11-04-2025
Get to know the Connecticut man who saved thousands from the Holocaust
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) — He saved hundreds of people from the Nazis in the 1940s, then lived out his life here in Connecticut.
You probably don't know his name though- which is something a local college professor is leading an effort to change, advocating for creating a day dedicated to Varian Fry.
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Today, America has many memorials to the Holocaust, but when it began, hardly any Americans knew about it. That is, until a journalist named Varian Fry went to Germany and witnessed the violence for himself.
'And was shocked by this experience, and he wrote an article for the New York Times, which appeared a day or two later,' said professor Dr. David Pettigrew, chair of the philosophy department at Southern Connecticut State University.
A copy of that article is now in Pettigrew's New Haven office. He teaches a course on Holocaust history and said Varian Fry's reporting was only the beginning.
'He later wrote in his book that he resolved at that moment to do anything he could to save even one life,' Pettigrew said.
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Fry joined a group called the Emergency Rescue Committee. He went to Marseille in southern France on a mission to save Jews, artists, and intellectuals before they were sent to Nazi concentration camps.
The plan was to save 200 people in three weeks.
'He ended up staying 13 months until he was escorted to the border,' Varian's son James Fry said in a Zoom interview. 'And he helped orchestrate the escape of 1,500 or so people.'
Among the at least 1,500 he saved was painter Marc Chagall; writer Hannah Arendt; and modern artist Marcel Duchamp. Fry smuggled them anyway he could, often with forged documents. Eventually he was kicked out and came back to the United States in 1941.
He kept writing, including a book. 'Surrender on Demand' is what those fleeing the Nazis were ordered to do in France. But still, few remembered what he had done as he lived out his life in Connecticut.
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'He was teaching at Joel Barlow High School when he died in relative anonymity,' Pettigrew said.
Pettigrew is now working with lawmakers in Hartford on a bill to declare Oct.15 'Varian Fry Day.'
That date was chosen for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it was Varian Fry's birthday. For another, it falls during the school year, and Pettigrew is hoping educators around the state will use the opportunity to talk to their students about him.
'I thought it was very interesting how I've never heard of Varian Fry, being a Connecticut resident and going on this heroic mission, and we were just never taught about it,' a first-year student at SCSU Keana Criscuolo said.
Criscuolo found out about Fry in Pettigrew's class. She submitted testimony in support of the Fry bill. Other countries and some museums have honored Fry's work, but Pettigrew said today we could use a role model who stood up to the Nazis.
'And, you could say, stand against hate in all of its forms, including racism or islamophobia,' Pettigrew said.
'He uprooted his life and headed right toward the danger zone and put himself in the thick of it to save hundreds of people,' James Fry said. 'So, I think, if that's not worth honoring, then there's not much that is, I guess.'
Honoring a man who not only told America about the Holocaust, but did something about it.
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