Emergency Rescue Committee

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The Emergency Rescue Committee (ERC) was an aid organization for refugees from the Nazi regime in France from 1940 to 1942. The rescue of numerous European intellectuals and artists was coordinated by the American journalist Varian Fry . After his arrest and deportation from Marseille , the ERC was involved in the establishment of the International Rescue Committee .

Foundation, activity

Memorial plaque , Potsdamer Strasse 1, in Berlin-Tiergarten

The ERC was founded in New York in June 1940 on the initiative of a. a. founded by the Austrian emigrants Karl Frank (aka Paul Hagen ) and Joseph Buttinger with the support of Thomas and Erika Mann . The dramatic occasion was the previous military defeat of republican France against the National Socialist German Wehrmacht. In the enforced armistice of June 22, 1940, France was obliged to extradite any person the German authorities requested. Political emigrants from Germany and Austria in particular were in danger of falling into the clutches of the Gestapo and the SS .

From its foundation to the complete occupation of France by German troops at the end of 1942, the ERC helped intellectual opponents of the National Socialists to flee to the USA . The majority of the emigrants were interned and crammed into poorly equipped camps at the beginning of the war and had to fear transfer to concentration camps, torture and death.

The journalist Varian Fry was sent to Marseille by the ERC , where he gathered a staff, including Miriam Davenport , Mary Jayne Gold and, in some cases, those threatened by persecution, such as the writer Hans Sahl and the economist Albert O. Hirschman . Their work ranged from material support to organizing emigration, with legal and illegal means. Papers and visas had to be obtained, berths for ships bought, and secret routes across the Spanish border organized.

For example, the tragic end of the escape of Walter Benjamin , who committed suicide in Spain for fear of being sent back to France, is known. But many personalities owe their lives to the ERC and Varian Fry, over 2,000 in total.

The journey of the Capitaine Paul Lemerle

On March 24, 1941, the ship Capitaine Paul Lemerle hired by the ERC sailed from Marseille to Martinique . It was a converted cargo ship intended to bring European refugees to safety. Above all, there was a group of emigrants on board who had received American visitor visas signed by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt . Among the prominent passengers was Anna Seghers, for example, who worked on drafts of her novel Transit during the crossing . Kristine von Soden writes about the conditions on board:

“With three hundred and fifty passengers with only two cabins and seven beds, this floating nutshell is also catastrophically overcrowded. Poorly made bed frames were maneuvered into the airless and lightless cargo holds for the 'rabble', recounts Claude Lévi-Strauss in 1955 in Tristes Tropiques . The French ethnologist is on board alongside other unwelcome celebrities, including the Russian revolutionary Victor Serge and the surrealist painter Wilfredo Lam. "

Even the captain of the ship to the passengers have warned that, Martinique the shame of France ', and so the refugees were immediately after their arrival at the camp Pointe Rouge interned, and only holders of French passports were allowed during the day for a few hours the bay to Fort Cross-de-France . Some of the passengers were then able to continue their journey from Fort-de-France. On board the Duc D'Aumale , they reached New York on May 21, 1941, as documented in the Ellis Island database using the example of Minna Flake .

Rescued by the ERC (selection)

     

literature

  • Boyer, Paul S. (Ed.): Oxford Companion to United States History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001, 675.
  • Lackner, Herbert : The flight of the poets and thinkers . How Europe's artists and scientists escaped the Nazis. Vienna: Carl Ueberreuter Verlag , 2017. 96–102.
  • Lash, Joseph: Eleanor and Franklin . New York: WW Norton & Company, 1971, 635-637.
  • Weinberg, Sheila: A Hero of Our Own: The Story of Varian Fry . New York: Random House, 2001, passim.

Web links

Commons : Emergency Rescue Committee  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c The Life of Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project: Emergency Rescue Committee , accessed October 14, 2017
  2. ↑ a b c Herbert Lackner : The Flight of Poets and Thinkers , news magazine Profil - issue 15/2015, page 33
  3. ↑ Some information (in French) and pictures about the ship and its passengers during the crossing in March 1941
  4. ↑ Kristine von Soden: "And outside a strange wind is blowing ..." Across the seas into exile. Aviva Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-932338-85-4 , p. 192
  5. ↑ Césaire, Lam, Picasso, ils se sont trouvés!
  6. ↑ a b Jang-Weon Seo: The representation of the return , 2004, limited preview in the Google book search
  7. ↑ a b c Herbert Lackner: The Flight of Poets and Thinkers , news magazine Profil - issue 15/2015, pages 34 to 36
  8. ↑ A vivid description of the flight to Spain and Portugal as well as the role of Varian Frys and the Emergency Rescue Committee can be found in Manfred Flügge: Heinrich Mann. Eine Biographie , 2006, pp. 284-392