Raphael Spanien, co-director of the European headquarters office of United Hias Service in Geneva, died last Friday at his home here after a brief illness. He was 72. Mr. Spanien, a French national, dedicated his entire life to the service of Jews fleeing persecution.
In 1933, he joined the French Committee for Aid to German Refugees. During the war years he continued his efforts on behalf of Jewish refugees in France, Morocco and Portugal under HICEM (an acronym for HIAS), Jewish Colonization Association (JCA) and Emigdirect, the German Jewish resettlement agency.
After the war, Mr. Spanien became deputy director of Hias-Europe and in 1954 became co-director of the United Hias Service, after the merger of HIAS with the emigration arm of the American Joint Distribution Committee. His special concern was in the resettlement of Jews from Moslem areas.
On June 18, 1974, Mr. Spanien attended the cornerstone laying ceremony in Jerusalem of the Raphael Spanien Religious Comprehensive High School established through the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Irving Schneider of New York. Mr. Spanien was the son of the late Joseph Spanien. a French Zionist leader, and the brother of the late Samuel Spanien, a French lawyer and close associate of Leon Blum, who served as Blum’s defense counsel at the infamous trial in Riom in 1940.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
