Review: Never recognized for his rescue work in this lifetime, this piece pays tribute to an unsung hero
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 20, 2012
A Kindle Single is a short noteworthy Amazon article, in this case approximately 43 pages long and a true story of a young American man who risked his life in 1940-1941 wartime France to rescue as many as 2,000 Jewish artists, writers, musicians and scientists from the hands of the Nazis.  His name was Varian Fry and he was non-Jew and a Harvard graduate.  Often, he had to make hard choices as to who to save and the trip over the mountains was fraught with danger for them all.Eventually, his activities were discovered and he had to flee Europe.  After that his life took a downward turn and he was never recognized for his work from either the government or from the artists he rescued and who later prospered and received accolades for their work in America, such as Marcel Duchamp, Hannah Arendt and Marc Chagall.  Not one of these prominent people mention him in any autobiography and when, at the end of his life he asked Mark Chagall for a small piece of his work, he was reluctantly given a piece but Mark Chagall never signed it, thereby reducing its value.The author of his book did extensive research for this piece and her discoveries display a troubled man who lived a troubled life and never received recognition for his work.  This piece brings him out of the shadows however, and now, years after his death, his wartime contribution is finally being acknowledged.This is a fine piece, well written and full of interesting history.