Varian m. fry biography

Actors and Comedians. Business Icons. Medal of Honor Recipients. Medal of Freedom Recipients. Musicians and Singers. Nobel Prize Laureates. Sports Figures. Supreme Court Justices. Members of Congress. Religious Figures. Their incredible tale of heroism is the subject of the new television drama Transatlanticwhich is now streaming on Netflix.

Even in childhood, Varian Fry was determined to help others. But he also had a rebellious streak throughout boarding school and college. He worked as a researcher and editor at several magazines in the s, according to the Jewish Virtual Libraryand wrote a handful of books about geopolitical relations for the Foreign Policy Association.

Fry also witnessed an anti-Semitic riot in Berlin during his trip and wrote several pieces for The New York Times describing what he witnessed. Paris fell to the invading Germans in Juneleading refugees to flood the south of France. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, this prompted around Americans—including journalists, museum curators, and university presidents—to form the ERC.

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt helped obtain emergency visas for the rescue effort. Fry thought he would only stay a month but quickly realized the situation was dire. There were thousands of refugees looking for assistance, and French authorities had refused to issue exit visas. He needed to use deceit and cunning to assist as many as possible.

Inthe US publisher Scholastic which markets mainly to children and adolescents published a paperback edition under the title Assignment: Rescue. After the war, Fry worked as a journalist, magazine editor and business writer. He also taught college and was in film production. Feeling as if he had lived the peak of his life in France, [ 2 ] he developed ulcers.

Fry went into psychoanalysis and said that "as time went on, he grew more and more troubled. Fry and his wife Eileen divorced after he returned from France. She developed cancer and died on May 12, During her hospital convalescence, Fry visited her and read to her daily. At the end of or earlyFry met Annette Riley, who was 16 years his junior.

They married inhad three children together, but were separated inpossibly owing to his irrational behavior, believed to have been a result of manic depression. Fry died of a cerebral hemorrhage and was found dead in his bed on September 13,by the Connecticut State Police. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history.

Varian m. fry biography

Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikidata item. American journalist — Redding, ConnecticutU. Early life [ edit ]. Journalist [ edit ]. Emergency Rescue Committee [ edit ]. France [ edit ]. Letter to his wife Eileen, February Varian Fry [ 37 ]. Controversy [ edit ]. Refugees aided by Fry [ edit ].

Back in the United States [ edit ]. Fry, Varian. Published works [ edit ]. Legacy [ edit ]. See also [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. Notes [ edit ]. Retrieved: February 9, BBC Culture. Archived from the original on April 8, Retrieved April 7, Defying the Nazis:The Sharps War. Boston: Beacon Press. ISBN Archived from the original on October 11, Retrieved August 7, Retrieved: March 25, The New York Times.

ISSN Archived from the original on April 20, Babies in strollers or carriers will not be permitted to varian m. fry biography. The refugees from Germany who had sought shelter in France were once again under German control, and the danger to their person was grave. An aid organization - the Emergency Rescue Committee ERC — was established in New York with the purpose of helping intellectuals and renowned figures stranded in France, who were in danger of being arrested and turned over to the Germans because of their anti-Nazi stand.

State Department, agreed to make an exception to its otherwise restrictive visa policy, and to provide entry visas to a limited number of two hundred refugees. His job was to reach Marseilles, where many of these refugees were staying, and to find a way to get them out. Arriving in Marseilles in AugustFry settled in his room in the hotel Splendide, and began writing letters to the people on his list.

Rumors of his arrival had spread, and hundreds of people came to ask him for assistance. He soon discovered that the American consulate was not going to help him get people to the US, and that he would have to work independently. Faced with the plight of the desperate refugees, Fry decided to act and began finding ways - most of which were illegal - to smuggle out those refugees who faced immediate danger of falling into German hands.

The lines of refugees in front of his hotel room were so long that he rented an office and put together a group of associates — American expatriates, French nationals and refugees — to help him in the process of classification. They established the American Rescue Center Centre Americain de Secours and began interviewing between people every day.

We had to guess, and the only safe way to guess was to give each refugee the full benefit of the doubt. Otherwise we might refuse help to someone who was really in danger and learn later that he had been dragged away to Dachau or Buchenwald because we had turned him away.