"He was one of the many European immigrants who came here to escape Hitler," Mr. Heckscher said.

"There were a lot of people escaping Hitler."

Ms. Albright's father, a diplomat, twice fled from what was then Czechoslovakia, first to escape Hitler, then to escape Stalin.

Eissler, who was born in Vienna and came to America in 1938 to escape Hitler, had been one of the institute's ornaments.

His Polish grandmother, the family's original polyglot, escaped Hitler and settled in Mexico.

To escape Hitler, the family moved first to Amsterdam, then to Manhattan in 1937.

Both of them escaping Hitler through "a real miracle that is too long to spell out."

"Because my parents fled in time, I escaped Hitler," Ms. Albright said.

Because my parents fled in time, I escaped Hitler.

My father-in-law is a German Jew He came here in 1935 to escape Hitler, and in 1940 you put him in a concentration camp.