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RSSThe Forward: Marilyn Henry, Advocate for Survivors, An Appreciation
Mar 11
by Michael Berenbaum and Jeanette Friedman
Published March 09, 2011, issue of March 18, 2011.
Marilyn Henry was the quintessential old-school girl reporter — more Hildy Johnson in “His Girl Friday” than Brenda Starr. Her laser-sharp brain could cut through the most complex philosophical, financial, legal, religious and arcane data to get to the heart of a story. Her two masterworks were “Twice Stolen,” an almost-finished book project, aborted by her death, about looted art from the Holocaust era, and “Confronting the Perpetrators: A History of the Claims Conference,” which tells about the organization responsible for negotiations and allocations of restituted funds and property.
Henry died of cancer on March 1, four days shy of turning 58. She was smart and deep, and no naïf. She was feisty enough to hold her own with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, or to work with then Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, who praised her upon her death as “a remarkable person and a great reporter.” She unraveled financial puzzles such as the $1.25 billion Swiss bank settlement, and understood and remembered the differences between the Goodwill Fund, the Hardship Fund, the Article 2 Fund, the Ghetto Pension fund and myriad other funds, as well as details about restitution and reparations for Holocaust survivors that confused the rest of us. She cajoled major players in negotiations to explain complex facts to her, figured out the story these facts told, and explained it to the rest of us.
