Based in Marseilles in Vichy France, Fry's Emergency Rescue Committee arranged clandestine passage out of Southern France for Jews and political refugees who otherwise could be "surrendered upon demand" to the Gestapo. Among those rescued were some of the great artists, writers, and intellectuals of Europe, including Marc Chagall, AndrÈ Masson, Hannah Arendt, Max Ernst, Jacques Lipchitz, Franz Werfel, and AndrÈ BrÈton.
Fry, who died in l967, has only recently been recognized as a hero whose courage and defiance enabled many of the century's most important cultural figures to flee to safety. Through a wealth of photographic materials, artifacts, and related documents, as well as a fascinating evocation of many key aspects of his mission to France in 1940-41, Assignment: Rescue, The Story of Varian Fry and the Emergency Rescue Committee illuminates Fry's dangerous, yet remarkable operation.
This exhibition was reorganized for the showing at The Jewish Museum by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum with gratitude to Annette Riley Fry, Sylvia Varian Fry and James Duncan Fry.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum acknowledges major new grants from American Express Company and The Florence Gould Foundation. Generous contributors include Lester Robbins (deceased) and Sheila Johnson Robbins and Bell Atlantic.
The exhibition at The Jewish Museum is supported by the Keller-Shatanoff Foundation, Irving and Yetta Geszel, and The Joe and Emily Lowe Foundation, with additional funding from the Alfred J. Grunebaum Memorial Fund. ASSIGNMENT: RESCUE education and public programs are supported by a grant from American Express Company.