Remembering Herbert Hoover and the Commission for Relief in Belgium

Video

Why has the Commission for Relief in Belgium, one of the greatest humanitarian relief operations in modern history, been almost completely forgotten?

The operation started in Belgium in 1914 and relied on the heroic determination and managerial genius of Herbert Hoover. With his Belgian partner Emile Francqui, it is estimated that Hoover and the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB) saved from starvation over 10 million people in Belgium and northern France by collecting more than $200 million and distributing more than three million tons of food and clothing.

To honor Hoover and the CRB, the U.S. Embassy in Brussels organized an exhibit and a series of lectures on the work of Hoover and his Belgian partners during and after WWI.

This video, produced by the Office of Public Diplomacy at the U.S. Embassy in 2007, highlights the exhibit and the seminars. It also features interviews with Herbert Hoover III, former Secretary of State George Schultz, former U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Tom C. Korologos and many other Belgian and American historians and dignitaries.