In Defiance of Hitler

[Expelled]

IT SEEMED THAT EVERYTHING WAS CHANGING, INCLUDING Villa Air-Bel. Ever since Varian had managed to get the Surrealist artists and their families away to America, the charming old château seemed quiet, almost lifeless. The days of fascinating discussions among some of the world’s most talented people, the games, and the feelings of camaraderie were gone. Now the few staff members still living there seemed to disagree constantly.

Although Varian was ready to go home, Danny and the rest of the team believed that if Varian left, the organization would fall apart. They also suspected they might all be arrested. Varian wondered what would happen if he left. Would his team be in danger? What would happen to his protégés? He decided to stay as long as he could and leave only if a reliable replacement took over.

Varian didn’t know it yet, but his time in Marseilles was running out. In July the American consul warned him that the Gestapo had told the Vichy police to arrest him. A couple of days later, Varian was “invited” to meet with the head of police in Marseilles. It was clear that if Varian refused this invitation, he would be arrested.

After making Varian wait for a while, Maurice Anne Marie de Rodellec du Porzic had Varian brought to his office. The bright morning light streamed through the window behind the policeman, putting his face in shadow. Without saying a word, he opened the thick dossier that lay on his desk.

Slowly de Rodellec du Porzic looked through Varian’s file, as if he had all the time in the world. He considered each page before turning to the next. From the other side of the desk, Varian recognized the stationery from his own office and realized some of his own letters were in the file.

In Surrender on Demand, Varian wrote about this meeting with de Rodellec du Porzic:

“You have caused my good friend the Consul-General of the United States much annoyance,” he said.

“I guess the Consul can take care of his own problems,” I said.

“My friend the Consul-General tells me that your government and the American committee you represent have both asked you to return to the United States without delay,” he continued.

“There’s some mistake,” I said. “My instructions are to stay.”

“This affair of your secretary,” de Rodellec du Porzic went on, obviously referring to Danny, “will have very serious consequences for you.”

“I can’t see how,” I said. “One of my employees has committed an indiscretion. But he acted entirely on his own responsibility. There is no proof that I was involved in any way.”

“In the new France, we do not need proof,” de Rodellec du Porzic said. “In the days of the Republic, it used to be believed that it was better to let a hundred criminals escape than to arrest one innocent man. We have done away with all that. We believe that it is better to arrest a hundred innocent men than to let one criminal escape.”

“I see,” I said, “that we are very far apart in our ideas of the rights of man.”

“Yes,” de Rodellec du Porzic said, “I know that in the United States you still adhere to the old idea of human rights. But you will come to our view in the end. It is merely a question of time. We have realized that society is more important than the individual. You will come to see that, too.”

He paused to close the dossier.

“When are you leaving France?” he asked.

I said I had no definite plans.

“Unless you leave France of your own free will,” he said, “I shall be obliged to arrest you and place you in résidence forcée [house arrest] in some small town far from Marseille, where you can do no harm.”

I had to play for time.

“I see,” I said. “Can you give me a little time to arrange my affairs and get someone over from America to take my place as president of the committee before I go? I’m willing to go myself, since you insist; but I want to make sure the committee will go on after I leave.”

“Why are you so much interested in your committee?” he asked.

“Because it is the only hope of many of the refugees,” I said.

“I see,” he said. “How much time do you need?”

“Well,” I said, “I’ll cable New York today. It will take them a little time to find someone to replace me, and some more time for him to get his passport and visas and get here. Can you give me until the 15th of August?”

“That will be satisfactory,” he said.

I got up to go. Then I turned back and asked a final question.

“Tell me,” I said, “frankly, why are you so much opposed to me?”

“Parce que vous avez trop protégé des juifs et des anti-Nazis,” he said. “Because you have protected Jews and anti-Nazis.”

Vichy police captain de Rodellec du Porzic was right that Varian had protected Jews and anti-Nazis. And Varian would continue to do so as long as he was in France. Varian knew that no replacement for him would arrive by August 15. At least he had bought himself a little more time in France.

A couple of days later, the American consul returned Varian’s passport. It had been renewed, but only for one month, and only for travel west, toward the United States. Varian was surprised to find in his passport all the documents he would need to get back to America: a French exit visa, a Spanish transit visa, and a Portuguese transit visa.

Varian went to the American Embassy in Vichy to ask for permission to stay on in France. He thought that if the embassy requested that he be allowed to stay, the French would let him.

The embassy refused.

Varian knew there was nothing else he could do. He was being forced out of France.

