Assignment: Rescue: An Autobiography

by Varian Fry

Marseilles, France....August, 1940 The Gestapo's blacklist was thousands of names long...How many people could he get out before Hitler sealed the frontiers? Varian Fry didn't know any more about being an undercover agent than what he'd seen in the movies. But, he was the one man who could get into Vichy France, where thousands of people had fled Hitler's Germany. Unless he could get them out, they'd be trapped-turned back to the concentration camps and death camps. An exciting, true story of World War II - Varian Fry describes the methods he used to get thousands of hunted men and women to safety. 183 pages

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, History, Historical, Holocaust, World War II, Biography

183 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varian_Fry

Reviews

[Jaide · Rating 3 out of 5]

i liked it. it was really interesting at first, but then i got a little bored with it toward the end, but it was only 180 pages, so i decided to finish it since i had 30 pages left. it was hard to imagine it as a non-fiction book, but then after reading it i went into my mind and thought of all these people as if i had helped them today. there was a wide range of characters, some irrelevant and others relevant based upon the job fry was doing. overall it was good, and saddens me to think of all the people tortured during the holocaust, and how it not only affected the people of germany, but of all surrounding areas as well. i never really knew any of that.

[Ben Boulden · Rating 4 out of 5]

A no-frills style reads more like a report than a non-fiction book, but the story of Varian Fry's mission to get artists and intellectuals out of Vichy France in 1940 and 1941 is both amazing and absorbing.

[Annie]

found this book in my neighborhood mini library. What is a mini library, you ask? A neighbor has a little book shelf with a door and roof set up in their front yard; then you take book, leave a book.

[Aiden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Varian Fry’s autobiography titled Assignment Rescue is a non-fiction book about war experiences; he tried to save as many lives as possible from the Nazis. Some may call him a hero, and many would call him a villain, but I would call Varian Fry a hero because he saved thousands of Holocaust victims from the concentration camps.

Fry was a guy who was involved in the war with the Nazis, but his main goal was not killing other soldiers; it was to save others affected by Nazis in these concentration camps. During Hitler’s reign in World War II, he forced millions of people into concentration camps. Fry was helping the refugees. The refugees were coming to France even though refugees were not wanted and not welcomed there, but Fry was determined to help as many people as he could from being tortured. Dimitru was there and found out about this, and he was a Nazi, and he went after Fry to arrest him. Fry managed to continue saving refugees even though it put his life at risk.

At first, I thought the book was interesting for learning more about a first-person's view of what happened with the Nazis and the Holocaust. Later in the book, you met many new folks, and I found it confusing. It was nice to hear about how this man impacted roughly 2,000 lives for the better, and that is what they would call a hero, and that's what I would call a hero. My main issue was that it got dry at the end and was less fun to read than the story’s beginning. He could have shortened it some. Overall, I liked most of the book and could really recommend it to a history lover. This is first-person, so you get to feel what Fry and others were feeling during all of this, and it even has some actual photos from this. Imagery is shown by vivid descriptions of what was experienced. For example, in the text, it states that, “They were wearing long gray overcoats…”(Fry 33). This described Nazis uniforms, but throughout this book there is extensive imagery that paints a vivid picture in your mind.

The type of reader who would enjoy this would be someone who loves history or has a strong interest in World War ll or the Holocaust. The book is 183 pages, which is not long, so if you want to try it as I did, go ahead and do it.

[MsBrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Note: Young Adult genre

I appreciated the opportunity to learn about the heroic deeds of Varian Fry. I was not familiar with him though I vaguely recall having heard of an allied plot to rescue Jewish intellectuals/artists. Through Varian's experience in France, I learned a lot about WWII France - and how unwilling France was to let its many Jewish refugees, leave the country. The book certainly contained espionage. And it increased my understanding about the importance of Portugal as a route out of Europe.

