Great piece, which I just found now. Another book about Fry available in some libraries is A Hero of Our Own: The Story of Varian Fry, by Sheila Isenberg.
1
I think most educated people, educated reasonably that is about World War II and the early efforts to publicize Hitler's pathology or save Jewish refugees from destruction, know Varian Fry's name. I knew it, as I know of the American Friends Service Committee, American Red Cross, and other groups or individuals who performed outsized service in a difficult environment including a largely indifferent climate in America.
To say Fry remains relatively little known is not correct, therefore.
Also, Fry has a lengthy Wikipedia entry, supplemented with numerous images, which lists various commemorative projects and the existence of a Varian Fry Institute.
Second, the reference, twice, to current policies of Donald Trump in this article is completely unwarranted. Aside from the disparity in the relative circumstances, this story is supposed to be a news item, isn't it? Yet the parenthetical references to Trump's plan to stop protections viz. deportation of young immigrants, as well as the last sentence of the article, make it a comment piece.
Is there no distinction in this newspaper anymore between news and comment? No wonder Trump dislikes this newspaper, I don't blame him, and I say that without necessarily agreeing with his policies referred to.
And can someone tell me why the Christian name Varian destines someone for espionage? What does that mean, what am I missing here?
To say Fry remains relatively little known is not correct, therefore.
Also, Fry has a lengthy Wikipedia entry, supplemented with numerous images, which lists various commemorative projects and the existence of a Varian Fry Institute.
Second, the reference, twice, to current policies of Donald Trump in this article is completely unwarranted. Aside from the disparity in the relative circumstances, this story is supposed to be a news item, isn't it? Yet the parenthetical references to Trump's plan to stop protections viz. deportation of young immigrants, as well as the last sentence of the article, make it a comment piece.
Is there no distinction in this newspaper anymore between news and comment? No wonder Trump dislikes this newspaper, I don't blame him, and I say that without necessarily agreeing with his policies referred to.
And can someone tell me why the Christian name Varian destines someone for espionage? What does that mean, what am I missing here?
1
Once again, a comment that dilutes what Trump is doing.
2
A saint, a hero, brave when others werent.
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Thanks for this timely article. The excellent exhibit at The Jewish Museum in 1997-98, "Operation Rescue," introduced me to this remarkable man and the small group of cohorts who organized around him. Although I will never know the details of my father's escape from Paris to the U.S. via Lisbon, (on the S.S.Excalibur, in December 1941) the stories of the refugees helped by Fry offer a likely semblance. Varian Fry represents the best of humanity.
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What I find somewhat disturbing is that the valiant efforts of Varian Fry resulted in the rescue of mostly notable Jews among the 2,000 successes. Similarly, efforts by other rescuers - the Transfer Agreement and other exchange programs - appear to have resulted in the rescue of the more favorable. This left the majority of Jews ripe for decimation by the Nazis...
The profound anguish Varian Fry experienced, in having to make choices about who and how many could be offered assistance, is considered a key factor in his untimely death. The strict limit imposed on how many Jews would be allowed into the U.S. was a direct result of the refusal of the U.S. government, at the highest levels, to allow in more than a small fraction of those needing help.
This nation, taken from the indigenous tribes and built upon the backs of slaves, often and loudly proclaims itself as "the greatest". One of it's greatest achievements, albeit one that is kept in the shadows, has been in shutting its doors to so many who were/are in dire need of help.
If the limits placed upon Fry cause those reading this article to be troubled, I hope these same individuals are, today, doing what they can to create a more open and just society.
This nation, taken from the indigenous tribes and built upon the backs of slaves, often and loudly proclaims itself as "the greatest". One of it's greatest achievements, albeit one that is kept in the shadows, has been in shutting its doors to so many who were/are in dire need of help.
If the limits placed upon Fry cause those reading this article to be troubled, I hope these same individuals are, today, doing what they can to create a more open and just society.
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A truly righteous man, a mensch , from Bergen County yet !!!
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Thank you NY Times for publishing this story. In a world that seems to be going insane again- where prominent Americans once again are apologizing for, and excusing, overt Nazis, and trying to claim that those who oppose them as being equally bad- it's inspiring to read the stories of those who saw through the lies and the madness, and did the Right Thing.
I'm certain this is one of many stories like this, and it would be a Good Thing for the NYT to publish more like this. Otherwise, we may end up with a repeat of World War Ii, only this time with a far more destructive arsenal used. It might happen anyway, but we should see if we can head it off. The alternative are horrors worse than most people's visions of Hell.
I'm certain this is one of many stories like this, and it would be a Good Thing for the NYT to publish more like this. Otherwise, we may end up with a repeat of World War Ii, only this time with a far more destructive arsenal used. It might happen anyway, but we should see if we can head it off. The alternative are horrors worse than most people's visions of Hell.
