[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 38 (Tuesday, March 19, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E380-E382]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       THE STORY OF VARIAN FRY AND THE EMERGENCY RESCUE COMMITTEE

                                 ______


                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, March 19, 1996

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, the following account was written by my wife 
Annette with the able assistance and research of Mandi Cohn.

[[Page E381]]

It is a belated attempt to pay a debt to an American hero whose 
important deeds in the early years of World War II have been overlooked 
by a majority of Americans. He is the only American recipient of the 
Righteous Among the Nations Award bestowed by Israel to non-Jews who 
risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. Truly, I'm 
grateful to my wife for once more helping us to remember those who 
deserve to be honored and emulated.
  I am placing this statement in the Record on March 19 because this 
marks the 52d anniversary of the Nazi occupation of Hungary. It is 
important, Mr. Speaker, that we remember not only the tragedies but 
those few who, by putting their lives on the line, proved that it could 
have been detered.

                    Varian Fry: A Righteous American

       In the summer of 1940 when the newspaper headlines in New 
     York announced the fall of France to the Nazis, Varian Fry 
     was way ahead of most Americans in realizing the full 
     implication of these Nazis victories. In 1935 he had visited 
     Germany on assignment for The Living Age magazine. He sensed 
     the atmosphere of hatred and oppression Hitler brought to his 
     country. While in Berlin he had seen the first great pogroms 
     against the Jews. He saw young Nazis smash up Jewish-owned 
     shops and watched in horror as they dragged people out in the 
     streets and beat and kicked them almost to death. He watched 
     as they dragged men and women, cut and bleeding down the 
     street, hitting them with clubs, shouting and cursing vile 
     names at them.
       When France fell to Hitler invading armies in 1940, 
     thousands of refugees who had fled to Paris as their only 
     escape from Nazi horrors had to flee to the as yet unoccupied 
     southern part of France with Marseilles as their destination. 
     Only after it was too late did they realize that they were 
     caught in yet another trap. In order to appease Hitler, the 
     new puppet government, under Marshall Petain, enacted one 
     stringent decree after another against the Jews and political 
     refugees. They closed the borders and agreed to turn over all 
     refugee exit-visa applications to the Gestapo. As a result 
     the very act of asking to leave was sufficient to guarantee 
     instant arrest.
       Meanwhile in New York, Varian Fry, along with a few other 
     prominent individuals, formed the Emergency Rescue Committee 
     to try to help the beleaguered refugees in France. They 
     managed to enlist the support of Eleanor Roosevelt and 
     convince her of the imminent danger facing thousands of 
     distinguished intellectuals, writers, scientists, academics, 
     journalists, historians, musicians, opposition political 
     leaders, and others. Eleanor Roosevelt was able to persuade 
     the President to authorize 200 visas for the most prominent 
     individuals in the group. This was the beginning of the 
     extraordinary rescue mission for which Varian Fry promptly 
     volunteered.
       With the help of the German writer Thomas Mann, Jacques 
     Maritain and many others, a list of 200 names was formed, and 
     Varian Fry was appointed by the Emergency Rescue Committee to 
     go to France to head the mission. It was a difficult and 
     complicated undertaking because he received very little 
     support from official sources. He had to coax a passport 
     out of the State Department, which at that time took a dim 
     view of Americans travelling to Europe. Fry then persuaded 
     the International YMCA to give him a letter identifying 
     him as a relief worker with refugees. This gave him some 
     kind of official status vis-a-vis the French puppet 
     Government of Vichy.
       With $3,000 dollars taped to his leg, the list of 200 names 
     which included such world famous persons as political 
     scientist Hannah Arendt and painter Marc Chagall, but without 
     any addresses or phone numbers to facilitate contact, he set 
     out for the overcrowded and turbulent city of Marseilles. 
     After a long and arduous trip he arrived on August 15, 1940, 
     in Marseilles. When he finally settled in his dingy little 
     hotel room he had to admit to himself that he had no idea how 
     to begin searching for the individuals whose lives were now 
     in his hands. He realized he needed help urgently to 
     accomplish his mission.
       His first fortunate breakthrough came when he met with a 
     brilliant young German economist, Dr. Albert Hirschman, who 
     at the time was himself a refugee who had recently managed to 
     escape from Germany. Hirschman became Fry's most trusted 
     friend and assistant. They developed a warm friendship which 
     greatly eased the stresses and strains they faced daily in 
     their dangerous mission. Fry nicknamed Hirschman ``Beamish'' 
     because no matter how desperate their situation was he kept 
     smiling and beaming optimism. Eventually, Miriam Davenport, a 
     young, energetic and resourceful art history student from 
     Boston, joined them. She, like many others, left Paris when 
     the Germans invaded the city. The three of them became 
     friends and ``co-conspirators'' in one of the most daring and 
     successful rescue operations of World War II.
       They opened their temporary ``office'' in an abandoned 
     handbag factory in Marseilles. There from early in the 
     morning until late at night Fry and his two young associates 
     interviewed refugees. During each interview they wrote the 
     necessary information about each refugee and placed it on an 
     index card. After the last of the refugees departed each day, 
     Fry, Beamish and their secretary, Lena Fishman, would adjourn 
     to the bathroom and turn on all the water taps to foil any 
     attempts at eavesdropping. There they would talk over any 
     problems that surfaced during the day. Before leaving each 
     day, Fry would spread the index cards containing names and 
     notations on them in careful disarray on one of the desks so 
     that he could tell if they had been tampered with and placed 
     any incriminating documents behind the mirror inside the 
     closet door.
       The biggest problem was to find an escape route, to find a 
     way out of France illegally (across the border unnoticed 
     without an exit visa) and enter Spain legally, where it was 
     imperative to get the entry stamp in one's passport. Dr. 
     Hirschman, who had fought briefly with a Republican unit in 
     Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War, knew that in the 
     mountains above Cerbre, a fishing village near the border of 
     Spain, the French and Spanish frontier posts were placed so 
     that neither was visible to the other. It was possible to 
     climb the mountain on the French side without being seen by 
     the guards while also managing not to overshoot the Spanish 
     border station. Once across the border, with a stamped 
     passport, the refugees were able to continue their journey 
     legally. Albert Hirschman drew Varian Fry a sketch of his 
     plan. This map, drawn in pencil on a little scrap of paper, 
     was to become the crucial lifesaving document for 
     thousands of refugees who eventually, with the help of Fry 
     and his associates, fled to the United States, where they 
     would make their most important contributions to the 
     cultural history of western civilization.
       Once Fry and his associates worked out this complex 
     routing, they had to acquire a large number of passports and 
     blank identity cards, and find a skilled forger who could 
     make them usable. To forge the documents, Fry engaged the 
     services of a cheery, diminutive Austrian cartoonist named 
     Bill Freier. Freier fled to France when the Germans entered 
     Vienna in March, 1938. He spent his days drawing portraits of 
     people and his nights in his hotel room altering passports. 
     Unfortunately, Bill Freier paid a heavy price for his valiant 
     efforts. He was arrested by the Gestapo and deported to the 
     death camps in Germany. Amazingly, with courage, endurance 
     and luck, Mr. Freier survived the camp until its liberation. 
     Then he proceeded to walk across France until he found his 
     wife and the four-year old son he had never seen.
       With all these pieces in place, Fry's underground 
     ``railway'' was in business, and miraculously none of the 
     refugees were ever caught. Fry succeeded in saving an 
     incredible number of Europe's intellectual elite in spite of 
     growing police surveillance and harassment. He succeeded in 
     spite of the reluctance of some, the arrogant attitudes of 
     others and the constant lack of cooperation, even 
     discouragement, he received from American consular officials 
     in Marseilles.
       Varian Fry's work came to an end on Friday, August 29, 
     1941, when he was taken into custody by agents of the French 
     Secret Police and was deported to Spain. Unfortunately, once 
     in the safety of the United States, the celebrated refugees 
     Varian Fry rescued could find no time for him. Instead of 
     recognition for his vitally significant and dangerous mission 
     during the war, he was rejected, snubbed and forgotten. The 
     State Department failed to apologize for seizing his passport 
     and leaving him without identification behind enemy lines in 
     France, enabling the Fascist French Secret Police to seize 
     him. ``We can't support an American citizen who is helping 
     people evade French law,'' a U.S. diplomat told Fry when he 
     asked for help.
       In the United States Varian Fry wrote and lectured about 
     the plight of Jews and other war refugees, and he accurately 
     predicted the massacre of the Jews throughout Europe. His 
     story is written in his book, ``Surrender on Demand,'' and 
     the later version, ``Assignment: Rescue.'' Finally, Varian 
     Fry received recognition for his efforts when he was awarded 
     the Croix du Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor on April 
     12, 1967. In the summer of the same year Varian Fry died in 
     his Connecticut home alone, leaving behind the unrecognized 
     legacy of a heroic mission. He is survived by his wife, 
     Annette, and three children.
  Mr. Speaker, in 1993 the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, 
opened an exhibit detailing his accomplishments. On February 2, 1996, 
he was honored in Jerusalem at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum. Varian 
Fry is the first and only American recipient of the Righteous Among the 
Nations Award, which is an honor bestowed by Israel to non-Jews who 
risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. ``Fry was an 
American Oskar Schindler, an American Raoul Wallenberg,'' said an 
attending Israeli.
  Secretary of State Warren Christopher was the keynote speaker at the 
ceremony held belatedly to acknowledge Fry's heroism and humanity. On 
that occasion he said:

