share a common desire: freedom. Forced out by terror and persecution，<br >for their lives. But they seek more than safety. They believe in something<br >other than the oppression they are suffering. So they flee. To a place they might not know，<br >have never been to， have never wished to see. But they go because their desire for freedom<br >cannot be conquered.<br > For sixty years the International Rescue Committee has been helping refugees and advo-<br >cating their cause. In places like Hungary and Poland， Vietnam and Cambodia， Bangladesh<br >and Pakistan， Liberia and Somalia， E1 Salvador and Nicaragua. Life-saving assistance is pro-<br >vided for people who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. A different turn of<br >events might have forced you or me onto that dusty road to find our way through the dark.<br > Founded by Albert Einstein in 1933， the IRC began as an emergency operation to help<br >anti-Nazis escape. With $2，000 strapped to a leg and a list of those targeted for death， a<br >young American writer named Varian Fry went to Marseille in 1940 and set up operations<br >at the H6tel Splendide. From there thousands made their way through the Pyrenees， on to<br >Lisbon， and across the seas to a place of asylum.<br > From these beginnings the International Rescue Committee has grown into the leading<br >nonsectarian private voluntary agency devoted to the cause of refugees. The story of that<br >evolution is fascinating， filled with suspense and populated bv heroes who risked everything<br >in the pursuit of freedom. It is a story of rescue and survival. It is the story of the world s<br >refugees. But even more， it is a record of the twentieth centurv s quest for freedom.<br >