Surrender on Demand
Varian Fry, a young editor from New York, traveled to Marseilles after Germany defeated France in the summer of 1940. As the representative of the Emergency Rescue Committee, a private American relief organization, he offered aid and advice to refugees who found themselves threatened with extradition to Nazi Germany under Article 19 of the Franco-German armistice -- the "Surrender on Demand" clause.

Fry risked his life to rescue those targeted by the Gestapo in "the most gigantic man-trap in history." Working day and night with a few associates in opposition to France's Vichy government and to American authorities, his elaborate rescue network managed to spirit more than 1,500 people -- including prominent European politicians, artists, writers and scientists -- to safety by the time Fry was expelled from France after 13 months.

"Surrender on Demand is by turns wildly exciting, horrifying and exalting... an astonishingly good book." -- Russell Maloney, The New York Times

"Surrender on Demand contains enough intrigue and conspiracy, enough narrow escapes and shady and flamboyant characters for three or four spy stories. But Mr. Fry has not written it for excitement... He has put down some plain and eloquent facts." -- Orville Prescott, The New York Times

"I have read and heard many accounts of escapes from Europe... but none surpasses this restrained and factual narrative in suspense and excitement... It tells of many triumphs and some defeats: it depicts with vividness and often with humor a large number of interesting and frequently distinguished persons; it describes the endless obstacles encountered and the ingenious and constantly changing shifts and devices contrived to overcome them; and throughout it makes one feel the undercurrent of potential tragedy which too often became actual." -- New York Herald Tribune Weekly Book Review

"A novelist would hardly dare pack a novel with so many hair-breath escapes." -- Lewis Gannett, New York Herald Tribune

"... a brilliant exposé of the work accomplished by [Fry] in Marseille during the tragic days that followed the French defeat... Surrender on Demand is a unique contribution to the underground history of the war." -- Josef Forman, Free World

"There are a larger number of highly exciting and almost unbelievable stories in this deeply moving but often also highly amusing book. Friends of light adventure novels will undoubtedly like it. And friends of humanity will see much more in it than an adventure story although it deals with forging passports, with hiding and escaping from detectives, with secret messages hidden in a toothpaste tube, and with an underground railroad over a well protected border. They will see in it a memorial to the man who made what he modestly calls 'an experiment in democratic solidarity' and also to the women and men who sent him on his dangerous mission." -- Henry B. Kranz, Saturday Review
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Surrender on Demand
Varian Fry, a young editor from New York, traveled to Marseilles after Germany defeated France in the summer of 1940. As the representative of the Emergency Rescue Committee, a private American relief organization, he offered aid and advice to refugees who found themselves threatened with extradition to Nazi Germany under Article 19 of the Franco-German armistice -- the "Surrender on Demand" clause.

Fry risked his life to rescue those targeted by the Gestapo in "the most gigantic man-trap in history." Working day and night with a few associates in opposition to France's Vichy government and to American authorities, his elaborate rescue network managed to spirit more than 1,500 people -- including prominent European politicians, artists, writers and scientists -- to safety by the time Fry was expelled from France after 13 months.

"Surrender on Demand is by turns wildly exciting, horrifying and exalting... an astonishingly good book." -- Russell Maloney, The New York Times

"Surrender on Demand contains enough intrigue and conspiracy, enough narrow escapes and shady and flamboyant characters for three or four spy stories. But Mr. Fry has not written it for excitement... He has put down some plain and eloquent facts." -- Orville Prescott, The New York Times

"I have read and heard many accounts of escapes from Europe... but none surpasses this restrained and factual narrative in suspense and excitement... It tells of many triumphs and some defeats: it depicts with vividness and often with humor a large number of interesting and frequently distinguished persons; it describes the endless obstacles encountered and the ingenious and constantly changing shifts and devices contrived to overcome them; and throughout it makes one feel the undercurrent of potential tragedy which too often became actual." -- New York Herald Tribune Weekly Book Review

"A novelist would hardly dare pack a novel with so many hair-breath escapes." -- Lewis Gannett, New York Herald Tribune

"... a brilliant exposé of the work accomplished by [Fry] in Marseille during the tragic days that followed the French defeat... Surrender on Demand is a unique contribution to the underground history of the war." -- Josef Forman, Free World

"There are a larger number of highly exciting and almost unbelievable stories in this deeply moving but often also highly amusing book. Friends of light adventure novels will undoubtedly like it. And friends of humanity will see much more in it than an adventure story although it deals with forging passports, with hiding and escaping from detectives, with secret messages hidden in a toothpaste tube, and with an underground railroad over a well protected border. They will see in it a memorial to the man who made what he modestly calls 'an experiment in democratic solidarity' and also to the women and men who sent him on his dangerous mission." -- Henry B. Kranz, Saturday Review
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Surrender on Demand

Surrender on Demand

Surrender on Demand

Surrender on Demand

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Overview

Varian Fry, a young editor from New York, traveled to Marseilles after Germany defeated France in the summer of 1940. As the representative of the Emergency Rescue Committee, a private American relief organization, he offered aid and advice to refugees who found themselves threatened with extradition to Nazi Germany under Article 19 of the Franco-German armistice -- the "Surrender on Demand" clause.

