[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 743 Introduced in House (IH)]







110th CONGRESS
  1st Session
H. RES. 743

       Honoring Varian Fry on the 100th anniversary of his birth.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            October 15, 2007

 Mr. Rothman submitted the following resolution; which was referred to 
            the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
       Honoring Varian Fry on the 100th anniversary of his birth.

Whereas Varian Mackey Fry, of Ridgewood, New Jersey, embodied the spirit of 
        American heroism and demonstrated personal bravery of the highest order 
        during the Holocaust;
Whereas Varian Fry was born in New York City on October 15, 1907;
Whereas Varian Fry graduated from Harvard University in 1931 with a degree in 
        classics, and an ability to read and write in 6 languages;
Whereas Varian Fry and his wife, Eileen Hughes of Boston, settled in New York 
        City where he worked as a magazine writer and editor of Scholastic 
        magazine, then called The Living Age;
Whereas in the summer of 1935, Varian Fry visited Berlin, Germany, on assignment 
        for The Living Age and was horrified by the sight of Nazi storm troopers 
        publicly beating and rounding up Jews for deportation;
Whereas following his trip to Berlin in 1935, Varian Fry wrote an article for 
        the New York Times which detailed Hitler's brutal treatment of Jews in 
        Europe;
Whereas in 1937, Varian Fry took a job with the Foreign Policy Association's 
        Headline Books in New York and wrote several books on foreign affairs, 
        including ``The Peace That Failed'';
Whereas after continuing to follow the news accounts of Jewish persecution in 
        Europe, Varian Fry joined the Emergency Refugee Committee, which was 
        working to raise enough money to rescue a large number of intellectuals 
        then trapped in Vichy France;
Whereas on August 4, 1940, Varian Fry flew to Marseille, France, to embark upon 
        a dangerous rescue mission on behalf of the Emergency Refugee Committee 
        to save the lives of hundreds of intellectuals who were being 
        systematically hunted down by the Nazis and the Vichy regime;
Whereas Varian Fry began this perilous mission with only $3,000 in his pocket 
        and a list of 200 of the brightest scholars in the fields of art, 
        science, literature and medicine who were trapped in Nazi-occupied 
        France;
Whereas while serving as a representative of the Emergency Refugee Committee in 
        Vichy France between 1940 and 1941, Varian Fry helped save the lives of 
        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 securing false visas, 
        planning daring escape routes through the mountains of Southern France, 
        illegally chartering ships to transport refugees out of the country, and 
        exchanging funding for these operations on the black market;
Whereas in order to save thousands of Jews and refugees 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 Varian Fry's efforts resulted in the rescue of some 2,000 persons from 
        Vichy France, including such distinguished artists and intellectuals as 
        the painters Marc Chagall and Max Ernst; the political scientist Hannah 
        Arendt; the writers Franz Werfel, Lion Feuchtwanger, and Heinrich Mann; 
        the sculptor Jaques Lipchitz; and Nobel-Prize winning biochemist Otto 
        Meyerhof;
Whereas in 1967, for his heroic actions, Varian Fry received the Croix de 
        Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, one of France's highest 
        civilian honors;
Whereas Varian Fry died on September 13, 1967; and
Whereas in 1996, Varian Fry was named as ``Righteous Among the Nations'' by Yad 
        Vashem, the Holocaust Heros and Martyrs Remembrance Authority in 
        Jerusalem, making him the first American recipient of Israel's highest 
        honor for rescuers during the Holocaust: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the House of Representatives honors Varian Fry on 
the 100th anniversary of his birth.
                                 <all>