Why not five stars? Is it even morally permissible to star a hero's autobiography?
Perhaps I was not feeling the young adult book format congruent to my liking. Each chapter was about two or three pages. I also would have liked to know more about his personal relationships with those he worked with, interacted with, etc. Though Varian did mention his disappointment when the one staff-person he was close to decided to leave. Finally, a reason the book did not hit my fancy - the very premise of rescuing intellectuals, was geared at rescuing, in essence, men (and wives if they had them). Very little, if anything, in the book - was mentioned about rescuing women from certain death, and so few women had the actual opportunity to become famous intellectuals. On the other hand - perhaps I am merely misinformed on that aspect, since, of the 2,000 people Varian rescued, the short book only had room to focus on a few specific rescues (that happened to focus on famous intellectual men).

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I just found out that "Assignment Rescue" was actually not Varian's first memoir! It is a version created specially for students. His original memoir is titled "Surrender on Demand." I may take a look at that!

[Noah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was about a man named Varian Fry, who was selected by the United States to go to France during World War 2 to help save the victims of the Holocaust. The U.S. had given him a list of the most important people, who were Jewish artists, musicians, or anybody who had openly protested the Nazis. While he was there, he assembled a staff to help him with this assignment, he saved a lot of people by setting up connections for them get out of France. The entire time, the Gestapo is looking for him and trying to find out what he is doing. His office is raided multiple times, but they never find anything. You find out later in the book that some of the people he thought he could trust, were actually Gestapo agents. Dimitru, who was a gestapo agent, had Varian's secretary arrested because he knew that Varian was saving people from the Nazis. Varian tried to have a hitman sent after him, but Dimitru fled from Marseilles and never bothered them again. Varian couldn't save everyone in France that was in danger, but he got a lot of them out before he was forced to leave the country. I liked this book mainly because of the story. I like learning about the Holocaust because I can't really imagine what it must have been like for the victims. In the book there was a line about how France was slowly but surely starting to bend to the will of Adolf Hitler, and I liked that line because it showed that even though France didn't want to, they were going to side with Hitler because they were afraid of him, and I can't imagine what that would be like. Overall, I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anybody who is interested in the Holocaust.

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is so interesting.
I read two historical fiction books about Varian Fry and the Emergency Rescue Committee. Each focused on a different aspect of his time in Marseille. One, Postmistress of Paris, focused on Mary Jayne Gold, an American socialite who helped fund the Committee. The other, the Flight Portfolio, focused on Fry being a homosexual. The Netflix show, Transatlantic, was based on The Flight Portfolio.
I had to read Fry's own memoir of his time in Marseille and luckily it is owned at Pratt. The book was copyright in 1968 by Annette R. Fry. Originally written in 1945.
Assignment:Rescue is a short recall of the people he met and those he helped. There is very little about Mary Jayne Gold and nothing about homosexuality. There is a bit about Chateau Air Bel, outside of Marseille. His book scratches the surface of his incredible work.
"Originally published by Random House in a substantially different version under the title of Surrender on Demand."
One man with his team saved over 1,000 people in 13 months.

[Dvora Treisman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Varian Fry is a World War II hero that few know about but everyone should. He went to France in June 1940 for a month, stayed over a year, and rescued close to 2,000 people from the Nazis -- people who included Marc Chagall, Wanda Landowska, Andre Breton, among many others. He wasn't trained as and never had worked as a spy or secret agent, but when he arrived in France he found that legal means for getting these people out of France were few, and they became fewer each day.

This edition was published in conjunction with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. I believe the intended audience for this edition was school children, and I also believed they cut a considerable amount from the original. That original, on the other hand, was no where to be found on the internet except maybe for a collector's price.

[Jane Elfring · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fry's story of working with refugees at the start of World War II is powerful. He came from the US knowing nothing about getting people to safety and managed to save over a 1000 people over the course of about 18 months. I recently read "The Postmistress of Paris" which deals with his work and those of others who worked with him. Many of the details from that book are corroborated in his autobiography-names, places, events.

