Varian Fry

No films have praised the courage and selflessness of Varian Fry, no statues have been raised to celebrate his humanitarian achievements, no apology has ever been issued for the craven and shabby way this American citizen was treated by his own government. But in Jerusalem this week grateful recognition finally went to the man who, defying the State Department and disregarding risks to his own safety, 55 years ago rescued thousands of European Jews from Nazi persecution.

Showtime is promoting "Varian's War" as "the true story of the American Schindler," inviting comparisons to Holocaust hero Oskar Schindler and to the 1993 Oscar-winning film about him. But this is no "Schindler's List."

In 1967, an American freelance writer named Varian Fry died at age 59 in obscurity. Two books about his adventures in German-occupied France sold poorly. Most of the people he knew during World War II never contacted him after he returned to the United States. And the U.S. government that had once reprimanded him never apologized. But Monday, Israel belatedly honored the man who saved thousands of Jews from the Nazis.

When high school Latin teacher Varian Fry died alone at 59 of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1967, papers recovered from his home by police were reportedly described as a work of fiction. It was not. Fry was in the midst of writing a new version for young people of his 1945 book, "Surrender on Demand," detailing his dramatic rescue work in France in which he saved nearly 2,000 artists, intellectuals and others.

When high school Latin teacher Varian Fry died alone at 59 of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1967, papers recovered from his home by police were reportedly described as a work of fiction. It was not. Fry was in the midst of writing a new version for young people of his 1945 book, "Surrender on Demand," detailing his dramatic rescue work in France in which he saved nearly 2,000 artists, intellectuals and others.

As he helped guide hundreds of Jewish refugees over mountainous trails in Spain to flee Nazi-occupied France in World War II, Dr. Marcel Verzeano didn't know he was making history. He joined Varian Fry, an American sent to France by the Emergency Rescue Committee, a private group of American citizens and European expatriates working to aid refugees. Fry died in obscurity in 1967 at age 59.

Re "Israelis Pay Homage to American 'Schindler,' " Feb. 6: I am happy to finally see Varian Fry honored for his work on behalf of refugees persecuted by Hitler. Although Fry began his rescue mission with the intention of saving Europe's persecuted intellectual elite (writers, artists, musicians, philosophers, clergy, labor leaders), regardless of religion, most but not all of those receiving his help were Jews, and many were not famous. Nearly all went to Spain. In my book, "The Mezuzah in the Madonna's Foot," I chronicle the heroism of Lisa and Hans Fittko, who were recruited by Fry to guide many of the refugees over the Pyrenees into Spain, at grave risk to their own lives.

Showtime is promoting "Varian's War" as "the true story of the American Schindler," inviting comparisons to Holocaust hero Oskar Schindler and to the 1993 Oscar-winning film about him. But this is no "Schindler's List."

A photo exhibit on Varian Fry, an American who saved 2,000 Jews from the Nazis, will open Monday at Valley Beth Shalom. The 20 photos, some 9 feet tall, depict Fry's work with the Emergency Rescue Committee, an underground organization that helped refugees escape France by crossing the Pyrenees Mountains into Spain. Among Fry's "clients" were painter Marc Chagall, novelist Franz Werfel and sculptor Jacques Lipchitz.

Mary Jayne Gold, 88, an American socialite who helped painters Marc Chagall, Max Ernst and about 2,000 other Jews and Nazi opponents escape from France during World War II. The Chicago heiress, who joined Parisian cultural life in the 1930s with a large trust fund, fled to southern France when the Nazis invaded in 1940. There she met an American journalist, Varian Fry, who helped her organize the "Emergency Rescue Committee" in Marseilles.

As he helped guide hundreds of Jewish refugees over mountainous trails in Spain to flee Nazi-occupied France in World War II, Dr. Marcel Verzeano didn't know he was making history. He joined Varian Fry, an American sent to France by the Emergency Rescue Committee, a private group of American citizens and European expatriates working to aid refugees. Fry died in obscurity in 1967 at age 59.

Re "Israelis Pay Homage to American 'Schindler,' " Feb. 6: I am happy to finally see Varian Fry honored for his work on behalf of refugees persecuted by Hitler. Although Fry began his rescue mission with the intention of saving Europe's persecuted intellectual elite (writers, artists, musicians, philosophers, clergy, labor leaders), regardless of religion, most but not all of those receiving his help were Jews, and many were not famous. Nearly all went to Spain. In my book, "The Mezuzah in the Madonna's Foot," I chronicle the heroism of Lisa and Hans Fittko, who were recruited by Fry to guide many of the refugees over the Pyrenees into Spain, at grave risk to their own lives.

No films have praised the courage and selflessness of Varian Fry, no statues have been raised to celebrate his humanitarian achievements, no apology has ever been issued for the craven and shabby way this American citizen was treated by his own government. But in Jerusalem this week grateful recognition finally went to the man who, defying the State Department and disregarding risks to his own safety, 55 years ago rescued thousands of European Jews from Nazi persecution.

In 1967, an American freelance writer named Varian Fry died at age 59 in obscurity. Two books about his adventures in German-occupied France sold poorly. Most of the people he knew during World War II never contacted him after he returned to the United States. And the U.S. government that had once reprimanded him never apologized. But Monday, Israel belatedly honored the man who saved thousands of Jews from the Nazis.

Walter Meyerhof, 84, a prominent atomic physicist who taught at Stanford University for 43 years, died May 27 in a Los Altos, Calif., nursing home of complications from Parkinson's disease, according to his wife, Miriam. She said her husband's passion for science began as a child in Kiel, Germany, after his father, Otto Meyerhof, a 1922 Nobel Prize winner for medicine, gave him a microscope.