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[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 553 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

109th CONGRESS
  2d Session
S. RES. 553

 Expressing the sense of the Senate that the Citizens' Stamp Advisory 
      Committee should recommend to the Postmaster General that a 
     commemorative postage stamp be issued in honor of Varian Fry.

_______________________________________________________________________

                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             August 3, 2006

Mr. Menendez submitted the following resolution; which was referred to 
      the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION

 
 Expressing the sense of the Senate that the Citizens' Stamp Advisory 
      Committee should recommend to the Postmaster General that a 
     commemorative postage stamp be issued in honor of Varian Fry.

Whereas Varian Mackey Fry, of Ridgewood, New Jersey, embodied the spirit of 
        heroism and demonstrated personal bravery of the highest order during 
        the Holocaust;
Whereas, while serving as a representative of the Emergency Refugee Committee in 
        German-occupied Vichy, France, between 1940 and 1941, Varian Fry helped 
        save the lives of approximately 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 heroic but sometimes unlawful 
        actions on behalf of the refugees, including--

    (1) securing false visas;

    (2) planning daring escape routes through the mountains of Southern 
France;

    (3) illegally chartering ships to transport refugees out of France; and

    (4) exchanging funding for these operations on the black market;

Whereas, in order to save thousands of Jews and refugees who were 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 the efforts of Varian Fry resulted in the rescue of approximately 2,000 
        persons, including such distinguished artists and intellectuals as Marc 
        Chagall, Max Ernst, Hannah Arendt, Franz Werfel, Jacques Lipchitz, Lion 
        Feuchtwanger, and Heinrich Mann;
Whereas, in 1967, for his heroic actions, Varian Fry received the Croix de 
        Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, 1 of the highest civilian 
        honors of France; and
Whereas, in 1996, Varian Fry was named ``Righteous Among the Nations'' by Yad 
        Vashem, the Holocaust Heroes and Martyrs Remembrance Authority in 
        Jerusalem, making him the first citizen of the United States to receive 
        the highest honor bestowed by Israel to individuals who worked as 
        rescuers during the Holocaust: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that the Citizens' 
Stamp Advisory Committee should recommend to the Postmaster General 
that a commemorative postage stamp be issued in honor of Varian Fry.
                                 <all>
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