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Thanks for the well written tribute to a deserving man! I do wonder what Mr. Fry would say about many US college campuses today, where the SJW/BDS crowd lead anti-Semitic chants similar to those heard in Nazi Germany. They question Jewish student government members regarding their loyalties and attack Jewish student distributing pro-Israel information. The left used to promote tolerance and understanding. That was long ago.
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Varian Fry, Tommy by choice, a modest man - with nothing to be modest about. Green-Wood honors, The New York Times now honors...
Ginia Bellafante writes of history and our times, with perspective and warmly focused on the terror of our time: intolerance.
We have a new leader - who follows our worst instincts. We have a new leader that panders to the least and most troubled among us.
We have a new leader, a shriveled man that leads by following, provoking, arousing us to anger... and to fear.
We have nothing but fear itself to fear, said Roosevelt. Or was that Churchill?
I say we have ourselves to fear, for by doing nothing, we invite Trump to lunge this way and that - when we should be asking the latest do nothings in the congress to do what Barbara Jordan, Liz and Peter Rodino did ... that allowed the GOP leadership of an earlier day to send the message, and a president to San Clemente.
Varian Fry is not the man we need now. We need Archibald Cox. We need Eliot Richardson. We need Judge Sirica. We need Ben Sasse to speak, and John McCain to act. We need our students on campuses everywhere to revolt against astronomical costs - and bloated faculties that no longer teach what's always needed. The tenure system may have reached its potential. Bloat rules.
Latin was Fry's subject. Who learns Latin or Greek? Who reads Edmund Burke?
Ginia Bellafante smells the odor of Hitler in Queens come to 1600.
She may not get it, but she says it.
And I say it my way. Out!!
Ginia Bellafante writes of history and our times, with perspective and warmly focused on the terror of our time: intolerance.
We have a new leader - who follows our worst instincts. We have a new leader that panders to the least and most troubled among us.
We have a new leader, a shriveled man that leads by following, provoking, arousing us to anger... and to fear.
We have nothing but fear itself to fear, said Roosevelt. Or was that Churchill?
I say we have ourselves to fear, for by doing nothing, we invite Trump to lunge this way and that - when we should be asking the latest do nothings in the congress to do what Barbara Jordan, Liz and Peter Rodino did ... that allowed the GOP leadership of an earlier day to send the message, and a president to San Clemente.
Varian Fry is not the man we need now. We need Archibald Cox. We need Eliot Richardson. We need Judge Sirica. We need Ben Sasse to speak, and John McCain to act. We need our students on campuses everywhere to revolt against astronomical costs - and bloated faculties that no longer teach what's always needed. The tenure system may have reached its potential. Bloat rules.
Latin was Fry's subject. Who learns Latin or Greek? Who reads Edmund Burke?
Ginia Bellafante smells the odor of Hitler in Queens come to 1600.
She may not get it, but she says it.
And I say it my way. Out!!
6
The youngest member of Varian Fry's team, Justus Rosenberg, is today a professor at Bard College, carrying a full teaching load at the age of 96. A year or so ago, I suggested to a friend that she get in touch with him, as she and her parents had escaped from France by ship with Fry's aid. (If you go the Holocaust Museum website and search for the SS Paul Lemerle, which left Marseille for Martinique in March 1941, you will see a photograph of the May Day celebration on deck, with my friend, aged one, perched on her father's shoulders.) He responded immediately and even remembered details of her parents' case. "Gussie" Rosenberg remained in France throughout the war, working with the Resistance. Earlier this year, France gave him its highest decoration.
An essential book on the subject of Fry's work is by one of the group, the Mary Jayne Gold: "Crossroads Marseilles 1940." Out of print, it richly deserves to be reissued. Lisa Fittko's "Escape Through the Pyrenees" is also valuable. She and her husband pioneered the "F Route" (F for Fittko), leading groups of refugees from France into Spain. In 1941, she went to the gendarmerie in Cassis with her husband and two-year-niece to try to get their residence permits extended. A furious refusal from the chief, interrupted by the niece, who pointed to the bandage on the man's finger and said, "M. le Gendarme, you have a boo-boo, does it hurt?" He sat her on his knee, patted her head, stamped their papers, and wished them well.
An essential book on the subject of Fry's work is by one of the group, the Mary Jayne Gold: "Crossroads Marseilles 1940." Out of print, it richly deserves to be reissued. Lisa Fittko's "Escape Through the Pyrenees" is also valuable. She and her husband pioneered the "F Route" (F for Fittko), leading groups of refugees from France into Spain. In 1941, she went to the gendarmerie in Cassis with her husband and two-year-niece to try to get their residence permits extended. A furious refusal from the chief, interrupted by the niece, who pointed to the bandage on the man's finger and said, "M. le Gendarme, you have a boo-boo, does it hurt?" He sat her on his knee, patted her head, stamped their papers, and wished them well.
