An Unknown Hero

Varian Fry was a Harvard-educated non-Jew who went to France in 1940 to rescue people in special danger from the Nazis. In less than one year he rescued close to 2,000 people – labor leaders, politicians, writers, artists, Jews. Have you ever heard of him? Most people haven’t.

My interest in Varian Fry was sparked when I first heard about him in And The Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris by Alan Riding. Such an important hero and yet I had never heard of him. That led me to A Hero of Our Own by Sheila Isenberg, an informative but not very well written biography of Fry. Then I read Fry's own (but abridged) Assignment: Rescue (an abbreviated version for school children of his original Surrender on Demand which is impossible to find for a reasonable price); followed by A Quiet American: The Secret War of Varian Fry, by Andy Marino, a well written biography and the most complete of the books I had read so far.

The people Fry rescued were not all Jewish but they were all hunted for various reasons by the Nazis. They included Marc Chagall, Wanda Landowska, Hannah Arendt, and Andre Breton, among many others. He wasn't trained as and never had worked as a spy or secret agent, but when he arrived in France he found that legal means for getting these people out of France were few, and so he quickly learned what he needed to do.

The best book about Fry is Villa Air Bel by Rosemary Sullivan. This is not a biography, but a history of his work, those who worked with him, and many whom he saved. It is more detailed than any of the others, it is well written, and gives the most complete picture of the rescue work that Fry set up and led. Netflix made a film based on this book, but I didn’t watch it. When I read that they had turned Fry’s character into a gay man, I suppose to add some spice. I decided I didn’t need to. Why add spice to a true story that was so interesting, engaging, and important?

Fry was called back to the U.S. because the State Department did not want him to do his work, and they prevented him from finding any work with the government once he returned. It was very strange instance of the blacklisting of an American hero.

Shortly before Fry’s death, the French government awarded him the “Croix de Chavalier de la Legion d’Honneur,” France’s highest decoration of merit. It was the only official recognition he received in his lifetime.

In 1991, the United States Holocaust Memorial Council awarded the Eisenhower Liberation Medal to Fry. Three years later, Fry became the first American to be honored by Yad Vashem as a “Righteous Among the Nations.”