Fry risked his life to rescue those targeted by the Gestapo in "the most gigantic man-trap in history." Working day and night with a few associates in opposition to France's Vichy government and to American authorities, his elaborate rescue network managed to spirit more than 1,500 people -- including prominent European politicians, artists, writers and scientists -- to safety by the time Fry was expelled from France after 13 months.

"Surrender on Demand is by turns wildly exciting, horrifying and exalting... an astonishingly good book." -- Russell Maloney, The New York Times

"Surrender on Demand contains enough intrigue and conspiracy, enough narrow escapes and shady and flamboyant characters for three or four spy stories. But Mr. Fry has not written it for excitement... He has put down some plain and eloquent facts." -- Orville Prescott, The New York Times

"I have read and heard many accounts of escapes from Europe... but none surpasses this restrained and factual narrative in suspense and excitement... It tells of many triumphs and some defeats: it depicts with vividness and often with humor a large number of interesting and frequently distinguished persons; it describes the endless obstacles encountered and the ingenious and constantly changing shifts and devices contrived to overcome them; and throughout it makes one feel the undercurrent of potential tragedy which too often became actual." -- New York Herald Tribune Weekly Book Review

"A novelist would hardly dare pack a novel with so many hair-breath escapes." -- Lewis Gannett, New York Herald Tribune

"... a brilliant exposé of the work accomplished by [Fry] in Marseille during the tragic days that followed the French defeat... Surrender on Demand is a unique contribution to the underground history of the war." -- Josef Forman, Free World

"There are a larger number of highly exciting and almost unbelievable stories in this deeply moving but often also highly amusing book. Friends of light adventure novels will undoubtedly like it. And friends of humanity will see much more in it than an adventure story although it deals with forging passports, with hiding and escaping from detectives, with secret messages hidden in a toothpaste tube, and with an underground railroad over a well protected border. They will see in it a memorial to the man who made what he modestly calls 'an experiment in democratic solidarity' and also to the women and men who sent him on his dangerous mission." -- Henry B. Kranz, Saturday Review

Product Details

BN ID: 2940157197797
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
Publication date: 05/29/2017
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 272
File size: 6 MB

About the Author

Born in New York City, Varian Fry (1907-1967) attended the Taft, Hotchkiss and Riverdale Country Day schools and Harvard (in the top 10% of his class) where he co-founded the literary magazine Hound & Horn in 1927 and received his bachelor’s degree in 1931. As a foreign correspondent for The Living Age, Fry saw the Nazis mistreat Jews in Berlin in 1935, which turned him into an ardent anti-Nazi.

Fry went to Marseille in August 1940 for the newly formed Emergency Rescue Committee. There, he and a small group of colleagues helped over 1,500 anti-Nazis and Jews escape until Fry was expelled from France in September 1941 because Vichy and US State Department officials had become angered by his covert activities. Hiram Bingham, the American Vice Consul in Marseille issued thousands of legal and illegal visas, and the Unitarian Service Committee in Lisbon, through which many of Fry’s “clients” traveled before sailing to the US, assisted Fry’s efforts to save refugees — including prominent artists, scientists and intellectuals such as Hannah Arendt, Jean Arp, André Breton, Marc and Bella Chagall, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Lion Feuchtwanger, Jacques Hadamard, Konrad Heiden, Arthur Koestler, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Jacques Lipchitz, Bohuslav Martinu, Golo and Heinrich Mann, André Masson, Walter Mehring, Otto Meyerhoff, Max Ophüls, Peter Pringsheim, Jacques Schiffrin, Franz Werfel and Alma Mahler-Werfel.

Back in New York, Fry was strongly critical of US immigration policies, especially regarding Jews: his scathing “The Massacre of Jews in Europe” appeared in The New Republic in December 1942. After the war, Fry worked as a journalist, magazine editor and business writer. He also taught college and was in film production. Shortly before his death, France awarded Fry the Legion of Honor. In 1994 Fry became the first American recognized as a “Righteous among the Nations” by Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust Memorial.
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