Varian Fry's Presence

Last Tuesday night, Chief and I just stayed at our Greenhome after a working day. It was our first day back to work after the long weekend.

I stumbled into the Hallmark Network and caught an image of marching German soldiers into Marsielles. This was a scene from “Varian’s War.” We both found these images interesting and we stayed on to finish the movie.

Now, who is Varian Fry? And what was his war?

I quickly “googled” his name and found out from Wikipedia that Varian Fry is America’s Schindler. You probably remember that Steven Spielberg movie about a man who helps Jews escape Germany. Images from www.showtime.com

Varian Mackey Fry was an educated American journalist who helped around 2,000 to 4,000 anti-Nazi and Jewish refugees to escape Germany and the Holocaust.

In that scene in the movie, we saw Varian Fry (played by William Hurt) witnessing how the Nazis where persecuting the Jews. As a foreign correspondent for the American journal, “The Living Age,” he was in Berlin in 1935

Returning to the States, he helped raise money through the Emergency Rescue Committee. In the movie, Fry gives an inspiring speech during a fund-raising party to help persons flee the Nazis.

Fry developed a short list of refugees that including intellectuals, from artists to teachers. By August 1940, he was in Marsielle where hundreds fall in seeking any chance to escape France. The movie show Fry with the intellectuals taking a train and walking through the forest to reach the Spanish border.

He actually helped more than 2,200 people cross the border to neutral Portugal. Others escaped abroad ships leaving Marseille for the French colony of Martinique.

Fry had a lot of help from Miriam Davenport (played by Julia Ormond) She is described as a former art student at the Sorbonne, and a lover of the arts. She easily talks about her sex life in the movie but is rejected by Fry as she offers to sleep with him.


In the movie, Fry is surprised that Hiram Bingham IV, the American Vice Consul in Marseille was actually supportive of his cause. He was personally responsible for issuing thousands of visas, both legal and illegal. In the movie, he “housed” a few of the intellectuals in Fry’s list.

After the war, Fry published in 1945 Surrender on Demand about book about his time in France and also wrote and spoke extensively about the fate of Jews in Europe. Image of Fry and Davenport from Wikipedia

After the war, his cause and efforts were recognized. He received the Legion of Honor from France in 1967.

In the States, he is known as The American Schindler and in 1995 became the first United States citizen to be listed in the Righteous Among the Nations at Israel's national Holocaust Memorial, Yad Vashem. Image shows William Hurt as Varian Fry.

The square in front of the Consulate in Marsielle was renamed Place Varian Fry. Even a street in the newly reconstructed East/West Berlin Wall area was named Varian-Fry-Strasse .

“Varian’s War” was written and directed by Lionel Chetwynd co-produced by Barbra Streisand. Varian Fry is definitely another person whose presence created a long-lasting impact on the lives of thousands across the world!