Varian Fry

Varian Mackey Fry (born the October 15th 1907 with New York, dead the September 13rd 1967) was a American Journaliste which since Marseilles, saved between 2000 and 4000 Jewish and militant anti-nazi to flee Europe and the Régime of Vichy.

Biography

It accepted an education Quaker. In 1927 Varian Fry founded Hound & Horn , a literary review with Lincoln Kirstein. It Maria with the sister of Lincolon Kirstein, Eileen.

Correspondent of the American newspaper The Old Living room , Varian Fry visited Berlin in 1935. He was then pilot cruelty of the Nazi S towards the Jews. He saw in particular, two Nazis to stab the hand of a Jew sitting to the terrace of a coffee without any reason.

Shocked by this experiment, it helped to raise funds to support the movements anti-nazis. Just after the invasion of France, it went to Marseilles like agent Emergency Rescue Committee (American Center of help). Its mission was to help of the militants trotskyste and anti-nazis to flee Europe.

In spite of the monitoring of the mode of Vichy, it hid many people with the Villa Bel Air and helped them to flee. More than 2.200 people took refuge with the Portugal (neutral), before going to the United States. Others passed by the Martinique.

The closest collaborators of Varian Fry were Miriam Davenport, former coed in art with the Sorbonne, Mary Jayne Gold heiress with the romantic life, Daniel Bénédite, Albert O. Hirschman, Charles Fawcett, Leon Ball, Jean Gemähling or Charles Wolf. Fry was largely helped by Hiram Bingham IV, Vice American Consul in Marseilles which fought the Antisémitisme State Department and his sensitive to the cold policy as regards visa. Hiram Bingham IV did not hesitate to deliver thousands of visas, truths or forgery.

This policy displeased with the mode of Vichy and the US government, then neutral vis-a-vis the European conflict. Varian Fry was made confiscate its passport by the American authorities. It had shortly after to leave the French territory

It returned then to the United States and tested by all the means of sensitizing the American public opinion on the fate of the Jews in Europe. In December 1942, it published in The New Republic , an article entitled " the Massacre of the Jews in Europe ". In 1945, Fry published Surrender one Demand which told its tour in France. The editor censured the foreword which denounced the American policy of then as regards visas. The work left only in 1999 to France.

It then made various trades, remaria after the death of his first wife and becomes Latin professor. He dies the September 13rd 1967.

Personalities helped by Varian Fry

Honors and rewards

In 1967, the France did it knight of the Légion of honor. It is the only honor which it received from alive sound.

In 1995, Varian Fry became first American with being recognized like Juste among the Nations with the memorial of Yad Vashem. It also received the citizenship of honor of the State of Israel on January 1st 1998.

On the initiative of Samuel V. Brock, General consul from the United States in Marseilles of 1999 to 2002, the park in front of the consulate was famous Place Varian Fry .

See too

Books

  • the Black list of Varian Fry (Plon, 1999)

  • Marseilles, the Forties of Mary-Jane Gold (Phebus, 2006) which tells the history of the Emergency Rescue Committee by one of the main actors of this history.

External bonds

  • Site in English with the memory of Varian Fry
  • Varian Fry in Marseilles by Wild Pierre

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