From war refugee to polar pioneer: his brave journey

The life of Henry Brecher ’66 MS reads like a novel, says Geography Professor Bryan Mark ’95 MA. Brecher, who died in July at 91, was a key member of the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center for more than 60 years. He participated in research expeditions to Antarctica, the Arctic, South America and China that helped scientists better understand the impact of global warming. “He provided very valuable expertise in photogrammetry and map making,” says David Elliot, professor emeritus of geology.

Brecher’s story begins in Graz, Austria. The Germans annexed his home country in 1938, and Brecher’s parents sent him to live with cousins in Zagreb, Croatia. He was 5. His mother and father intended to join their son, but the Germans closed in before they could escape. They died in a concentration camp.

The young Brecher eventually fled to Bari, Italy, with family friends. They gained passage aboard the “Token Shipment” in 1944, when about a thousand Europeans, mostly Jewish, traveled to an emergency war refugee center on the shores of Lake Ontario in New York. “The idea was to encourage other countries to make safe places for refugees,” Brecher said in a 2022 lecture at Ohio State. But other countries and the United States didn’t open their doors. That is why the voyage is called the Token Shipment.

Brecher remained in the United States after the war. He graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a degree in mechanical engineering, enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, and in 1959-60 was a member of a research team at Byrd Station in Antarctica. This would be the first of numerous field trips for Brecher, who earned a master’s degree in geodetic science from Ohio State in 1966. He completed course work for a doctorate in geodetic science and passed the general examination, but he was too busy participating in other research programs to complete his dissertation.

Brecher retired from Ohio State in 1988 but continued to do volunteer field work for the Byrd Center, completing his final expedition in 2011 with a trip to the Quelccaya Ice Cap in Peru. He was 78.

“Henry was a fascinating guy,” Mark says, adding that Brecher walked 4 miles every day to and from campus, loved classical music, and built and flew a helicopter from a kit. “Henry has an amazing record of charting glacial changes. He was modest, wasn’t out for acclaim, and was a diligent and fastidious researcher and a great editor.”