Alfred Jaretzki, Jr. papers

Reports and correspondence from American attorney Alfred Jaretzki, Jr., reporting on visits to Vienna and efforts to work with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee to assist Austrian Jews with emigration, 1938. Includes one report, undated, 11 pages, describing his trip to Vienna in June 1938, including meetings with American diplomats, journalists, members of the Viennese Jewish community, and non-governmental organizations. Among his contacts were Therese Bloch-Bauer, and her daughter Maria; Josef Löwenherz of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien; the American journalist Vincent Sheean; and the office of the American Friends Service Committee in Vienna. The collection also contains a carbon copy of a letter written by Jaretzki, then in London, to Paul Baerwald, of the Joint Distribution Committee, in New York, dated 19 August 1938. In the letter, Jaretzki describes meetings in London, but focuses primarily on describing the inadequacy of aid to Viennese Jews, and the status of various aid organizations (Israelitische Kultusgemeinde, American Friends Service Committee) working in the city at that time. Alfred Jaretzki, Jr. (1892-1976) was an attorney and an expert on investment companies, who helped draft the Investment Company Act of 1940, which when passed by the United States Congress, strengthened government oversight of investment companies and required such companies to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Born in New York City, Jaretzki was educated at Morristown School and received a bachelor's degree from Harvard University, followed by a law degree from the same university in 1916. He went to work for the international corporate law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, where his father was a partner and where he subsequently rose to the position of senior partner. In 1938, Jaretzki served as an adviser to the U.S. delegation to the Evian Conference, which sought to address the question of how nations could respond to the influx of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution in Germany. Jaretzki made several trips to Austria during that year, on behalf of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (AJJDC), seeking to find ways to help German and Austrian Jews emigrate, and advocating on their behalf. He later served as vice-chairman of the AJJDC, and during World War II, served as a consultant to U.S. Secretary of War Henry Stimson. [Source: Wikipedia, accessed 2015-10-20; and New York Times, 1976-08-24].