Exodus of European intelligentsia in France: Borders, papers, visas : Varian Fry’s action of relief

In 1940, a young American journalist, Varian Fry, is sent to Marseille. His official mission: to free artists, mostly locked up in Camp des Milles, intellectuals and left wing political activists, quite often Jewish, threatened by the Gestapo. During World War II, Intelligentsia had been forced to exile or to go underground. These intellectuals found refuge in the south of France more specifically in Scanary-sur-Mer where we will find a big part of the German intelligentsia and at the Air-Bel villa in Marseille, last port of exit facing the approach of the Nazi invasion. Varian Fry sets up the simple organization of the American Relief Center which goes against article 19 of the Armistice convention between France and Germany: “The French government is bind to deliver under demand all appointed nationals by the Reich government”. In a period of thirteen months, before the Vichy police expels Varian Fry – with the agreement of the United States – the American Relief Center will have saved, by legal or illegal means, thousands of people. This action of relief has been called “the resistance before the Resistance”, and it emerges today as a movement of international solidarity. We propose to clarify this historic and unique moment as well as pay tribute to the heroism of the ordinary individual before the State unreasonability.