This collection is located on-site.
This collection has no restrictions.
The collection includes the original manuscript of "Surrender on Demand", Mr. Fry's account of his wartime experiences, which was later rewritten for young readers as "Assignment Rescue" (New York, Four Winds Press, 1968). Among the correspondents represented in the collection are Marc Chagall, Jacques Lipchitz, Roger Baldwin, Norman Thomas, J. Edgar Hoover, and Herman Wouk. In addition to the material relating to the Emergency Relief Committee (later known as the International Rescue Committee), the collection includes correspondence and papers concerning Fry's work as a writer on foreign affairs as well as copies of his books.
Series II: Arranged Correspondence
Box 2 is on microfilm MN#2000-2015 & 2016
This series contains photographs taken and collected by Varian Fry. The photographs are numbered and appear mostly in order below. Some photographs are only here as proofs, all of which are found in box 16A. Note that the item-level description provided here is derived from the photograph(s) and donor of the materials.
Foreign Policy Association Headline Books written by Fry or edited by him. Some of these books are bound together in one volume. These books are not available on microfilm.
This collection is arranged into 9 series.
You will need to make an appointment in advance to use this collection material in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room. You can schedule an appointment once you've submitted your request through your Special Collections Research Account.
This collection is located on-site.
This collection has no restrictions.
Reproductions may be made for research purposes. The RBML maintains ownership of the physical material only. Copyright remains with the creator and his/her heirs. The responsibility to secure copyright permission rests with the patron.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Varian Fry papers; Box and Folder; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.
A list of people Fry helped is found in the records of the Unitarian Service Committee, Executive Director Records, bMS 16007, box 20, folder 3, at the Harvard Divinity School. Digital version here: https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:14013064$1i
Fry's letters to Daniel Benedite, 1941-1955, are in the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Bonn, Germany (1/DBAA)
Walter Samuel Lentschner papers, 1923-1986 https://findingaids.library.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-rb/ldpd_4079919
Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. Contact rbml@columbia.edu for more information.
Boxes 1-12 are on microfilm.
Gift of Annette Riley Fry, 1969, 1974, 2004, and 2005.
Source of acquisition--Fry, Mrs. Varian. Method of acquisition--Gift; Date of acquisition--1969. Accession number--M-69.
Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Cataloged Christina Hilton Fenn 06/--/89. Processed by Bernard Crystal 6/92. 2004 addition processed by Bridget T. Lerette 11/2005. 2005 addition processed by Bridget T. Lerette 12/2005.
2010-01-28 Legacy finding aid created from Pro Cite.
2019-05-20 EAD was imported spring 2019 as part of the ArchivesSpace Phase II migration.
2023-11-10 Extended photo description added. kws
Fry, a 32 year old Harvard-educated classicist and editor from New York City, helped save thousands of endangered refugees who were caught in the Vichy French area during World War II. His efforts saved prominent persons: Max Ernst; Marc Chagall; Hannah Arendt; Andre Breton; Marcel Duchamp; Franz Werfel; Jacques Lipchitz; Lion Feuchtwanger; Heinrich Mann; Hans Sahl; Wilfredo Lam; Walter Mehring; Otto Meyerhoff; and Alma Mahler. In total, Fry and his collaborators helped to save around 4,000 people. In 1991, 24 years after his death (1967) in obscurity, Fry received his first official recognition from a United States agency, the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. In 1996, Varian Mackey Fry was named as "Righteous Among the Nations" by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Heros and Martyrs Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem. He was the first American recipient of Israel's highest honor for rescuers during the Holocaust. After the war, Fry wrote a memoir of his days in marseilles"Assignment Rescue". The FBI kept a file on him throughout his life, viewing his activities with some suspicion.
The subject headings listed below are found in this collection. Links below allow searches for other collections at Columbia University, through CLIO, the catalog for Columbia University Libraries, and through ArchiveGRID, a catalog that allows users to search the holdings of multiple research libraries and archives.
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