He was effective skirting the boundaries of legality but maintaining good relations with the governments of Vichy France and the United States which accorded a low priority to the fate of the refugees, especially leftists.
In 1938, as World War II approached, he returned to the YMCA to aid German, Russian, Czech, and Bulgarian refugees in France.
During World War II, she was appointed as the representative of the Unitarian Service Committee in Marseille and worked on evacuating children, mostly Jewish, from France to the United States.
Marseille was a bee-hive of refugees, British soldiers stranded after the Dunkirk evacuation, and humanitarian and relief organizations, including the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers), Unitarians, YMCA, Red Cross, and seven Jewish organizations, especially HICEM whose funding came mostly from American Jews, were present to aid refugees.
[12] The Pat O'Leary Line in the city mostly helped British soldiers left behind after the Dunkirk evacuation escape to Spain.
Even as a seasoned Russian hand, Lowrie was shocked by the poor conditions in the refugee camps scattered around southern France.
[14] Working with American Waitstill Sharp, Lowrie's initial efforts were to help in the escape from France of one thousand Czech soldiers enlisted in the French army but stranded as a result of the German victory.
[15][16] In helping Czech soldiers escape, Lowrie played a double role as a YMCA representative and as an agent of the U.S. clandestine organization, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), after its creation.
Lowrie's experience and ability to speak several languages enabled him to be a source of information about Vichy and German intentions with regard to refugees, especially Jews.
"[20] In October 1942, the Nimes Committee got permission from President Roosevelt to admit five thousand Jewish children into the United States, but on November 11, 1942 the Germans occupied Vichy and the realization of those visas became impossible.
[22] The focus of Lowrie and other refugee workers in Switzerland became to protect the 6,000 Jewish children hiding in France and to help those escape who had been interned.
The French-Jewish organization Œuvre de secours aux enfants (OSE) led the effort inside France to prevent the children's discovery and capture by the Germans.
[24] At the end of the war, Lowrie said, "All of us were surprised to discover than a third of our hidden youngsters could be reunited with their parents: the Christian organizations had done a larger job of hiding adults than most of us had realized.
[26][27] In 1963, Lowrie authored an account of his humanitarian work in Vichy France which was published by W.W. Norton and entitled The Hunted Children.