Voices of Near East Relief
With generous support from the Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Fund
The people of Near East Relief, in their own words.
Between 1915 and 1930, Near East Relief was the largest American humanitarian operation ever mounted overseas. Its staff ran orphanages, hospitals, schools, and relief stations across nine countries, and answered for that work to a donor base of millions of Americans and to the United States Congress. Almost everyone the effort touched left something in writing — the workers in the field, the officials in New York, and the children in the orphanages. Those records are collected here.
The exhibit is divided into three parts. Survivors & Orphans brings together accounts from the children of the orphanages — some taken down by staff at intake, others written by the children themselves. Relief Workers gathers the letters, diaries, memoirs, and field reports of the Americans and foreign colleagues who ran the operation. NER Leadership presents the documents in which the organization’s officers and trustees argued over their decisions and answered for them.
Each item links to its full archival record.
Survivors & Orphans
Accounts from those who survived genocide and famine: the children recorded at intake and the teachers and caretakers who had come through it alongside them and wrote down what they saw.
NER Relief Workers
Letters, diaries, and reports from the American and international staff who ran NER’s orphanages, hospitals, and relief stations, written as the work happened.
NER Leadership
The decisions that built and sustained the operation overseas, set out in cables, reports, and congressional testimony of the people who made them.