       We have come to pay tribute to Varian Fry--a remarkable man 
     and a remarkable American. Regretfully, during his lifetime, 
     his heroic actions never received the support they deserved 
     from my government, particularly the State Department. Even 
     today, Varian Fry's tale of courage and compassion is too 
     little known by his own countrymen. It is therefore with 
     pride, but also with humility, that I come here today, as 
     America's Secretary of State, to honor this extraordinary 
     man.

[[Page E382]]

       His assignment was supposed to last three weeks.  He 
     remained in France 13 months. His initial orders were to help 
     200 individuals * * * he ended up rescuing close to 4,000. 
     Operating under constant threat, without regard for his 
     personal safety, Varian Fry worked tirelessly, using every 
     means available, to secure safe passage for those who came to 
     him, desperate for help. He remained in France long after the 
     dangers to his life became apparent. His explanation was 
     simple: ``I stayed'', he wrote, ``because the refugees needed 
     me.'' And because he knew that he was truly their last hope.
       The measure of our faith is only restored by the knowledge 
     that, in the fact of such evil, there were also men and women 
     like Varian Fry. Otherwise ordinary individuals who were 
     capable of summoning up extraordinary moral courage to 
     confront and defy overwhelming brutality.

  Mr. Speaker, what Varian Fry accomplished in terms of saving lives, 
renewing our faith in humanity and enhancing our trust in people's 
willingness to act on behalf of the persecuted is unique in the history 
of World War II. His history of World War II. His work deserves to be 
honored formally by the United States.