Varian's War
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Varian's War
''Varian's War'' (aka ''Varian's War: The Forgotten Hero'') is a 2001 joint Canadian/American/United Kingdom film made-for-television drama. The film was written and directed by Lionel Chetwynd, based on the life and wartime exploits of Varian Fry who saved more than 2,000 Jewish artists from Vichy France, the conquered ally of Nazi Germany. ''Varian's War'' stars William Hurt, heading an all-star ensemble cast of Julia Ormond, Matt Craven, Maury Chaykin, Alan Arkin and Lynn Redgrave. Plot While in Berlin during ''Kristallnacht'' in 1938, journalist Varian Fry witnesses the Nazis' brutal treatment of Jews. He was helpless and physically sick as the SA brown-shirts clubbed their victims to the ground. The experience left him with a resolve to do something to help the Jews. Back in the United States, Fry begins to canvass his influential friends and acquaintances, only to find indifference or even antisemitism. Learning that the Nazis have targeted artists and intelligentsia, ...
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Lionel Chetwynd
Lionel Chetwynd (born January 29, 1940) is a British-American screenwriter, director and producer. Life and career Lionel Chetwynd was born to a Jewish family in Hackney, London, the son of Betty (née Dion) and Peter Chetwynd. His family moved to Canada when he was eight years old. Problems within his dysfunctional family led him to quit school at the age of 14. Chetwynd returned the following year but was promptly expelled. He then enlisted in the Canadian Army. After serving with The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada, Chetwynd turned his life around. He walked into Sir George Williams University — now Montreal's Concordia University — and waited two hours to meet its principal, Henry F. Hall, who had a reputation for giving students a second chance. After a battery of tests, Chetwynd received conditional admittance as a mature student. Chetwynd became an honours student in philosophy and economics. He also championed Sir George Williams University on tele ...
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Nazism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Nazi Germany. During Hitler's rise to power in 1930s Europe, it was frequently referred to as Hitlerism (german: Hitlerfaschismus). The later related term "neo-Nazism" is applied to other far-right groups with similar ideas which formed after the Second World War. Nazism is a form of fascism, with disdain for liberal democracy and the parliamentary system. It incorporates a dictatorship, fervent antisemitism, anti-communism, scientific racism, and the use of eugenics into its creed. Its extreme nationalism originated in pan-Germanism and the ethno-nationalist '' Völkisch'' movement which had been a prominent aspect of German nationalism since the late 19th century, and it was strongly influenced by the paramilitary groups that emerged af ...
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Waitstill Sharp
Waitstill Hastings Sharp (1 May 1902– 25 February 1983) was a Unitarian minister who was involved in humanitarian and relief work in Czechoslovakia and Southern Europe during World War II. In 2005, Sharp and his first wife Martha were named by Yad Vashem as Righteous among the Nations, the second and third of five Americans to receive this honor. Early life and education Sharp was born in Boston on May 1, 1902, son of Grace Hastings and naturalist, author, and professor Dallas Lore Sharp. Through his mother, he is a descendant of Thomas Hastings, who came from the East Anglia region of England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634. Sharp graduated from Boston University with an undergraduate degree in Economics and English in 1924,Ancestry.com. U.S., School Yearbooks, 1880–2012 atabase on-line Provo, UT, US: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. from Harvard Law School with an LL.B. in 1926, and with an M.A. from Harvard University in 1931. On June 13, 1928, he marrie ...
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Hiram Bingham IV
Hiram "Harry" Bingham IV (July 17, 1903 – January 12, 1988) was an American diplomat. He served as a Vice Consul in Marseilles, France, during World War II, and, along with Varian Fry, helped over 2,500 Jews to flee from France as Nazi forces advanced. Early life Bingham was one of seven sons of former Governor of Connecticut and U.S. Senator Hiram Bingham III and his first wife, Alfreda Mitchell, heiress of the Tiffany and Co. fortune through her maternal grandfather Charles L. Tiffany. His father was also the first American to explore the Inca ruins at Machu Picchu. His great-grandfather Hiram Bingham I and grandfather Hiram Bingham II were among the first Protestant missionaries to the Kingdom of Hawaii. Bingham attended the Groton School and graduated from Yale University in 1925. Career Foreign service Bingham served in Kobe, Japan, as a civilian secretary in the United States Embassy. He worked part-time as a schoolteacher. He traveled to India and Egypt before re ...
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Consul (representative)
A consul is an official representative of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, as well as to facilitate trade and friendship between the people of the two countries. A consul is distinguished from an ambassador, the latter being a representative from one head of state to another, but both have a form of immunity. There can be only one ambassador from one country to another, representing the first country's head of state to that of the second, and their duties revolve around diplomatic relations between the two countries; however, there may be several consuls, one in each of several major cities, providing assistance with bureaucratic issues to both the citizens of the consul's own country traveling or living abroad and to the citizens of the country in which the consul resides who wish to travel to or trade with the consul's country. A less common usage is an administrative con ...
