Monday, May 14, 2007

Another Hero of the Holocaust

Varian Fry, subject of Pierre Sauvage's upcoming documentary And Crown Thy Good: Varian Fry in Marseille:
Varian Fry (1907-1967) was a New York intellectual who after the fall of France to the Nazis spent a year in the Southern port city of Marseille leading one of the most remarkable and successful rescue efforts of the Nazi era. The first American to be singled out by Israel's Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations...

Defying the Nazis, the French Vichy regime, and his own government, Varian Fry, a dapper, 32 year-old intellectual, led a unique mission that helped to save some 2,000 artists, intellectuals, and anti-Nazi refugees, Jewish and non-Jewish. Pierre Sauvage made the highly acclaimed 1989 feature documentary Weapons of the Spirit. His new documentary will provide a careful and dramatic account of what will come to be recognized as a crucial chapter in 20th century American and world history.