France's swift collapse before Hitler's armies came as
a shocking blow to the United States and Great Britain,
but it also alarmed activists who were concerned about refugees
in Europe. In 1940, a group of these concerned activists
met in New York and organized the Emergency Rescue Committee
(ERC) to help refugees displaced by the war. The committee
felt strongly that the Immigration Act of 1924 and its restrictive
quotas would prevent needy refugees from coming to the United
States, and they were particularly concerned about the status
of refugees in Vichy France, who could be surrendered to
Nazi authorities at any time. With the government refusing
to open its borders to increasing numbers of immigrants,
private organizations like the ERC took on the job of helping
Jews and non-Jews gain safe passage to secure locations.
From the outset, the ERC enjoyed strong support from influential
members of New York's literary community, including John
Dos Passos, Upton Sinclair, and Dorothy
Thompson. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt also actively
provided help, linking the ERC to the power corridors of
Washington.
Varian Fry, an editor and writer, was a founding member
of the ERC and traveled to France on the committee's behalf.
He assisted refugees in acquiring visas and other documents
necessary for a quick escape, but was quickly overwhelmed
by the sheer volume of people who needed assistance. Fry
responded by establishing a legal relief organization
under
the auspices of the French government, using it as a fig
leaf in order to evacuate endangered refugees through
illegal
means. These included falsified documents, black market
transactions and clandestine escape routes. Fry and his
team of young assistants, however, could not escape detection
by collaborationist forces forever. Working without a
valid
passport, Fry naturally attracted the attention of the
secret police, who put him under surveillance and detained
him
for questioning on several occasions. As evidence mounted
that Fry was operating illegally, the Vichy French administration
sought his removal from the country. In this effort they
were assisted by the U.S. State Department, which was
seeking
to prevent American entry into the war for as long as possible.
Not long after Vichy France obtained American cooperation
in 1941, Fry was arrested and deported back to the United
States; consequently, the ERC's activities were halted
indefinitely. Nonetheless, during the
thirteen months that Fry had actively aided refugees, he
succeeded in helping over 2,000 people leave Vichy
France.
They included political, cultural, and labor leaders like
Hannah Arendt, Pablo Casals, Marc Chagall, Wanda Landowska,
and Alma Mahler.
In 1942 the International Relief Association and the ERC joined together, forming the
International Rescue Committee (IRC), an organization that remains committed to refugee relief
operations to this day.
Sources:
Boyer, Paul S., ed. Oxford Companion to United States History.
New York: Oxford University
Press, 2001, 675.
Lash, Joseph. Eleanor and Franklin. New York:
W.W. Norton & Company, 1971, 635-637.
Weinberg, Sheila. A Hero of Our Own: The Story of Varian Fry. New
York: Random House, 2001, passim.
For more information on the Emergency Rescue Committee, visit the following web sites:
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