Hope Beyond Borders: The Life and Letters of Paul Fried

Dr. Paul G. Fried (1919-2006), professor of history and director of international education at Hope College (Holland, Michigan), often spoke of writing a memoir of his family’s World War II experiences. He did leave extensive autobiographical notes, carbon copies of at least ten thousand personal letters, and published papers in thirty-five boxes that presented an opportunity for Stephen Hemenway to write an edited version of his life. Early chapters focus on his European boyhood, refugee status in Czechoslovakia and England and Cleveland, unsuccessful efforts to save his parents and brothers from Holocaust deaths, exploits as an American soldier with the Ritchie Boys, and translator status at the Nürnberg Trials (especially with the case of Baron Ernst von Weizsäcker). Later chapters recall his advanced degrees from Harvard and Erlangen Universities, work as a liaison officer for the US Air Force to British Intelligence, founding of the Hope College Vienna Summer School (in existence from 1956 to the present), teaching career, devotion to international education, and fascination with automobiles, world travel, art collections, and philosophical and religious insights.