Varian was in Vichy when he finally answered Eileen’s letter complaining that she seldom heard from him. On July 31, 1941, he wrote:

Varian decided to stay away from Marseilles for a time. He believed the police were watching him and waiting for a chance to expel him. He left Vichy and traveled around the French Riviera. He hoped he could rest and relax for a while.

Varian knew that his time in France was coming to an end. He also knew that his stay there had caused a strain in his marriage. Eileen had suffered from his extended absence. It may be that she even considered their marriage over, because in a letter to her on August 5, Varian wrote:

For about two weeks, Varian traveled alone to Sanary, Saint-Tropez, Cannes, Nice, and Monte Carlo. He kept in touch with the ARC office by telephone, and occasionally members of his staff traveled to meet him wherever he was.

Twelve days past the deadline for leaving that de Rodellec du Porzic had given him, Varian went back to Marseilles. He’d stayed away so long that the dates on his passport and visas had expired. Varian hoped de Rodellec du Porzic had been bluffing about making him leave.

Varian walked back into the ARC office on Wednesday, August 27. It didn’t take long for him to find out that the chief of police had not been bluffing. On Friday two police detectives arrived with an order to take Varian into custody. It was signed by de Rodellec du Porzic. The Vichy police were actually going to kick him out of France.

Varian spent the next twenty-six hours locked up. He slept on a table. He was informed that he would be taken to the Spanish border and forced out of France. When Varian explained that all his paperwork had expired, they assured him that it would be completed at the border. Inspector Garandel, a Vichy policeman, had been given the job of seeing that Varian left France.

Inspector Garandel escorting Varian out of France.

Police detectives took Varian to the ARC office. It would be his last visit there. Danny had left for Vichy to see if he could stop Varian’s expulsion. Most of the office staff had gone for the day. Varian emptied the contents of his desk drawer into a cardboard box.

Next the detectives drove Varian to the Villa Air-Bel. They gave him one hour to collect his belongings, which included Clovis, his black poodle. From there they took him to the Gare Saint-Charles. It was then after six in the evening. Just as he had on the day he’d arrived, Varian walked to the top of the massive marble staircase and gazed out over Marseilles. The city where he had lived for nearly thirteen months was quiet. He took one last look at the mountains in the distance and at the Notre-Dame de la Garde Basilica, still standing guard over the city.

He turned away and walked into the train station with Inspector Garandel.

By this time most of Varian’s team had heard what was happening, and nine members had gathered at the station. They came prepared to travel all the way to the border with him.

Together, they all traveled by train to the border town of Cerbère. Just as Varian expected, when the border police saw that his papers were outdated, they refused to let him cross the border. Inspector Garandel explained the situation, but the policeman would not make an exception.

Garandel telephoned his boss. The American Embassy would need to reissue Varian’s travel documents. Inspector Garandel was ordered to lock Varian in the local jail until the documents arrived. Nevertheless, Garandel assured Varian that he would stay in a hotel, not the jail.

For the five days that it took for Varian’s papers to arrive, Danny and some of the rest of Varian’s staff stayed with him in Cerbère. Inspector Garandel didn’t act like a policeman guarding a prisoner. He behaved more like a supervisor whose job was to make sure Varian got across the border. Each day Garandel visited acquaintances in the area and left Varian and his friends alone.

It gave them plenty of time to discuss the future of the ARC. From that point on, it would be led by Danny Bénédite, a Frenchman. An American replacement for Varian would never arrive.

Rain poured from the sky on September 6, 1941, the day Varian left France. The gray, dreary weather matched their mood as Varian and his staff ate their last lunch together. Around the table, long moments of silence took the place of their usual mealtime chatter. None of them knew what hardships lay ahead. None knew what the outcome of World War II would be. Would Hitler ultimately be victorious and take over all of Europe and the rest of the world? Would they ever see each other again? Would the Vichy police or the Gestapo come for them in the middle of the night? Would they have enough food to survive the winter?

Finally the moment that they’d all been dreading came. Inspector Garandel would accompany Varian across the Spanish border into Portbou, and see that Varian boarded the train to Barcelona before he returned to France.

The conductor called out for the passengers to board. One by one, Varian’s team hugged and kissed him goodbye.

Varian took this photo of the staff members who accompanied him to the border right before he boarded the train that took him out of France. Left to right: Paul Schmierer, Helen Hessel, Danny Bénédite, Marcel Verzeano, Lucie Heymann, Jeanne Vialin, Charles Wolff (who would later be killed by the French police), Louis Coppermann, and Annette Pouppos.

