IV 

110TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION H. RES. 743 

Honoring Varian Fry on the 100th anniversary of his birth. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

OCTOBER 15, 2007 

Mr. ROTHMAN submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the 

Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

RESOLUTION 

Honoring Varian Fry on the 100th anniversary of his birth. 

Whereas Varian Mackey Fry, of Ridgewood, New Jersey, embodied the spirit of American heroism and demonstrated 

personal bravery of the highest order during the Holocaust; 

Whereas Varian Fry was born in New York City on October 

15, 1907; 

Whereas Varian Fry graduated from Harvard University in 

1931 with a degree in classics, and an ability to read and 

write in 6 languages; 

Whereas Varian Fry and his wife, Eileen Hughes of Boston, 

settled in New York City where he worked as a magazine 

writer and editor of Scholastic magazine, then called The 

Living Age; 


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Whereas in the summer of 1935, Varian Fry visited Berlin, 

Germany, on assignment for The Living Age and was 

horrified by the sight of Nazi storm troopers publicly 

beating and rounding up Jews for deportation; 

Whereas following his trip to Berlin in 1935, Varian Fry 

wrote an article for the New York Times which detailed 

Hitler’s brutal treatment of Jews in Europe; 

Whereas in 1937, Varian Fry took a job with the Foreign 

Policy Association’s Headline Books in New York and 

wrote several books on foreign affairs, including ‘‘The 

Peace That Failed’’; 

Whereas after continuing to follow the news accounts of Jewish persecution in Europe, Varian Fry joined the Emergency Refugee Committee, which was working to raise 

enough money to rescue a large number of intellectuals 

then trapped in Vichy France; 

Whereas on August 4, 1940, Varian Fry flew to Marseille, 

France, to embark upon a dangerous rescue mission on 

behalf of the Emergency Refugee Committee to save the 

lives of hundreds of intellectuals who were being systematically hunted down by the Nazis and the Vichy regime; 

Whereas Varian Fry began this perilous mission with only 

$3,000 in his pocket and a list of 200 of the brightest 

scholars in the fields of art, science, literature and medicine who were trapped in Nazi-occupied France; 

Whereas while serving as a representative of the Emergency 

Refugee Committee in Vichy France between 1940 and 

1941, Varian Fry helped save the lives of 1,500 Jews and 

hundreds of other anti-Nazi refugees; 

Whereas Varian Fry established a legal French relief organization, the Centre Americain de Secou, as a cover for his 


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heroic but sometimes unlawful actions on behalf of the 

refugees, including securing false visas, planning daring 

escape routes through the mountains of Southern France, 

illegally chartering ships to transport refugees out of the 

country, and exchanging funding for these operations on 

the black market; 

Whereas in order to save thousands of Jews and refugees 

threatened by the Nazis, Varian Fry risked his personal 

safety, forfeited his employment as a writer with the Foreign Policy Association, and was ultimately expelled from 

France because his actions contravened the policies of the 

Vichy French government; 

Whereas Varian Fry’s efforts resulted in the rescue of some 

2,000 persons from Vichy France, including such distinguished artists and intellectuals as the painters Marc 

Chagall and Max Ernst; the political scientist Hannah 

Arendt; the writers Franz Werfel, Lion Feuchtwanger, 

and Heinrich Mann; the sculptor Jaques Lipchitz; and 

Nobel-Prize winning biochemist Otto Meyerhof; 

Whereas in 1967, for his heroic actions, Varian Fry received 

the Croix de Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, 

one of France’s highest civilian honors; 

Whereas Varian Fry died on September 13, 1967; and 

Whereas in 1996, Varian Fry was named as ‘‘Righteous 

Among the Nations’’ by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust 

Heros and Martyrs Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem, making him the first American recipient of 

Israel’s highest honor for rescuers during the Holocaust: 

Now, therefore, be it 


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1 Resolved, That the House of Representatives honors 

2 Varian Fry on the 100th anniversary of his birth. 

Æ 


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