Program Honors Varian Fry

By Nancy K. Crevier

Newtown Chapter of Hadassah organizers of the “Varian Fry: America’s Oskar Schindler” program hauled in the benches Tuesday evening, June 15, to accommodate the nearly 100 audience members who gathered in the meeting room of the C.H. Booth Library to hear the moving story of Connecticut’s unsung hero, the late Varian Fry.

Local artist and photographer Rita Frost, who has made it one of her life’s passions to awaken interest in Mr Fry and his contributions during World War II in saving thousands of lives, provided the background on him to the attentive audience.

Mr Fry’s efforts during the war rescued 2,000 artists and writers who were trapped in Nazi-controlled Vichy, France, in 1940. Among those rescued by him were Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Jacques Lipchitz, and Marcel Duchamp. (See the June 4 Newtown Bee story “Connecticut Hero A Passion For Newtown Resident.”)

Also providing insight into the extraordinary life of this mostly unrecognized hero was Newtown historian Dan Cruson, whose own teaching position at Joel Barlow High School in Redding followed Mr Fry’s brief tenure there. “I am the footnote to his story,” commented Mr Cruson, in sharing his tale of how their paths passed in an anecdotal way, just prior to Mr Fry’s death. “[Varian Fry] was unknown to us [at the school], even after all he had accomplished,” said Mr Cruson.

Mr Cruson then ceded the evening to featured speaker, Ridgefield resident Gys Landberger, whose mother-in-law and father-in-law were among those saved by Mr Fry. Her story of her own family’s harrowing escape from Nazi-occupied France, across the Pyrenees, held the rapt attention of all those present.

It is the mission of Ms Frost and the Newtown Chapter of Hadassah to see that Varian Fry is properly recognized. To that effort, the group passed a petition Tuesday evening that a commemorative stamp featuring the Connecticut man be issued, collecting signatures from practically every person present. “It is a shame, it is unbelievable,” said Ms Frost, “that he is so unknown in his own state.”