a unique multi-lateral 
     partnership remain to be confirmed, and we all look forward 
     to guidance from our friends at the Humboldt Foundation, I 
     can say a few things. First, this very much follows in the 
     tradition of Baden-Wurttemberg, under Minister Bauer, showing 
     leadership on such issues, most recently with a new program 
     to provide scholarships to refugee students. Second, such a 
     new program makes best use of SRF's power to find and vet 
     persecuted academics from any country and every field. Third, 
     it shows both the power and promise of private philanthropy 
     to bring different groups together to find creative solutions 
     to urgent problems. It is just this type of collaborative 
     thinking that we need in our inter-connected world.
       What we see now as a refugee problem may well become an 
     even greater deluge in the near future as climate change 
     devastates ever more of our planet, and technology enables 
     tyrants to maintain power more cruelly.
       We live on a tiny ball spinning through a largely empty 
     space. And if we don't share this small world that we 
     inhabit, it will be its end. Building walls is futile; 
     equally bad, they put the people on each side into prisons, 
     no matter how prettily they are wall-papered.
       We in the so-called first world are, with our ferocious 
     energy consumption, deeply implicated in the changes we see 
     today, and the greater ones we will see tomorrow. More and 
     more people will come to us, dragging their young children 
     across the seas and the mountains to come to a place they 
     don't know a continent away. We should feel deeply honored, 
     but we must live up to it. If we don't, the liberties they 
     hope we have will be lost to us all.
       ``Giess Wasser zur Suppe und heiss alle willkommen'' (``Add 
     water to the soup and make everyone welcome'') is an old 
     German folk saying. Those ancestors well understood that a 
     meal cannot be enjoyed, a peace not maintained, and one's own 
     not protected without sharing and compromise. It is a bit of 
     German folk wisdom that has survived all imperializing 
     regimes and their detriments.
       Once again, I thank you for the great honor of this award 
     and commit myself, in the spirit of true and authentic 
     partnership, to do this critical and urgent work together.

                          ____________________