The Rescue of Marc Chagall
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The During the weeks following the German conquest of Rescue France in June 1940, thousands of refugees, many of them Jews, fled of to southern France to avoid capture by the Nazis. Among the Marc refugees were many prominent political Chagall dissidents, intellectuals, Varian Fry, Marc Chagall, Bella Chagall and Hiram Bingham IV, at the Chagalls’ home in Gordes, in March 1941, the weekend they planned the Chagalls’ escape from Vichy France. writers, and artists. On June 22, countries were unfilled—nearly Bingham, reassigned to activism. His postwar efforts Marshal Petain’s Vichy regime 200,000 lives that could have Portugal and then Argentina, to obtain government emp- signed an agreement with the been saved. soon ignited a new contro- loyment were repeatedly Nazis, agreeing to “surrender versy by repeatedly protest- rejected on the grounds that on demand” anyone whom the With help from First Lady ing against the Argentinean he was suspected of being Germans were pursuing. Eleanor Roosevelt, the Emer- government’s policy of sympathetic to commu- gency Rescue Committee sheltering fugitive Nazi war nism—even though he Three days later, in New York secured the administration’s criminals. Bingham believed himself had publicly split City, American friends and reluctant agreement to provide that Nazi gold, loot, and from The New Republic because he felt it was insuffi- colleagues of the refugees met emergency visas to two hun- personnel were being trans- ferred to Argentina and ciently critical of the Soviets. to establish the Emergency dred prominent artists and Chile via submarine at the Rescue Committee. They hoped intellectuals and their families. end of the war, in collusion Varian Fry and Hiram to bring the most prominent Varian Fry, a Harvard-trained with Nazi elements in Latin Bingham IV were true classics scholar and foreign cultural figures among the America. When the State heroes. At great risk to their affairs journalist, volunteered refugees to the United States—a Department shut down his personal welfare and to their tall order, given the prevailing to travel to Vichy France to efforts to investigate the careers, they saved human anti-immigration mood among organize the exodus. matter, he resigned in lives—and saved, for the the American public, Congress, protest, thereby losing his world, the writers, musi- and the Roosevelt administration. An unlikely hero, Fry was a pension and sacrificing his cians, and artists who sophisticated New England career. created some of the great Not only did the administration prep school graduate who cultural works of the oppose liberalizing America’s enjoyed classical Greek, bird Fry, too, suffered for his twentieth century. tight immigration quotas, but watching, and fine wines. the State Department set up “Certainly my manner and Lisbonne, June 10, 1941 bureaucratic obstacles to avoid appearance did not suggest the Dear Mr. Bingham, granting most of the immigra- This is to inform you that we are embarking today daredevil,” he later acknowl- for Monsanto. This is completely unexpected. The tion visas that the law still edged. But beneath his sharply- paintings have just arrived and we have just been offered a cabin. I immediately accepted it. permitted. Assistant Secretary tailored suit beat a heart filled We would have liked to see you before our departure. of State Breckinridge Long with courage and determina- We tried to phone you a number of times and we very instructed American consular tion. much regret having been unable to reach you by phone. officials to “postpone and We hope to see you again sometime in the future. postpone and postpone” ap- We are very happy to have met you, and become While stationed in Germany on acquainted with you and we will long remember proving visa applications from a journalistic assignment in our meetings with you. Jewish refugees. 1935, Fry had witnessed Nazi We both send you our affectionate thoughts. mob violence against Berlin’s Very sincerely yours, Your friend, As a result, during the Hitler Jews. That experience led him to years, 1933-1945, only 35.8 become involved with the Marc Chagall percent of the German-Austrian Our temporary address is c/o Mr. Starr, Museum of Emergency Rescue Committee. Modern Art, New York quota was filled. Nearly 200,000 In August 1940, he arrived in quota places from Axis-ruled Vichy France, with $3,000 taped 2 7 Feuchtwanger, in Bingham’s where. Altogether, Fry, On December 29, 1940, Fry Fry wrote in his diary. “I car, made it through German Bingham, and the other mem- and Bingham met with can see why they didn’t checkpoints to the vice-consul’s bers of their rescue network Chagall in Bingham’s villa to want to leave; it is an country