Henry Kaufman Gives $10 MillionFor Freedom of Ideas

As a boy, Henry Kaufman fled the Nazis in the 1930s.

He knows a thing or two about not being able to express your ideas.

"I escaped with my parents and was not ravaged by the Holocaust. But today there are still many, many people being persecuted in the world," he told Rebecca Johnson of USA Today.

President of his own investment firm in New York City, Kaufman, an author and economist as well, has the resources to make a difference in the realm of freedom of ideas.

In the largest donation ever received for the Scholar Rescue Fund, Kaufman is giving $10 million to the Institute of International Education.

During World War II, the institute rescued some 330 refugees. As chair of its board of trustees, Kaufman was part of the establishment, in 2002, of the fund to support those who have been threatened or persecuted for their ideas by government, religious or paramilitary groups. The fund provides sabbatical time and safe placement for scholars.

So far, the group has aided some 50 scholars from 28 countries.

To Kaufman, preventing scholars from pursuing their studies deprives the whole of human society ...

"they can't really do work that will benefit society," Kaufman laments.

His $10 million gift is meant to ensure freedom of study, freedom of ideas.

He's one person who takes the opportunities given in his own life as the occasion to make opportunities for others.

Institute of International Education online