[Leslie kuris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good to read if you read the Flight Portfolio and want just the facts which I prefer.

[James Weddell]

I suggest reading this in tandem with Anna Seghers' Transit. Transit is an excellent novel set in the Marseilles of this period. Seghers was one of those rescued by Fry.

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Assignment Rescue is a great autobiography. Varian Fry was the first American to be awarded the Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem for his role in helping Jews during the Holocaust. His story is fascinating mainly because of his perseverance in spite of all the obstacles put in his way.

[Luckydogguy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Varian Fry: what courage and duty can accomplish

A true account of what one person can accomplish with some courage, a sense of duty, and a bit of luck.

[Seth owens · Rating 5 out of 5]

The autobiography Assignment: Rescue by Varian Fry is a story about an American, Varian Fry, who right before WW2 signed up to go to France. He worked to get some of the people that fled from Nazi Germany into France. They were trying to get into Spain where they could go to the United States and be safe from the Nazi’s.
Varian Fry’s purpose was to tell his story and the story of the people that he worked with and saved during that time. In the book, he would talk about other people who were trying to escape. For example, Hilferding was a well-known labor committee person who Fry was going to put on a boat to escape, but because the ticket was a lower class room he decided to stay in France. Then Hilferding was taken by the Nazi’s and sent to a concentration camp. Fry also told about his experiences while he was working in Marseilles. He helped people get out of jail, helped people leave the country, and got rid of evidence when there were police searches. Also, he talked about his time in jail.
Fry was trying to get across that people should not judge people because they have different beliefs, different looks, and different views on politics. He helped many Jewish people get out of France and escape to America using secret escape routes that went over the mountains and into Spain. Sometimes he could not use those routes into Spain because the person was too well known for their political views. Those people would get out by being illegally smuggled out on a boat.
The book is written in narration style where Fry tells the story from beginning to end in chronological order. It is written as a first person narrative. He uses “I” throughout the book. This style was effective because at some points of the story I felt like I was there watching the story unfold. It kept my interest because of that. There were a lot of very exciting parts.
I thought that this was a very good autobiography because it didn’t have any slow points in it. There was always something going on. I liked that Fry was mainly working undercover, and illegally to outsmart the Nazi’s and French government to save the people. Truthfully, I would say that I did not find anything that I did not like about this book. I would not change anything about this book. It is similar to the book Night that we read recently in class because it also dealt with World War II, the concentration camps, and survival.

[Ryan Ballinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Assignment Rescue by Varian Fry is a story about an American, Varian Fry, who before WW2 had plans to go to France. He tried to get some of the people that fled from Nazi Germany into France and then into Spain where they could go to the United States and be safe from the Nazi’s.

Varian Fry’s purpose was to tell his story and the story of the people that he saw and saved during that time. In the book, he would talk about other people who were trying to escape. For example, Hilferding was a well-known person who Fry was going to put on a boat to escape, but because the ticket was a lower class room he decided to stay in France. Then Hilferding was taken by the Nazi’s and sent to a concentration camp.

Fry also told about his experiences while he was working in Marseilles. He helped people get out of jail, helped people leave the country, and got rid of evidence when there were police searches. Also, he talked about his time in jail.

Fry was trying to get across that people should not judge people because they have different beliefs, different looks, and different views on politics. He helped many Jewish people get out of France and escape to America using secret escape routes that went over the mountains and into Spain. Sometimes he could not use those routes into Spain because the person was too well known for their political views. Those people would get out by being illegally smuggled out on a boat.
The book is written in narration style where Fry tells the story from beginning to end. It is written as a first person narrative. This style was effective because at some points of the story I felt like I was there watching the story unfold. It kept my interest because of that. There were a lot of very exciting parts.

I liked that Fry was mainly working undercover, and illegally to outsmart the Nazi’s and French government to save the people. It is similar to the book Night that we read recently in class because it also dealt with World War II, the concentration camps, and survival.