house, where he hid helped save an estimated 2,000 begin planning his escape. enchanted place. Chagall is until Bingham could help get people, including such famous Shortly afterwards, Fry a nice child, vain and him out of the country. artists as Marc Chagall, Marcel escorted Chagall to the U.S. Duchamp, Max Ernst, and Consulate in Marseille, Jacques Lipschitz, as well as where Bingham quickly Nobel Prize-winning scientists granted him an immigration Enrico Fermi and Otto visa, even though the artist Meyerhof, writers Franz did not possess the required Werfel and Arthur Koestler, affidavits. architect Walter Gropius, philosopher Hannah Arendt, Unbeknownst to Fry, the and Andre Breton, founder of Museum of Modern Art, in Surrealism. New York City, had asked the State Department to Fry also helped rescue British grant Chagall a visa back in pilots who had been shot November 1940—but it took Hiram Bingham IV down by the Germans over until February 1941 before it 1903-1988 Varian Fry France, and he provided was processed. “In other 1907-1967 important assistance to the words,” Fry noted in his Free French underground, for diary, “it took the Depart- simple. He likes to talk which he was later awarded ment three months to grant about his pictures and the Working eighteen-hour days the Cross of the Legion of him an ‘emergency’ visa, world, and he slops around for more than a year, Fry and Honor. whereas [Bingham in] the in folded old pants and his staff smuggled the refu- Consulate only required a dark blue shirt. His ‘studio’ gees from France across the Fry was in constant danger of day or so to give him an contains a big kitchen Pyrenees mountains into being arrested by the Vichy ordinary immigration visa.” table, a few wicker chairs, neighboring Spain, and across authorities, who regarded his a cheap screen, a coal the Mediterranean by boat to work as subversive. On one On March 8, Fry and stove, two easels and his numerous other destinations occasion, Fry and a group of Bingham traveled to the pictures. No chic at all, as in Africa, the Caribbean, and his associates were arrested by home of Marc and Bella chez Matisse ... He is elsewhere. Many traveled the Vichy French police and Chagall in the village of already beginning to pack. across Spain to Portugal, jailed on a prison ship. Gordes to help plan their He says that when they where they were safe from the Bingham’s intervention, in the escape from France. “Gordes have gone I can have his Gestapo, and the refugees name of the American Consulate, is a charming, tumbled house to hide people in. could make arrangements to helped secure their freedom. down old town on the edge A good, remote place.” travel to America or else- of a vast and peaceful valley,” 4 5 In April, the Chagalls moved the Franco-Spanish border and to his leg to hide it from the to a hotel in Marseille in had to be smuggled out of Gestapo and a list of 200 en- preparation for their depar- prison. Ida, Michel, and the dangered individuals. ture from France, but when crates of artwork eventually the Vichy police swept made it across the Atlantic in a Fry immediately made contact through the city’s hotels, hazardous, typhoid-ridden with a group of Jewish, Ger- arresting all Jews, Chagall journey on a barely-seaworthy man, and other anti-Nazi found himself in prison. cargo ship that avoided Ger- activists, including a number of Hearing the news, Fry man torpedoes on the way to Americans involved in helping threatened a senior police America but was hit and sunk refugees escape. One was official that he would set off on the way back. Hiram (Harry) Bingham IV, the an international scandal by U.S. vice-consul in Marseille, calling the New York Times The rescue of Marc Chagall was who was hiding refugees at his and telling them of the arrest one of Fry and Bingham’s rented villa on the outskirts of unless Chagall were released greatest, and final, successes. the city. Fry later dubbed within half an hour. Fry’s Furious German and Vichy Bingham his “partner in crime” Chagall with his famous painting threat, together with the officials complained to the —the “crime” of rescuing refu- “Three Candles,” which he was working on at the time of his intervention of Bingham, State Department about Fry’s gees from the Nazis and their rescue from Vichy France worked. Chagall was set free. refugee-smuggling work. French collaborators. Anxious to avoid irritating were soon lining up each day On May 7, Marc and Bella American-German relations — Bingham was the son of a U.S. outside his hotel room, plead- crossed into Spain by train, the U.S. was not yet at war Senator and explorer upon ing for help. Fry and his then continued on to Lisbon, with Hitler— the State Depart- whom Steven Spielberg report- assistants held their “staff arriving on May 11.