A story in today's Washington Post about this new stamp caught our eye. Hiram Bingham IV worked with Varian Fry's Emergency Rescue Committee to save prominent intellectuals from Hitler. I interviewed Albert O. Hirschmann, who worked on the effort (in part sponsored by Eleanor Roosevelt), for my film "Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die?" and I met some of Bingham's descendants at a "Visas for Life" reception at the State Department in 2003. Bingham resigned from the State Department in protest in 1946. He was awarded a "constructive dissent" award by Secretary of State Colin Powell in 2002. For more information, here's a link to Kim Bingham's tribute website. Here's a quote from the website:
HARRY'S OWN WORDS in taped interview by his 13 year old grandaughter Tiffany Bingham (circa 1980): "We were transferred in 1937 to Marseille in France where there were a great many refugees from Nazi Germany trying to get visas to get to the United States and part of my work was giving visas to these refugees....They (the Germans – ed) had a lot of what was called the Fifth Column, which were sort of spies and people living in southern France. And we got rumors that the Germans were going to come down to southern France and would be there any time... Although we were not in the war, most of our government was on the side of the allies, the British and the French. But my boss who was the Consul General at that time, said, “The Germans are going to win the war. Why should we do anything to offend them?” And he didn't want to give any visas to these Jewish people. So...I had to do as much as I could.... The Germans had signed an agreement with the French that they could stay in that zone, but they must surrender any Germans that were there -- any refugees -- on demand, and they would then be sent back to concentration camps in Germany. TIFFANY: What was the most important thing that you did for the Jews? HIRAM: Well, in a way, it was getting as many visas as I could to as many people….And we did help them." Grandaughter Tiffany taped interview with Harry for Salem School class project, circa 1980.And here's a photo from the website of the line in front of the US Consulate in Marseilles in 1940.