By, Ryan Ballinger

[Kasra Nassirpour · Rating 5 out of 5]

Assignment Rescue: An Autobiography by Varian Fry is an intriguing and eye-opening book that was written by Varian Fry himself. The author wrote this novel to convey his experiences as a secret agent during World War II, and to also inform the readers on how difficult this task really was. Fry did an outstanding job visualizing his experiences in Nazi controlled France, to make the reader feel as if he were there alongside him. He explains each one of his rescues and the trouble he encountered each mission. This is an example of how Fry visualized his experiences. “As I first stepped onto the train I noticed how hard this task would be to accomplish. The seats on the train had been torn out, and all that was left was the cold hard rusty floor, where hundreds of defeated men were lying, crammed together like sardines” (Fry 17). Fry did a good job creating an image in the reader's head, to make it feel like they were there experiencing these moments.
The main theme of this novel is perseverance. Throughout Fry’s mission, he encountered many obstacles, but he knew he had a job to accomplish, and he persevered through them and got the job done. This theme was not clearly stated in the book, but throughout each and every mission Fry went on, you could clearly see how his perseverance was the reason he was so successful.
This novel is a narration. In the novel, Fry describes his project in France as a secret agent to bring 200 individuals from the French port city of Marseille to safety. Fry does a great job explaining his experiences, and uses his many skills as a writer to bring this story to life.
In my opinion, the book was great. I liked how well Fry described his missions and how he accomplished them. While reading this book, it kept me on the edge of my seat, wondering what would happen next. This book was great, and I wouldn’t change anything about it. It is similar to another book I have read, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, because they both take place during World War II.

[DaKota Kitowski]

Assignment: Rescue by Varian Fry was about how he managed to help thousands of Jews and anti-Jews who were being hunted by Hitler escape France from 1940 to 1941. He tells the tales of his plans and how difficult it was to get all the passports, visas, update everyone in New York City about everything that was happening, and everything else they needed, without giving it away to the German officers that they were doing illegal transports of wanted people.
The theme of this autobiography was to give another perspective on how catastrophic the Holocaust and Hitler's invasion of Europe was. Fry tells how all the laws and regulations changed, how officers became more strict, and how difficult it really was to get out that many people he did. He also states at the end when he is finally leaving to go back to New York, he says, "..I thought about the faces of the thousand refugees I had sent out of France, and the faces of a thousand more I had had to leave behind." I think that just shows how he felt so strongly about helping so many people escape.
This book was presented in a narration style. He told from the time he left New York, the events that had happened while in France, Spain, Portugal, and England, and then the time after he returned to New York. This book could also be described as a description style, as well. Fry makes a lot of description about his plans and events that occurred, in 1940.
My personal opinion of Assignment: Rescue is that I really enjoyed reading about how he felt during the escapes and how he explained the processes in vast detail. The way Varian Fry describes each character, each officer, each plan, and detail of the assignments made the book have a different view into the Holocaust and World War II.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the autobiography of a lesser-known figure in the Holocaust - a man who became a professional rescuer. Far less compromised than the better-known Oskar Schindler, Fry was an American who acted out of conscience, not from any motivation of profit, and from his base in France, worked to get as many people out of Germany and occupied Europe as possible. Of course, he knew he couldn't save everyone, and doubtless had to make torturous ethical decisions about whom to help and how, but he saved many, including well-known individuals like Max Ernst, Hannah Arendt, and Franz Werfel, but also hundreds of "littler" people, who were able to escape certain death because of his idealism.

One gets the feeling, reading this, that Fry wasn't entirely comfortable talking about himself, that he really didn't want to make too big a deal out of his own accomplishments, and it may be that he really wasn't ready in 1945 to talk about them. Even in this brief book, however, he does not gloss over the difficulties and failures he had, along with those accomplishments. It may well have been this diffidence that resulted in Fry's continuing obscurity, even among Holocaust scholars. But his example is inspirational, if one takes the time to examine it, and is a reminder among the dark history of that period, that light always shines through.

