The fishpond at Villa Air-Bel on November 3, 1940. Varian is bent over in the water; standing in the background on the right is André Breton; standing on the left is Victor Serge. The others cannot be identified.
MANY OF VARIAN’S STAFF AND HIS SUPPORTERS IN Europe wrote letters on his behalf, asking the ERC to let Varian continue his work. Finally, at the end of February, Varian won the battle for control. Jay Allen left Marseilles.
When Allen crossed over into the Nazi-occupied zone of France without permission, hoping he could get an interview with the head of the Vichy government, Philippe Pétain, he was arrested by the Germans. Allen stayed in prison until the end of the summer. Then he was exchanged for a German journalist who had been arrested in America. Varian admitted in a letter to Eileen that when he heard about Jay Allen’s arrest, “Naturally I was kinda pleased, secretly: it was too perfect an end for a boasting, blustering fool.”
As the bitter cold winter dragged on, there was a shortage of coal for the stoves both at home and at the office. At the Villa Air-Bel, the only way to obtain any warmth at all was to take wood from the surrounding trees. But most of the wood had to be used for cooking in the château’s woodstove. The bedrooms were so cold at night that Varian and his staff put their coats on top of the covers for an extra layer of warmth.
Not only were they all cold, they were hungry, too. There was not enough food to adequately feed the people in France. The Germans had taken most of it for themselves. What was left was rationed out. It was common to see a line two people deep and two blocks long snaking out the door of a butcher shop. Then, after standing in line for hours, many walked away empty-handed when the meat was gone. Meat became so scarce that a slice of horsemeat was considered a treat. Some people killed cats and sold them as rabbit.
At the Villa Air-Bel there was never enough to eat. Meals consisted mainly of boiled Jerusalem artichokes and boiled squash. Occasionally there was a small helping of spaghetti or macaroni, without any sauce. Every now and then the cook was able to obtain a few wrinkly, bruised apples, which were devoured with joy.
For a while, the staff had been able to keep hidden a cow that provided milk for Aube Breton and Pierre Bénédite, the children in the house. The milk was also shared with children in the surrounding area. Then one day the cow was discovered and her milk had to be given over to the city authorities.
The staff even ate the goldfish they scooped out of the fishpond. On Sundays, Varian and Danny hunted snails in the garden and put them in burlap bags to dry. After the snails dried, they were boiled and eaten. To feed the dogs, Varian and Mary Jayne asked local restaurants for their scraps.
Even bread was scarce. The cook had to weigh portions on a scale so that each person got an equal part. The tiny portions were placed on plates at breakfast. Every morning there was a choice to make: either eat all of your bread at breakfast, or eat a little bit and save some for dinner.
Varian and his housemates were sometimes so hungry they couldn’t sleep. In the middle of the long nights, the temptation to sneak into the kitchen to get just a small morsel of the next day’s bread ration was strong. The cook had to lock the bread cupboard at night. In a letter to Eileen on March 18, Varian wrote: “We are all hungry here all the time … and dream of cakes and cookies. If you send us anything, send us sugar and sweets and fats. Also soap.”
By the end of April even the bread was gone. Varian, a thin man already, had lost twenty pounds.
As soon as possible in the spring, the Villa Air-Bel housemates planted a vegetable garden around the fishpond. Eventually it helped supplement their meals. On May 14 Varian wrote his father that he dreamed of “beefsteaks, mashed potatoes with butter, and ice cream.”
The fishpond at Villa Air-Bel on November 3, 1940. Varian is bent over in the water; standing in the background on the right is André Breton; standing on the left is Victor Serge. The others cannot be identified.
One of the art auctions held at the Villa Air-Bel. Varian is standing on the far right in the white shirt and tie; André Breton is holding a stick in his two hands; Breton’s wife, Jacqueline, is the woman on the right wearing the white blouse and long necklace.
