Carla Killough McClafferty - In Defiance of Hitler. The Secret Mission of Varian Fry

A LSO BY
CARLA KILLOUGH McCLAFFERTY

T HE H EAD B ONES C ONNECTED TO THE N ECK B ONE
The Weird, Wacky, and Wonderful X-ray

S OMETHING O UT OF N OTHING
Marie Curie and Radium

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FARRAR STRAUS GIROUX NEW YORK

This book is dedicated to the memory of the men and women who risked their lives to save others at the time when Adolf Hitler dominated most of Europe

There are two accepted spellings for the city in France where Varian Fry worked: Marseille, the French spelling, and Marseilles, the usual spelling in English-speaking countries. The Spanish town of Portbou is also spelled Port Bou or Port-bou.

The city of Vichy was the location of the new French government created after Nazi Germany defeated France during World War II. The entire government, which collaborated with the Germans from that time on, became known as Vichy.

In this book, Varian Fry visits both the American Embassy and the American Consulate. The embassy was located in Vichy and was the home of the ambassador of the United States to France. The ambassador represented the President of the United States. In other cities around France, including Marseilles, there were smaller offices called consulates that were under the supervision of the embassy. The job of the American Consulate was to help American citizens and issue visas.

Many refugees climbed the Pyrenees Mountains on foot to cross the border into Spain. The amount of time it took them varied, depending on such factors as the difficulty of the terrain at the location where they crossed, and the physical condition of each individual.

Numerous people worked with Varian Fry while he was in Marseilles, and it is unknown how he met most of them. Some helped Varian secretly rescue refugees; others worked in the office of the American Relief Center and knew nothing about his rescue work. In a book of this size, it is impossible to include everyone who participated in Varian Frys work. That they are not mentioned by name in these pages in no way diminishes their contribution.

C.K.M.

Varian Fry saw the mob. They gathered in front of the neat shops and cafs that lined Kurfrstendamm, one of Berlins main streets. He heard singing in the distance. The melody was that of a German military song, but the words were chanted like a cheer at a ball game as more and more of the crowd joined in. A leader sang a line of the song, then the crowd repeated it.

Varian understood German well enough to realize the words meant:

When Jewish blood spurts from the knife,

Then everything will be fine again.

Somewhere in the crowd, someone yelled out Jew. A pack of people surrounded the man who had been pointed out. They spit on the nameless Jew, insulted him, and knocked him down onto the sidewalk. Once he was on the ground, the mob kicked him repeatedly, with sickening thuds. Then, from all directions, like a disease that spread, Varian heard Jew, Jew, Jew. Each time a Jewish man or woman was pointed out, he or she was immediately set upon and beaten. The sound of sobbing women added to the chaos of shuffling feet and the repeating chorus of the military song. Then a new anti-Semitic chant rang out: The best Jew is a dead Jew.

The mass of people on the street forced passing cars and buses to stop. If the occupants looked as if they might be Jewish, the crowd pulled them out and beat them. They pulled Jewish customers from cafs and attacked them. Everywhere Varian looked, Jewish people covered with blood ran down the street. Their pursuers were right behind them, hitting them with clubs and calling them names.

Members of the S.A., short for Sturmabteilung, the private Nazi army known as storm troopers, picked up tables and chairs from outside cafs and threw them through the windows of Jewish-owned shops.

Varian was horrified at what he was seeing.

This is a holiday for us, a German youth said to Varian.

Varian was shocked when he realized that the people in the crowd were actually enjoying their brutal behavior. He looked at the people who made up the mob. They were German boys and girls, men and women, policemen and S.A. men, young and old, rich and poor. All sang and participated in the riot.

The scene Varian witnessed was seared into his memory.

The next morning, Varian walked down the once-charming street to survey the damage from the previous night. Shards of glass from broken shop windows littered the sidewalks and crunched beneath his feet. He passed several people who were bound with bandages.

Varian Fry had gone to Berlin to find out if the Germans were mistreating their own Jewish citizens. Ever since Adolf Hitler took over the government, rumors of abuse had spread throughout the world. As editor at The Living Age, a political journal, Varian wanted to see the situation for himself. Now he had no doubt. Germany had begun a reign of violence against Jews.

A parade of S.A. troopers through the streets of Berlin in 1935. Within the S.A., a small group who acted as Hitlers bodyguards became known as the S.S. (an abbreviation of Schutzstaffel, meaning protective echelon). Ultimately the black-uniformed S.S. replaced the S.A.

Adolf Hitler designed the Nazi flag: a black swastika within a white disc on a blood-red background. The swastika had been an ancient symbol of prosperity, used by many different cultures around the world. In 1920 Hitler turned it into a Nazi symbol.

The people in the crowd have their hands raised in a Nazi salute. In everyday life, German citizens greeted each other this way, saying Heil Hitler (hail, or praise, Hitler). Sometimes, in a crowd, Germans chanted Sieg Heil (hail, or praise, to victory).

Hitler rose to power within the Nazi political party and was named Chancellorthe head of governmentof Germany in 1933. The next year he added the title of der Fhrer, which means the leader. As the supreme leader of Germany, Hitler became a dictator with unlimited power. Nothing happened in that country without his consent and approval.

Varian made an appointment with Ernst Hanfstaengl, who was chief of the Foreign Press Division of the Nazi Propaganda Ministry and a personal friend of Hitlers. Hanfstaenglson of a German father and American motheroften entertained Hitler by playing classical music on the piano. Varian had never met Hanfstaengl, but they had one thing in common: they were both Harvard graduates.