Initially the ERC had intensively lobbied Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration to loosen U.S. visa laws so that more immigrants could flee to the United States. The administration expressed sympathy but offered no tangible aid.

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in World War II magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

With no help from the government on the horizon, the committee took matters into its own hands. It asked for volunteers to go to France to assist these detainees to freedom. When no one else took the offer, Fry stepped forward. Over the next several weeks, Fry put his personal business affairs in order, said a tearful goodbye to his wife and, with a list of those most in need of rescue and money to fund his venture, he took off for France.

After Pan Am’s Dixie Clipper made stops in neutral Portugal and Spain, Fry landed in the wild city of Marseille, the last French port that was not then in Nazi hands, on August 15, 1940. He checked into the Hotel Splendide, which would be his temporary home. After unpacking, Fry made a visit to the U.S. consulate in Vichy, to see the officer who handled visa applications. Fry introduced himself, explained his mission and, much to his surprise, was given no cooperation at all. The Vichy government had put pressure on the Americans to not rock the boat as far as the plight of the detainees was concerned. Lacking contrary orders from the State Department, Fry was left to his own devices.

The first person who offered to help Fry was Dr. Frank Bohn, a representative of the Jewish Labor Committee. Bohn had heard about the young editor and approached Fry, who handed him the list of people the ERC wanted brought out of France. Bohn gave him a number of emergency U.S. visitor’s visas, but the refugees needed other documentation –’safe conduct’ passes to travel within France, as well as departure visas, which were all but impossible to obtain at the time. The only way out of France, said Bohn, was by illegal or covert means, through the border into Spain. (Spain and Portugal were still issuing transit visas to Jews and others — if they could get there.) Fry’s job was going to be a tough one.

During his first week in Marseille, news had gone out that an American representative was in town who could help refugees escape, and soon people on the list began to appear at Fry’s hotel. Over a period of time, Fry hired a few trusted people to handle the load of applicants who swarmed into the hotel to see him. In order to facilitate his work, he rented space out of the hotel and began a covert business he called the Centre Americain de Secours (American Relief Center). Fry gave hopeful escapees spending money and met with them at night to discuss future plans.

His activities did not go unnoticed by the local French police, and Fry had to be extra careful not to be caught doing anything illegal that could put his clandestine mission in jeopardy. At the same time, he had come to realize how important his work was. During this time he wrote a letter to his mother in New Jersey, saying, ‘You can see that I am not staying on because it is fun, but because I don’t see how I can leave. Everyone agrees that my office would collapse without me.’ One person on whom Fry came to rely was 25-year-old Albert Hirschmann, dubbed ‘Beamish,’ a man who knew where to buy a false passport and whom to bribe. Hirschmann had served with the Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War and later in the French army. When he left the French army, he picked out a new alias — becoming Albert Hermant from Philadelphia.

Hirschmann was Fry’s conduit to the underworld in Marseille and used all his connections to help smuggle the refugees out of France. One of the men Hirschmann used was known only as ‘Malandri,’ a ‘Corsican businessman.’ Fry learned of Malandri from a woman named Delapre who worked at the American consulate. Malandri led Hirschmann to a petty thug and restaurant owner named Jacques. Using his considerable connections, Jacques introduced Hirschmann to ‘Dimitru.’ These men were able to exchange money on the black market for Fry’s use. At one point, more than 330,000 francs were put into Fry’s undercover operation.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to