Despite being constantly hungry and cold, Varian loved living in the old château. For him, the best part of the Villa Air-Bel was the company of the fascinating people who lived and visited there. Even though the housemates differed in life experience and political ideals, they bonded against the Nazis, their common enemy. At night they gathered to discuss the war and what was happening in the world, sometimes arguing with each other. They took their minds off their hunger by singing songs and playing games. Mary Jayne recalled one game they called “Murder.” The designated assassin was given a piece of paper on which the name of the victim was written. The players turned out the lights and moved around. Then the victim was tapped on the shoulder, and he or she screamed and fell to the floor. When the lights came on, the players stayed where they were, and the investigation to find the assassin began.
Because Surrealist artists André Breton, Max Ernst, and André Masson were staying at the Villa Air-Bel, other Surrealist artists such as Óscar Domínguez, Benjamin Péret, Wifredo Lam, and Victor Brauner came to the château to visit. On Sundays, this group of talented artists gathered on the terrace with the entire household. They hung art from the branches of the plane trees and held art auctions.
During this time, Hans Sahl, one of Varian’s first protégés, was at last able to escape France. Sahl had worked at Varian’s office while they looked for a way to get him out of the country. He was one of the many stateless Germans who no longer had a valid passport. With a forged passport from Denmark, Sahl crossed the French-Spanish border and made his way through Spain. He wrote about leaving France in his book The Few and the Many:
In my suitcase were a great many little slips of paper with news from Occupied France—I hid them in toothpaste tubes and cans of shoe polish. Among other things I had the list drawn up by the Germans at the Hôtel Splendide, the names of the persons who were to be surrendered to them. When I arrived in Madrid I went, according to instructions, up to a porter wearing a certain number, gave him my suitcase, and said some password I’ve since forgotten. The porter nodded and took my suitcase over to a little horse-drawn carriage waiting by the station. I got into the carriage and was driven to a small pension on a quiet street. No one asked my name.
The next day Sahl took the train to Lisbon. From there he sailed first to Martinique, then to the United States. With the names of refugees who were on the Gestapo’s list that he’d smuggled out of Europe, Sahl arrived safely in New York.
Then, without any explanation, Vichy began to grant more French exit visas. It made Varian think that the Gestapo had decided which refugees they wanted to find. As for all the rest, Vichy and the Germans evidently wanted to get rid of as many as possible. Armed with exit visas, more refugees were able to escape France.
Suddenly ships were allowed to sail directly from Marseilles to the Caribbean island of Martinique, a French territory. The long-hoped-for chance to get refugees out of France by sea was finally a reality. With only a French exit visa, refugees could now sail to Martinique directly from Marseilles, and from there make arrangements to go to America or any other country that would allow them in.
Through the late winter and spring of 1941, Varian’s staff, which numbered twenty at this point, was busier than ever. They all worked long hours arranging passage by ship for their protégés. One refugee left by ship in February; a few more in early March; twenty-five at the end of March; and twelve more a week later. During the rest of April and May, sometimes as many as ninety at a time left on one ship.
In April, 1941, Vichy police arrested all Jews who were staying in Marseilles hotels. Some of Varian’s protégés were picked up, including Marc Chagall, who had been on Varian’s original ERC list. Months before, he’d contacted Chagall about leaving France, but the world-famous painter hadn’t wanted to leave. He didn’t think he would be in danger and didn’t want to interrupt his work. Varian even went to see him at his home in Gordes to convince him.
Varian Fry, Marc Chagall, his wife, Bella Chagall, and Harry Bingham, at the Chagalls’ home in Gordes.
Now that the Vichy government had instituted anti-Jewish laws, however, Chagall decided he must escape. He and his wife had traveled to Marseilles so they could leave France. They had been there only a short time when Marc Chagall was arrested during one of the hotel raids.
Varian was in the office when he answered the telephone call from a frantic Mrs. Chagall, who reported her husband’s arrest. Varian immediately called the police station. He told the policeman that if the world found out that Vichy police had arrested the world-famous artist Marc Chagall, the government would be deeply embarrassed.
Varian got off the phone and told Danny, “If he isn’t out in half an hour, we’ll call up the New York Times and give them the news.”