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Metropolitan France
Metropolitan France (french: France métropolitaine or ''la Métropole''), also known as European France (french: Territoire européen de la France) is the area of France which is geographically in Europe. This collective name for the European regions of France is used in everyday life in France but has no administrative meaning. Indeed, the overseas regions have exactly the same administrative status as the metropolitan regions. Metropolitan France comprises mainland France and Corsica, as well as nearby islands in the Atlantic Ocean, the English Channel (french: la Manche), and the Mediterranean Sea. In contrast, overseas France is the collective name for all the French territories outside Europe. Metropolitan and overseas France together form the French Republic. Metropolitan France accounts for 82.0% of the land territory, 3.3% of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ), and 95.9% of the population of the French Republic. Some small parts of France (e.g. Cerdanya) are a part ...
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Zone Libre
The ''zone libre'' (, ''free zone'') was a partition of the French metropolitan territory during World War II, established at the Second Armistice at Compiègne on 22 June 1940. It lay to the south of the demarcation line and was administered by the French government of Marshal Philippe Pétain based in Vichy, in a relatively unrestricted fashion. To the north lay the ''zone occupée'' (" occupied zone") in which the powers of Vichy France were severely limited. In November 1942, the ''zone libre'' was invaded by the German and Italian armies in ''Case Anton'', as a response to Operation Torch, the Allied landings in North Africa. Thenceforth, the ''zone libre'' and ''zone occupée'' were renamed the ''zone sud'' (southern zone) and ''zone nord'' (northern zone) respectively. From then on both were under German military administration. Origins of the ''zone libre'' On 22 June 1940, after the Battle of France, Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, representing Nazi Germany, and General Char ...
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Marseille
Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern France, it is located on the coast of the Gulf of Lion, part of the Mediterranean Sea, near the mouth of the Rhône river. Its inhabitants are called ''Marseillais''. Marseille is the second most populous city in France, with 870,731 inhabitants in 2019 (Jan. census) over a municipal territory of . Together with its suburbs and exurbs, the Marseille metropolitan area, which extends over , had a population of 1,873,270 at the Jan. 2019 census, the third most populated in France after those of Paris and Lyon. The cities of Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, and 90 suburban municipalities have formed since 2016 the Aix-Marseille-Provence Metropolis, an Indirect election, indirectly elected Métropole, metropolitan authority now in charge of wider metropo ...
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Camp Des Milles
The Camp des Milles was a French internment camp, opened in September 1939, in a former tile factory near the village of Les Milles, part of the commune of Aix-en-Provence (Bouches-du-Rhône).Guénaël LemoueeCamp des Milles : la mémoire de la déportation '' La Provence'', 10 September 2012 In October 2015, the site was chosen by UNESCO as the headquarters for its new Chair of Education for Citizenship, Human Sciences and Shared Memories. Overview History The camp was first used to intern Germans and ex-Austrians living in the Marseille area, and by June 1940, some 3,500 artists and intellectuals were detained there.Aliette de BroquaAyrault au mémorial du camp des Milles ''Le Figaro'', 10/09/2012Olivier BertrandCamp des Milles : «Parti sans laisser d’adresse» '' Libération'', 10 July 2012 Inmates included men of letters such as Fritz Brugel, Lion Feuchtwanger, William Herzog, Alfred Kantorowicz, Golo Mann, Walter Hasenclever, scientists such as Nobel Prize laureate Ott ...
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Lion Feuchtwanger
Lion Feuchtwanger (; 7 July 1884 – 21 December 1958) was a German Jewish novelist and playwright. A prominent figure in the literary world of Weimar Germany, he influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht. Feuchtwanger's Judaism and fierce criticism of the National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party, years before it assumed power, ensured that he would be a target of government-sponsored persecution after Adolf Hitler's appointment as chancellor of Germany in January 1933. Following a brief period of internment in France and a harrowing escape from Continental Europe, he found asylum in the United States, where he died in 1958. Life and career Ancestry Feuchtwanger's Jewish ancestors originated from the Middle Franconian city of Feuchtwangen; following a pogrom in 1555, it had expelled all its resident Jews. Some of the expellees subsequently settled in Fürth, where they were called the Feuchtwangers, meaning those from Feuchtwangen. Feuchtwanger's ...
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Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt () (October 11, 1884November 7, 1962) was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four terms in office, making her the longest-serving first lady of the United States. Roosevelt served as United States Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from 1945 to 1952, and in 1948 she was given a standing ovation by the assembly upon their adoption of the Universal Declaration. President Harry S. Truman later called her the "First Lady of the World" in tribute to her human rights achievements. Roosevelt was a member of the prominent American Roosevelt and Livingston families and a niece of President Theodore Roosevelt. She had an unhappy childhood, having suffered the deaths of both parents and one of her brothers at a young age. At 15, she attended Allenswood Boarding Academy in London and was deeply influenced by its hea ...
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Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall; russian: link=no, Марк Заха́рович Шага́л ; be, Марк Захаравіч Шагал . (born Moishe Shagal; 28 March 1985) was a Russian-French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with several major art movement, artistic styles and created works in a wide range of artistic formats, including painting, drawings, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramics, tapestries and fine art prints. Born in the Russian Empire, today Belarus, he was of Russian Jews, Jewish origin. Before World War I, he travelled between Saint Petersburg, Paris, and Berlin. During this period he created his own mixture and style of modern art based on his idea of Eastern Europe and Jewish folk culture. He spent the wartime years in Belarus, becoming one of the country's most distinguished artists and a member of the modernist avant-garde, founding the Vitebsk Museum of Modern Art, Vitebsk Arts College before leaving again for Paris in 1923 ...
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