[Jennifer Plummer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This books tells the story of Varian Fry, the only righteous gentile to come from the United States throughout WWII. This book was assigned as a discussion point in a class called America and the Holocaust. It is hard to talk about such a situation without mention Mr. Fry and the people he worked with to help Jews escape the Gestapo. Originally, he was sent over to help a certain list of people the Gestapo were out to get. In the end, he helped rescue many, many more than even he really expected. I've heard the criticism of the book being a little dry but I felt it was a quick, interesting read and I was thoroughly amused. This is definitely a book which should be introduced to high school students during their WWII units.

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this book up when I was fifteen on a whim once, and years later still remembered it enough to go hunting for it again. Glad I did, because it's an excellent view into a small but important part of history. Mr. Fry is a journalist, so his prose comes off as both interesting and also a bit understated, because at the time news stories weren't all overblown ratings-fodder. So the story is easy to read and compelling without being overdramatic or full of hyperbole. As for the events of the story, well, they are both fascinating, heartbreaking, hilarious, and sometimes, simply insane. Varian Fry is a hero, and his story was well worth reading.

[Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides · Rating 3 out of 5]

More like looked through, to compare to the previous version, Surrender on Demand. This has some minor factual corrections and additions, but it lacks an index. (This edition does, anyway. I can't speak to later ones.)

If I were in a position to only read one, I'd read Surrender on Demand. If I had access to both, and were only reading for interest or curiosity, I'd look at Assignment: Rescue to see the minor updates. But I get the impression that Surrender is the better read.

[Marilyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Varian Fry sent to France in 1940 by American Emergency Rescue Committee with a list of a thousand or more names of artists, writers, musicians, scientists, professors, political figures that the Germans wanted to arrest through Article 19 which stated that the French (Vichy) government must "surrender on demand" all refugees from the Greater German Reich including Germans, Austrians, Czechs, Poles.
He obtained official exit documents for some and had them escape through Pyrenees to Spain and by boat to Northern Africa.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the interesting true account of how American Varian Fry helped rescue thousands of Europeans who were hunted by the Nazis after the Nazi occupation of Europe. Fry was sent to Marseilles, France in 1940 to head the American Rescue Center which was charged with getting as many of Europe's great artists and intellectuals out of Europe as possible. For thirteen months, Varian and his staff worked diligently to locate and transport these people to safety. In late 1941, he was forced to return to the United States.

[Marcia Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book and historical account of what happened in France before and during the Second World War. Sad to think of all the great artists and writers, scientists, etc. that were lost to the world be-
cause of the evil in some people's minds! The book was an easy read and can be read in an evening. Loved it!

[Cince · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think Assignment Rescue an autobiography by Varian Fry is amazing it starts out with Varian Fry going to Merceilles to try and help the people in trouble by the nazis. He goes through a series of challenges throughout his campaign almost getting caught by the nazis multiple times. And this is why I like this book because it's a true story that has a lot of action.

[Rachel N · Rating 2 out of 5]

Intriguing story, from the perspective of one very involved American, of the rescue of refugee artists from France during the German occupation. Writing style is hard to follow. Readers, unless familiar with French towns & 1940s artists, will get lost in the innumerable names of places & people.

[Connie Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story is amazing. The men and women that helped all the refugees were so unselfish. However this was not an easy reading book for me. It seemed more like a text book and it was hard to keep track of all the people. I did like to learn about it though it was very informative.

[Carolyn Halliday · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book after reading the novel Flight Portfolio because I was curious about how much of the novel was fictionalized. Written at a young level, the autobiography is a fast, interesting read.

[C.A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

My seventh grade history teacher gave me this book because the authors his last name (duh) and because I was obsessed with books about the Holocaust.

[Cristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting autobiography about WWII and the Holocaust.