Within thirty minutes Marc Chagall was back at his hotel. He and his wife were among the fortunate protégés who safely made their way to the United States. Some of Varian’s protégés who were arrested in the hotel raids were not so lucky. They were sent to concentration camps.
During the first few months of 1941, many famous refugees escaped from France. Besides Marc Chagall, they included Max Ernst, Jacques Lipchitz, Hans Sahl, André Breton, André Masson, Victor Serge, and Walter Mehring.
While Varian was getting refugees out of France, things weren’t going so well back home. His employer back in New York had been holding his job for him. But the Foreign Policy Association couldn’t hold it any longer. So Varian didn’t have a job to go back to. And during January and February, when he was feuding with Jay Allen and refusing to leave, the ERC had not paid his salary. Then the ERC decided to cut Varian’s salary in half.
Also, the distance between Varian and his wife was growing. Varian wrote to Eileen about the possibility that she might join him in France, but that never happened. During his extended absence, Eileen had lost fifteen pounds from stress. She was caught in the tension between Varian and the leaders of the ERC office, and she tried to be a peacemaker between them. She worried about Varian, and the fact that she got few letters from him made matters worse. At one point she closed a letter with “Much love if you’re interested.”
By then Eileen knew that Varian would be staying in France for as long as he could. She had no idea how long that might be. Later she wrote: “Miss you badly … If you are not coming back, write me some practical details about living expenses and plans, etc. Your latest cable, after all, says you’re ‘planning to stay indefinitely.’ ”
Yet no matter how difficult circumstances were for Varian, he knew they were much worse for the Jews of Europe. By the beginning of May, many French citizens were turning against the Jews. Varian wrote Eileen on May 3, 1941: “The anti-semitism of France is not just official any more, either. It is beginning to take hold of the people. Apparently it is the easiest virus to spread in any country … There are also anti-semitic posters which attract attention and approval of crowds.”
At the end of May, Varian and his staff compiled statistics about their work. In Surrender on Demand, Varian reported that in less than eight months more than 15,000 people had either come to their office or written them. The ARC had to decide whether or not it could help each one. Out of the 15,000, they took on 1,800 as protégés. Since most of those 1,800 had families, Varian actively worked on behalf of around 4,000 people. The ARC had paid weekly living allowances to 560 families, and helped them in all sorts of ways, from buying them clothes to getting them a dentist. Over 1,000 people, including some protégés and their families, had gotten out of France. Other protégés had been sent to concentration camps, and Varian had tried to get them released. When that was unsuccessful, the ARC helped by sending them food packages, which occasionally Gussie would deliver.
Since the early days of his work, Varian had depended on getting access to the protégés’ money through the exchange system set up by Beamish. As the months passed, the gangsters in Marseilles continued to find people who wanted to exchange their local cash for U.S. dollars, which would be deposited in a bank in America. Varian’s dealings with the gangsters had been successful so far, and he trusted his contact.
The contact was a Russian whom Varian called Dimitru in Surrender on Demand, where Varian changed several names. Dimitru’s real name was Kurrillo. Varian wrote that Dimitru “was less than five feet tall, had manners which were extravagantly polite, and a right hand which felt like an empty glove when you shook it. He could turn his smile on and off like an electric light.” Dimitru acted as an intermediary between the client and Varian. When the money was exchanged, Dimitru took a percentage of the transaction as his payment.
In the spring of 1941 Dimitru offered Varian the chance to buy for $8,000 some gold that would be worth $15,000 in U.S. dollars. Varian made the deal. When he took possession of the gold, he immediately buried it beneath the pine trees at the Villa Air-Bel. Not long after, the police came to the château with a warrant to search for gold and foreign money. They didn’t find the gold, but the timing made Varian suspicious.
Then, a week later, Dimitru suggested that Varian sell half of the gold to take advantage of the favorable exchange rate. Varian agreed and made plans to bring the gold to him the next day. But Varian was busy and sent Danny in his place.
Since the gold was so heavy, Danny knew it would take two trips to carry it in his briefcase. He delivered the first case of gold to Dimitru without any problems. But when Danny walked down the street with the second load of gold in his case, he saw Dimitru standing in front of the hotel. And he noticed three men standing across the street. Danny felt something wasn’t right and decided to walk past Dimitru without a word.
