Guide to the Dezso Karczag Papers
Preliminary arrangement and description by D. Tambo
Department of Special Collections
© 2010
Davidson Library
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
Phone: (805) 893-3062
Fax: (805) 893-5749
Email: special@library.ucsb.edu
URL: http://www.library.ucsb.edu/speccoll/speccoll.html
The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
Guide to the Dezso Karczag Papers
Collection number: Mss 58
Department of Special CollectionsDavidson Library
University of California, Santa Barbara
- Processed by:
- D. Tambo
- Date Completed:
- Nov. 26, 2003
- Encoded by:
- A. Demeter
© 2010 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
Title: Dezso Karczag Papers
Dates: ca. 1920s-1991
Collection number: Mss 58
Creator:
Karczag, Dezso
Collection Size:
0.6 linear feet
(1 document box and 1 half-size document box)
Repository:
University of California, Santa Barbara. Library. Dept. of Special Collections
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
Abstract: The collection contains the handwritten autobiography by Dezso Karczag [Dennis G. Karzag], co-founder of Santa Barbara-based
Direct Relief International, along with supporting correspondence, articles, clippings, documents, photographs, and reports,
ca. 1920s-1991.
Physical location: Del Sur.
Languages:
English
None.
Copyright has not been assigned to the Department of Special Collections, UCSB. All requests for permission to publish or
quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Collections. Permission for publication is given
on behalf of the Department of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply
permission of the copyright holder, which also must be obtained.
[Item description, folder title, box number]. Dezso Karczag Papers. Mss 58. Department of Special Collections, Davidson Library,
University of California, Santa Barbara.
Gift of Dezso Karczag, 1994.
Dezso Karczag [Dennis G. Karzag], was born in Ersekujvar, Hungary in 1904 and moved in 1911 to Vienna, where he became an
Austrian citizen and attended medical school at the University of Vienna. He moved to France in 1929 and left Europe at the
beginning of World War II, settling with his business partner, William Zimdin, in Santa Barbara in 1940. Karczag and Zimdin
began sending clothes, food, and medical supplies to post-war Europe in 1945. In 1948 they formed a non-profit tax-exempt
organization called the William Zimdin Foundation. Zimdin died in 1951, leaving $900,000 to the yet unnamed Direct Relief,
and named Karczag as the executor of his estate. In the following years, Karczak mounted major drives to send supplies to
the needy in Middle and Eastern Europe. By the early 1960s, Direct Relief International (DRI) began to focus on shipping medicine
and medical supplies abroad, as well as supporting victims of natural disasters in the U.S. and the homeless in Santa Barbara.
Karczag, who remained active in DRI efforts almost until his final days, died in Santa Barbara on May 28, 2000.
[Much of the biographical information about Dezso Karczag is taken from accounts in the Santa Barbara
Independent, Nov. 24, 1999 and June 1, 2000].
Scope and Content of Collection
The collection contains the handwritten autobiography by Dezso Karczag [Dennis G. Karzag], co-founder of Santa Barbara-based
Direct Relief International, along with supporting correspondence, articles, clippings, documents, photographs, and reports,
ca. 1920s-1991.
There is no container list for this collection.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
Karczag, Dezso
Direct Relief International