III 109th CONGRESS 2d Session S. RES. 553 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES August 3, 2006 Mr. Menendez submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs RESOLUTION Expressing the sense of the Senate that the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee should recommend to the Postmaster General that a commemorative postage stamp be issued in honor of Varian Fry.

Whereas Varian Mackey Fry, of Ridgewood, New Jersey, embodied the spirit of heroism and demonstrated personal bravery of the highest order during the Holocaust; Whereas, while serving as a representative of the Emergency Refugee Committee in German-occupied Vichy, France, between 1940 and 1941, Varian Fry helped save the lives of approximately 1,500 Jews and hundreds of other anti-Nazi refugees; Whereas Varian Fry established a legal French relief organization, the Centre Americain de Secou, as a cover for his heroic but sometimes unlawful actions on behalf of the refugees, including— (1)securing false visas; (2)planning daring escape routes through the mountains of Southern France; (3)illegally chartering ships to transport refugees out of France; and (4)exchanging funding for these operations on the black market; Whereas, in order to save thousands of Jews and refugees who were threatened by the Nazis, Varian Fry risked his personal safety, forfeited his employment as a writer with the Foreign Policy Association, and was ultimately expelled from France because his actions contravened the policies of the Vichy French government; Whereas the efforts of Varian Fry resulted in the rescue of approximately 2,000 persons, including such distinguished artists and intellectuals as Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Hannah Arendt, Franz Werfel, Jacques Lipchitz, Lion Feuchtwanger, and Heinrich Mann; Whereas, in 1967, for his heroic actions, Varian Fry received the Croix de Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, 1 of the highest civilian honors of France; and Whereas, in 1996, Varian Fry was named Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Heroes and Martyrs Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem, making him the first citizen of the United States to receive the highest honor bestowed by Israel to individuals who worked as rescuers during the Holocaust: Now, therefore, be it

That it is the sense of the Senate that the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee should recommend to the Postmaster General that a commemorative postage stamp be issued in honor of Varian Fry.