The Flight Portfolio by Julie Orringer 4 stars

This novel is based on the true story of Varian Fry, a Harvard educated wasp, who became the hero of Jewish artists, philosophers, writers, musicians, and composers trapped in Nazi occupied Europe.  As a promotion for donations to the American Rescue Committee which sponsored and financed Fry’s activites, Varian commissioned a portfolio of art work from luminaries like Chagall to be auctioned off by the rescue committee in New York. Varian named the portfolio of art “The Flight Portfolio.” The portfolio was taken by the Nazis when they found Lev Silberman, one of the artists in a safe house Varian rented in Marseille.  Silberman was also arrested and detained.  Fry felt responsible for the loss of the portfolio which would have provided funds for more rescues, and he berated himself in front of Danny, one of the rescue subjects.  Danny replied “You saved more than a thousand lives.  There is your flight portfolio.”  That in a nutshell is the story of Varian Fry

Much of the novel is based on actual people and events.  However, some of the characters like Lev Silberman and Grant were likely composites of people Fry knew.  Fry was married to an Ivy League educated wasp a few years older than Varian. Varian loved Eileen as much as he could.  However, he was a closeted homosexual at a time when homosexuality landed people in jail.  There was no acceptance of it in any quarter. Eileen likely knew of Varian’s proclivities and in the book he writes and tells her.  Her response is to ignore the letter. In her social circle such a response was probably typical.  It is likely that after several years of marriage to him, she already knew. During his time in France Fry engaged in his homosexual activities more openly than he could in New York.  He lived with a very attractive homosexual biracial man that bore a likeness to a tall elegant Jewish man at Harvard with whom Varian had a relationship. Lincoln Kirstein was his Harvard lover who went on to found and finance the New York City Ballet (Kirstein’s memoir Mosaic.) Stephane Hessel was a lover he first met in France during his rescue work. (This is based on my research outside the book. It is also referred to in the author’s notes at the end of the novel) Lev Silberman was a composite of the artists Fry was unable to save.

The mission of the rescue committee was to save the soul of Europe.  The U.S. state department was composed of anti-Semites.  Despite the wide availability of U.S. visas for Europeans escaping the Nazis the state department closed the availability of them to the fleeing Jews. Even when they were issued they had time limits that made using them difficult since the recipients had to obtain exit permits which also had time limits. Some people like Albert Einstein who was needed for the war effort were given visas, but other luminaries were not.  Most of them died in the concentration camps.  I personally saw a painting hanging in the Munich museum of art.  Each painting noted the artist’s birth and death dates as well as the places of birth and death.  His place of death was Auschwitz.

Personal information, romantic conflicts as well as other entanglements were likely fiction that was based in part on fact. Grant was likely a composite of Kirstein and Kessel with whom Fry had homosexual relations.  Katznelson and his son Tobias were probably composites as well.  It would not be unheard of for a man to try to smuggle his son out of Europe in the Flight Portfolio by representing him as genius physicist when he was merely a somewhat talented physics student.  What father would not try such a rescue?

The many characters in the book whether real or imagined were well drawn.  Mary Jane and her lover, “Killer” added interest to the book.  Descriptions of Chagall and his wife and their refusal to believe they were in danger was true.  Thankfully, they finally admitted that they needed to flee and did so with Varian’s help.

Grant’s character allowed the author to explore the difficulties of a biracial man “passing.”  Grant who was raised in his mother’s white family household also had some of his black father’s musical ability.  He was dismissed from Columbia’s faculty when he informed them of his racial background upon his return to the states.  He was offered a lesser positon at the New School in an area that was less rigorous than the subject he taught at Columbia.  These events were based on typical reactions in the 1940’s.

From research I did on my own I learned that Varian divorced and remarried.  He had two children with his second wife. After several years of marriage they also divorced.  One of his children admits that he was a homosexual.  However, his sexuality should not diminish his heroism.  Few if any wasps who had the power to change the state department’s attitude did anything to help the Jews who were being murdered by the Nazis.  Varian Fry did.  For that he should be honored many times over.

Fry did not detail the sexual or romantic nature of his close friends with men in his memoir “Surrender On Demand.”  He went on to teach Latin at a private school for fourteen years.  Marino in his biography A Quiet American: The Secret War of Varian Fry draws a connection between his subject’s sexuality and his work. “The skills Fry had developed to cope with and express his deviance from the norm…may have stead him in good stead for the illicit and secret activities he took to so naturally and performed so extraordinarily well in France.”  Orringer believes that :…Fry’s perception of his own difference, and his need to hide it, sensitized him to the plight of others who were persecuted and made to fear for their lives.”

In 1965 Fry assembled the real flight portfolio, a collection of lithographs used to help raise money for the organization which continued to help rescue refugees..  Chagall, Lam, Lipchitz, and Masson were among the contributors.  A copy of them may be seen at the New York City public library.

During his lifetime Fry received little recognition for his work.  The French government awarded him the Legion of Honor in 1967 thanks in part to the efforts of his friend Stephane Hessel.  In 1991 the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council presented Fry posthumously with the Eisenhower Liberation Medal.  In 1994 he became the first American to be honored by Yad Vashem as “Righteous Among the Nations.