Descriptive Summary
Access Restrictions
Publication Rights
Preferred Citation
Acquisition Information
Biography
Scope and Content of Collection
Indexing Terms
Descriptive Summary
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
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
Access Restrictions
None.
Publication Rights
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.
Preferred Citation
[Item description, folder title, box number]. Dezso Karczag Papers. Mss 58. Department of Special Collections, Davidson Library,
University of California, Santa Barbara.
Acquisition Information
Gift of Dezso Karczag, 1994.
Biography
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.
Indexing Terms
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