And Another ‘Ritchie Boy’

Your article on Arno Mayer and others’ receipt of the Elie Wiesel Award mentions professor emeritus Victor Brombert (the Henry Putnam University Professor of Romance and Comparative Literatures from 1975-99) as a fellow Ritchie Boy but omits another faculty member in this category: Walter Arnold Kaufmann. Kaufmann was, inter alia, a world-renowned expert on Nietzsche who taught in the philosophy department from 1947 until his death in 1980. Regrettably, popular interest in the contribution, dedication, and remarkably successful later careers of the roughly 15,000 Ritchie Boys arose only in recent decades. Its members represented quite an accomplished group; they deserved more recognition than they received. During my student years their actions were virtually unknown, except to specialists.