Varian stepped aboard the train. He stood on the bottom step as the train pulled away. Varian looked at his friends, who were standing in a line on the platform. He took out his handkerchief and waved goodbye. His team waved back to him. They were still waving when the train entered the tunnel that separated France from Spain.

As his train moved through the Spanish countryside in the rain, Varian was filled with sadness. He already felt a deep sense of loss for France and the friends he had left there. They had bonded and worked together toward a common goal as a team. Varian knew he would not return to France for a long time—at least not until the war was over, and there was no way to know when that would be. His work in Marseilles had cost him a lot of time and energy, but it was worth it. Now his work was done. It was all over. The work of the American Relief Center would continue without him.

On September 7, while in Barcelona, Varian wrote to Eileen:

Varian tried to explain how it felt to go from Nazi-controlled France, a country ravaged by war, to Portugal, one that was enjoying peace. “Coming out of France today is like coming up out of a dark cave toward the light. Literally and figuratively.” In France there wasn’t enough of anything, including food. Yet in Portugal, there was plenty of everything: real tea, cameras, typewriters, magazines, newspapers, and food. Varian wrote, “(… I have been going around Lisbon all afternoon, goggle-eyed, like a child at his first circus, unable to decide between popcorn and peanuts, bananas and ice cream, and finally taking them all …). But most of all, you get a feeling of freedom.”

It took about six weeks for Varian to complete his travel arrangements back to America. During that time he worked at the office of the Unitarian Service Committee and attempted to improve the escape routes his refugees were using through Spain and Portugal. Throughout October the autumn weather in Lisbon turned his thoughts again and again to the leaves that skittered around the streets of Marseilles as the mistral blew in. It made him sad and homesick—not for America but for France.

Varian Fry was home at last, but the transition was hard for him. He had changed a lot. Eileen had changed, too. The long separation had put a lot of stress on their relationship, and their marriage was in trouble. The next year they divorced, although they remained good friends.

For more than a year Varian had dealt with matters of life and death all day, every day. His every thought had been about the safety of his protégés. Now it was all out of his control. He missed the danger, excitement, and challenge of the work. He missed his co-workers, who had become his friends. He missed France. The loss left him feeling empty.

On November 10, 1941, Varian wrote to John Graham, a friend in Lisbon:

Only a little more than a month after Varian returned, America would no longer be a nation at peace. On December 7, 1941, the nation of Japan attacked U.S. Navy ships at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. America entered World War II, a war that would rage all over the globe. Nations led by Germany, Italy, and Japan became known as the Axis nations. Those led by the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, and China became known as the Allies.

America’s entering the war brought changes to the Emergency Rescue Committee. In the early days of 1942 the ERC joined forces with the International Relief Association to form a new organization that would be known as the International Rescue and Relief Committee. This name would later be shortened to the International Rescue Committee (IRC), which still exists today. The merger meant that the Emergency Rescue Committee, which Varian had helped to create, no longer existed. Varian was not happy about the merger.

Finally, on February 13, 1942, Frank Kingdon, the president of the Emergency Rescue Committee, by then known as the International Rescue and Relief Committee, fired Varian.

Varian continued to exchange letters with Danny, who was running the American Relief Center in Marseilles. But then, on June 2, 1942, Vichy police closed it down.

It is impossible to know exactly how many people Varian Fry helped out of France. It was too dangerous to keep incriminating records, knowing the Vichy police could have searched for them at any time. However, Varian knew he’d made arrangements for two hundred British soldiers to cross into Spain. He also knew that he had arranged the escape of at least seven hundred refugees—and most of these seven hundred had a spouse and children. Then, after Varian left Marseilles, the ARC succeeded in getting out another three hundred refugees and their families. A conservative estimate is that Varian and his team arranged for more than two thousand people to leave France safely.

In 1942 Varian began writing a book, Surrender on Demand, about his experiences in Marseilles. He knew the story could not be told until the war was over and his friends in France were no longer in danger of being arrested by the Vichy police or the Gestapo. Varian wrote a foreword for the book that revealed how deeply his experiences in Marseilles had affected him:

When the book was published three years later, this original, heartfelt foreword was not included.

Like many heroes before him and after, Varian found out that his fight for the freedom of others came at a high price—his peace of mind. But he had willingly gone to help the refugees in France. He would make the same choice all over again.

As he worked on the book, Varian tried to join the United States military. He was rejected because he had developed stomach ulcers. Next he applied for various government jobs to support the war effort, including one at the Office of Facts and Figures. Finally he got a job as an editor at a magazine called The New Republic.