Issue date: April 07, 1999
Walter Meyerhof of Menlo Park is one of thousands of Jews who have reason to thank a little-known American hero named Varian Fry.
The now retired Stanford physics professor and his parents were smuggled out of France early in World War II through an extraordinary rescue effort orchestrated by the unassuming editor of books on foreign policy -- and a non-Jew -- from New York.
The saga of Varian Fry and the thousands he rescued from Nazi terror is now the subject of an exhibition prepared by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. "Varian Fry: Assignment Rescue, 1940-1941" will open Sunday, April 11, at the Albert Schultz Jewish Community Center, 655 Arastradero Road in Palo Alto. It will run through May 23.
Dr. Meyerhof will give personal recollections at the opening ceremony and reception at 2 p.m. Sunday. The public is invited.
It was the summer of 1940, shortly after the fall of France, that Varian Fry volunteered to go to Marseilles for the Emergency Rescue Committee (now the International Rescue Committee) to rescue 200 artists, intellectuals and refugees who had sought refuge in France, and lived in fear of being rounded up and returned to Germany to face near-certain death.
As thousands asked Varian Fry to help them escape, he built a clandestine organization worthy of a James Bond movie to prepare papers, avoid both U.S. and French authorities, and help people out of France.
Several thousand made it; many more did not. Among those who escaped with Mr. Fry's help were many who went on to enrich life and culture in their new countries. They include painters Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Andre Masson and Wilfred Lam; sculptor Jacques Lipschitz; writers Franz Werfel and Hans Habe; musician Wanda Landowska; and scientists Fritz Kahn, Jacques Hadamard, and Nobel Prize-winner Otto Meyerhof, Walter Meyerhof's father.
By mid-1941 the French were fed up. They kicked Varian Fry out in September, after 13 months, for "helping Jews and anti-Nazis."
In bringing the Varian Fry exhibit to Palo Alto, Mark Kritz and Frank Kushin of the Jewish Community Center said, they want "to tell the story of a man -- an American version of Raoul Wallenberg -- whose courage and resourcefulness in the face of tyranny should be an inspiration to us all."
In addition to the walk-through exhibit of large photos that tell the story of what was going on in Europe and Varian Fry's rescue operation, there will be a display of art by some who were rescued -- and by Charlotte Salomon, who wasn't. There will be tables showing books and memorabilia from Dr. Meyerhof and other escapees.
Accompanying the Varian Fry exhibit will be several special Sunday events:
**April 18 at 3 p.m. Pierre Sauvage will present his award-winning film, "Weapons of the Spirit."
**April 25 at 10:30 a.m. Rabbi Amy Bardack will give an interactive educational program for sixth- through eighth-graders and their parents.
**May 2 at 4 p.m. Professor Henry Feingold of City University of New York will talk on Roosevelt and the Holocaust.
**May 16 at 4 p.m. Professor Mary Felstiner of San Francisco State University will discuss "Rescue: After Varian Fry."
The exhibit will be open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays; 2 to 8 p.m. Wednesdays; and noon to 4 p.m. Sundays. There is no charge for admission to the gallery and a nominal charge for other events.
For information, call the community center at 493-0563; or check the Web at www.almondseed.com/vfry; or www.chambon.org.
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