Rescue and Flight: American Relief Workers Who Defied the Nazis

7. New York, Lisbon, Paris and Prague, 1944-45

7 New York, Lisbon, Paris, and Prague, 1944–45 on februAry 26, 1944, A dozen men gAthered in A meeting room in Greenwich Village. A surviving transcript of the meeting revealed that most of the comments were brief, there were few disagreements , and no one attempted to make a joke. Charles Joy,Varian Fry, and Robert Dexter and others sympathetic to the rescue mission were there. John Pehle, the director of the U.S. government’s War Refugee Board, had come up from Washington and had brought several people with him, including general counsel Josiah Dubois, who had threatened to expose the refugee scandal, incriminating the president and the State Department.1 Robert Dexter had hurried back from Portugal earlier in the month, in time to attend this meeting for the benefit of the War Refugee Board, after almost two years away. By mid-morning Charles Joy and the others had outlined six projects for the War Refugee Board. A week earlier, at the opulent Harvard Club in New York, the Unitarians and Varian Fry and some of the others had met with one of Pehle’s staff and grilled him on whether the U.S. government was serious about helping this time.2 The man, a Mr. Friedman, had stood up to cross-examination, and they had been convinced that these men from the Treasury Department—inexperienced though they were—were smart people and strongly motivated. Afterward, Friedman had written a note to his boss, John Pehle, that this group had “more understanding and more first hand knowledge of how actual operations should be conducted than any other group or individual that we are likely to encounter.”3 Varian Fry had pulled himself away from his introspection and introduced himself to John Pehle at the February 26 meeting simply as “a writer, formerly active in France.” He had finished his memoir, 188 | new york, liSbon, PAriS, And PrAgue, 1944–1945 Surrender on Demand, in January and had had a battle with his editor, who had removed material critical of the U.S. government. Seeing the cuts, Fry wrote back, “I feel that what they say muSt be SAid, namely that at a time when the Jewish refugees in France were being treated like cattle the United States did virtually nothing. It doesn’t matter a damn that there is now a War Refugee Board: there was nothing then, when something could have been done.”4 Nonetheless, Fry was here now and volunteering his time in the hope that something could still be done. Louis Dolivet, the mysterious exiled leader of the Free World Association, was attending, along with several former ambassadors and foreign ministers from European countries.5 With one voice, the group had told the War Refugee Board staff that the United States should make it clear that it would take care of all refugees who made it to territories under Allied control, that the United States must take the lead or Britain would not follow. They listed the many ways that the United States could provide visas quickly.6 From Lisbon, Elisabeth Dexter had already sent along her detailed points on how to speed up the process.7 Fry brought up the ideas that he had published in the New Republic in 1942.8 Admit all refugees into the United States who can get here. Instead of making the refugees wait in Europe while their applications are being investigated, allow them in, and if there are any doubts, keep individuals in camps while checking their background.The idea of free ports and havens in U.S. territories was not a new one to the Unitarians either. In December 1939 Martha Sharp and Robert Dexter had gone to Washington dc to urge the newly elected governor of Alaska to allow Czechs to settle in the territory. The man, Ernest Gruening, said that he was sympathetic but that the people of Alaska were definitely opposed to having their country used as a refugee settlement. He said he believed, however, that they would be willing to admit a maximum of six Czech refugee families.9 The record does not show whether even these six families ever arrived in Alaska. Private individuals had been more generous than the Alaskan governor and had written to the War Refugee Board offering their own land as a site for temporary camps. new york, liSbon, PAriS, And PrAgue, 1944–1945 | 189 During their...