But instead of ignoring him, as Danny thought he would, Dimitru came down the steps and said, “I don’t like the look of things just now … Better not bring that stuff in now. Take it back to the house. I’ll see you later.” Then he reached for Danny’s hand and gave it a weak shake. He turned and disappeared into the building.
As the three men came toward him, Danny knew that Dimitru had double-crossed him and that he was in trouble.
The three men were Vichy police officers. They looked into Danny’s case and arrested him, because it was against the law in Vichy France to have any gold. When they interrogated Danny, he made up a story that Max Ernst had given him the gold as a gift to the ARC. He took full responsibility for having the gold and swore that Varian Fry knew nothing about it. The police locked Danny up in the Prison Chave.
Varian was worried sick. Not only had Danny become second-in-command at the ARC, but he was a close personal friend. Varian knew that if Danny hadn’t taken the blame, he, too, would have been arrested. Varian wrote:
Twice a day, on my way to and from the office, I passed the Prison Chave, and I thought of Danny, down there at the bottom of one of the narrow shafts of light the long prison windows must let through. And, knowing that it was I who had put him there, I wanted to go to the police and tell them to arrest me instead. But I knew that if I did the committee would immediately be closed, and hundreds of poor devils would lose their last chance to escape from the Nazis. But it would have been much easier to do that than what I had to do.
Varian got Danny a lawyer, who suspected that Danny could be convicted and sentenced to four or five years in prison. But he thought that if the American consul spoke on Danny’s behalf, maybe they would make him pay a huge fine instead of going to prison.
Varian went to the consul in Marseilles to ask him to help Danny. Since the consul didn’t like Varian, he was surprised and relieved when the man agreed to speak to the police on Danny’s behalf. The consul went to the Vichy police and told them that because Danny worked for an American relief organization, the consulate was following his case. As a result, Danny was set free on bail to await his trial instead of being kept in prison.
When Danny came out of prison after ten days, he was filthy, skinny, and pale. Varian was so relieved to see Danny that he hugged him and wept. Varian wrote: “I felt like an awful fool … but I couldn’t help it.”
After being double-crossed by Dimitru, the ARC never got its money back. Dimitru claimed that the police had confiscated it. But the lawyer could find no record of this at the police station. The lawyer became convinced that Dimitru was working with the police, and then also learned that Dimitru was a Gestapo agent.
It was clear to Varian that they needed to get rid of Dimitru, so Varian came up with a plan to scare him off. Varian went to another gangster, a business partner of Dimitru’s, and told him that he wanted to hire him to kill Dimitru. Varian knew the two were in business together and that this man would not kill his own partner in crime. And Varian never intended that Dimitru be killed—he just wanted to get him away from Marseilles. It worked. Dimitru left town and never came back.
After Danny’s arrest and subsequent release, the police arrived frequently to search the house and office. Danny believed the police were trying to find some proof that Varian was breaking the law so they could deport him from France. They hesitated to kick him out without a good excuse because they did not want any bad publicity in the United States. Varian later described their tactics: “arrests, searches of the house and the office, the spreading of alarming rumors about what might happen to me if I stayed (sudden disappearance, body found in harbor several days later, for instance)—all this obviously designed to scare me out of the country.” Varian was calm on the outside, but the frequent searches were making him nervous.
He was also tired of being pressured by the American Embassy and the State Department to leave. The consul in Marseilles had his passport and still refused either to renew it or to return it to him. He told Varian: “My instructions are to renew it only for immediate return to the United States, and then only for a period of two weeks.”
In America, Eileen worked on his behalf by asking the First Lady of the United States to help Varian gain permission to stay in France. Eleanor Roosevelt’s answer to Eileen on May 13, 1941, was that “there is nothing I can do for your husband. I think he will have to come home because he has done things which the government does not feel it can stand behind.”
In June the United States instituted new policies on visas issued to refugees. Because of the new rules, even fewer refugees would be able to get American visas.