Book Log 2021 #16: The Flight Portfolio by Julie Orringer

Varian Fry was an American journalist who, stationed in Europe in the 1930s, saw the danger in the rise of Nazi Germany and wrote extesnively on the subject. Once war started, and the Nazis occupied France, Fry and a small group of like-minded individuals started an organization that helped get people out of the country, with a focus on writers and artists who had been previously persecuted by the regime. This novel dramatizes his story and that of the rescue effort.

That effort was impeded on both sides of the war, with both the Nazis and the "free" French Vichy government keeping close tabs on Fry and his group, while American and other Allied governments resisted taking in refugees who were largely Jewish. In the short time the group was able to operate, they sent as many as 4000 people out of France (mostly to neutral Portugal), including notable figures like Hannah Arendt, Jean Arp, Marcel Duchamp, Claude Levi-Strauss, and Marc Chagall (the title refers to a collection of his work that was kept on hand as a potential bribe).

I'd not heard of Fry or his organization before, and found their story both inspiring and frustrating. The book also delves into Fry's complicated personal life as a married but closeted man, adding an extra dimension of personal risk to the story.

I'd definately recommend this book, for the way it gives light to a darker corner of World War II.