Otto Kallir & the SOS Children's Villages

In the years following the end of World War II, Otto Kallir and his wife Fanny were deeply troubled by the privations being suffered in war ravaged Austria, especially as they affected the lives of innocent children. Seeking to do something beyond the "care" packages that they routinely sent to their former home, they became particularly interested in the villages which Hermann Gmeiner had created to care for orphaned, abandoned and neglected children. In 1961, Otto and Fanny Kallir established the "Friends of SOS Children's Villages" in New York as a way to garner American support for Gmeiner's venture. Both the Kallirs remained intimately involved with the daily activities of the Children's Villages until Otto Kallir's death in 1978. During this period and thereafter, the "Friends" gradually expanded; in 1993 the enterprise the Kallirs had founded spawned the first American Children's Villages.

For more information on the SOS Children's Villages, please visit their website.