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Based on its highly successful Refugee Protection Program in Colombia, in late 2021 AIPG launched a Global Refugee Protection Program with multi-year strategies for building capacities to prevent atrocities in the midst of migration crises. This program has thus far been implemented in Argentina, Brazil, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Kenya, Romania and Thailand. Our work in these countries follows the methodological framework developed by AIPG in a three-year project focused on strengthening atrocity prevention amidst a migration crisis in Latin America. We plan to introduce the program in additional countries and regions and are seeking funding to cover the additional programs.
AIPG’s Refugee Protection Program is one of AIPG’s programs with the highest short- and medium-term success rate. The impact of the program in each of the countries of application is great and it affects many sectors, ranging from the governmental system of protection, the institutions that are part of it and their employees, to the ultimate beneficiaries, the refugees themselves. AIPG is proud to expand the reach and deepen the impact of its Refugee Protection Program in the upcoming cycle, serving millions more refugees—made possible by the generous support of the Charles E. Scheidt Family Foundation.
Bruno Scheidt (1900-1966) grew up in Frankfurt’s Ostend, home to a thriving and largely working-class Jewish community. His wife Suzanne (Suse) Scheidt née Ballin (1910-1988), was born into a prominent, secular family and raised in Frankfurt’s fashionable Westend. Both the Scheidt and Ballin families had roots in Germany for centuries.
Bruno thrived in the colorful, vibrant, Germany of the Weimar era, and in his early 20’s established the food import company Bruno Scheidt Colonialwaren-Import in Frankfurt. On the eve of the boycott of Jewish businesses in 1933, he fled out the back door of his office, leaving behind his business, his family, and Suse, the love of his life. Within months, he founded a new food import business, Établissements Roland, in Paris. Shortly thereafter, Suse joined him and they married in January 1936.
Having received their U.S. visas, Bruno and Suse fled to the United States in March 1939. Bruno promptly began working and within a year had founded Bruno Scheidt Inc. and American Roland Food Co. As the couple worked to establish themselves in the U.S., they also received increasingly desperate letters from family and friends trapped in Germany, Holland and France. Bruno and Suse did everything in their power to rescue them and were able to help many of them escape to safety. For over two decades, Bruno and Suse worked to grow their specialty food business and develop the reputation of the Roland brand.
In all ways possible, Bruno and Suse tried to help other refugees. Then, at the too-young age of 65, Bruno died suddenly. His son, Charlie, then 23 years old, set aside his hopes for a career in international law and gradually took the reins of the company his parents had founded. Charlie had grown up in his parents’ close-knit refugee community, and he continued their tradition of hiring refugees from around the world. The Bruno and Suzanne Scheidt Refugee Protection Program of the Auschwitz Institute honors their legacy, helping to create an environment in which refugees around the world, having survived the trauma of fleeing their homeland, can succeed in creating a future for themselves and their families.
The Refugee Protection Program applies the following program structure in each country to achieve systemic changes that enable refugees and their families to survive and succeed.
