Brooklyn, NY 11218
USA
The Savior Of Modern Art: Varian Fry (1907 – 1967)
Saturday, September 9, 2017, 1:00 – 4:00 pm
Commemoration and Symposium At Green-Wood
Green-Wood – 25th Street at 5th Avenue, Brooklyn – Meet inside the Historic Chapel.
Take the “R” train to 25th Street in Brooklyn and walk up the hill one block and into the Cemetery.
Free parking is available.
Cost: $10; free for members of the Green-Wood Historic Fund and members of the Brooklyn Historical Society. Reservations are recommended. To make an online reservation or to find out more information, visit www.green-wood.com/toursevents or call 718-210-3080.
Upon the fiftieth anniversary of his death, Green-Wood proudly hosts a commemoration to honor the heroic legacy of its extraordinary “permanent resident,” Varian Fry.
Varian Fry may well be the most important man you’ve never heard of. Remembered by many as “the Oskar Schindler of the art world,” Fry, a native New Yorker, worked tirelessly to guarantee safe passage for over 2,000 people out of Nazi-occupied France. Among those who owe their lives to Mr. Fry – Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Hannah Arendt and André Breton to name just a few.
With $3,000 strapped to his belt and the backing of the Emergency Rescue Committee, the 33 year-old Varian Fry flew from New York to Europe in August, 1940, to begin one of the least known, but most heroic actions of the twentieth century. Carrying a list of 200 luminaries in the fields of art, science, literature and medicine, Fry began his dangerous rescue of these men and women who had very little hope of surviving.
Visitors are invited to join with renowned authors, historians and experts in the field of humanitarian aid as they discuss who Varian Fry was, what we can learn today from his selfless acts of courage and what his deeds teach us about being human in this world. The presentations and panel discussions will include music by a composer also saved by Fry, Alma Mahler, wife of composer and conductor Gustav Mahler. The afternoon will conclude with a memorial at Fry’s gravesite.
A donation in memory of Barbara Schoppert and Philip Morace has been made to underwrite this program.