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My father was his doctor in Ridgefield, CT (where he lived and was a teacher at the high school) and always said he never got the credit he deserved. Did a lot for humanity. Nice to see an article on him in the NYT -
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Varian Fry’s “invaluable coconspirator” in these rescue efforts was the brilliant economist Albert Hirschman. Their remarkable exploits are vividly (and often hilariously) detailed in Jeremy Adelman’s haunting biography of Hirschman, Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman (Princeton University Press, 2013).
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This man is the type of person that should have a statue, to honor his incredible bravery.
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The demonizing of homosexuals, the purging of the military of "undesirables," the victimization of ethnic groups by "well-bred" citizens sounds chillingly familiar in today's America.
In the 1930s, most people in Germany and the US either kept their heads down or cheered when the Nazis did their dirty work. Mr. Fry is a beacon for people of goodwill today. Silence and lack of action put in peril not only the demonized Muslims, transgendered, and undocumented immigrants, but the very existence of our precious experiment in democracy.
In the 1930s, most people in Germany and the US either kept their heads down or cheered when the Nazis did their dirty work. Mr. Fry is a beacon for people of goodwill today. Silence and lack of action put in peril not only the demonized Muslims, transgendered, and undocumented immigrants, but the very existence of our precious experiment in democracy.
14
We owe a great debt to Varian Fry, A Righteous Gentile, who risked his life to save thousands of Jews. What amazes me is that he comes from a very anti-Semitic town in NJ, Ridgewood. This is the town upon which the movie, A Gentleman's Agreement, was based. The town has a history of discrimination and even to this day has a restricted country club, Ridgewood Country Club. Perhaps the yearly visits to his grandfather in Brooklyn, opened his eyes beyond this parochial and provincial milieu. In light of this background, his achievements and bravery are all the more noteworthy. May his memory be a blessing.
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Not only does no good deed go unpunished it also goes unnoticed.
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Varian Fry was from Ridgewood, NJ. Ridgewood has honored him and named a street after him in a ceremony in 2005.
8
In 1975, as the editor-in-chief of The Gauntlet, the student newspaper of the Teaneck-Hackensack (NJ) campus of Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU), I and my staff began a campaign to have the university offer a full scholarship to a Chilean dissident student who had defied the regime of the dictator Augusto Pinochet. His courage in speaking out against the abuses of freedom and multiple murders committed by that junta, which had taken power by force from the democratically elected administration of Dr. Salvador Allende in 1973, led to his violent arrest, imprisonment, and torture in Pinochet's prison system. We at The Gauntlet had learned of this Chilean student's dire situation from a talk delivered by his sister, who lived in New York City, at the university. (I am withholding the name of the student and his sister out of respect for their privacy, as privacy is one of the sacred rights in our democracy.) Dr. Samuel Bieber, then serving as FDU's provost, agreed, to his everlasting credit, to authorize the full scholarship. The student arrived at FDU in the spring of 1977. He is currently a distinguished faculty member at a NYC high school. Obtaining his freedom was the proudest act of my now 62-year-old life. Evil must always be met by defiant decency, as Mr. Fry, who was born in NYC but grew up in Ridgewood, NJ, accomplished against the Nazis. May he be remembered forever.
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I first learned of Varian Fry from the TV dramatization 'Varian's War' with William Hurt playing Mr. Fry.
It plays a bit with the characters but includes others such as Marian Davenport (Julia Ormond) who also played a key roll. Mostly unsung heroes who risked their lives for us all.
It plays a bit with the characters but includes others such as Marian Davenport (Julia Ormond) who also played a key roll. Mostly unsung heroes who risked their lives for us all.
13
Ginia Bellafante writes and reports with wonder, grace and wisdom of times past and present.
Varian Fry by Tommy or by God, deserves the most exquisite. And he got it here.
To whom may we turn today? Who will free Nadia's people from ISIS? Who will challenge a confused and often evil president?
FDR turned the boats away. His wife ignored. HST authorized two A-bombs and ignored The Franck Report by Nobel James Franck who led The Manhattan Project. He was the best of the brightest. They saved us and they've doomed us. Both. And he knew this.
Franck also rose in 1933. He smelled the odor we now smell again.
Ginia nails it. Fry nailed it. Franck nailed it.
Let's nail it, now, before we relive Hitler and worse.
Varian Fry by Tommy or by God, deserves the most exquisite. And he got it here.
To whom may we turn today? Who will free Nadia's people from ISIS? Who will challenge a confused and often evil president?
FDR turned the boats away. His wife ignored. HST authorized two A-bombs and ignored The Franck Report by Nobel James Franck who led The Manhattan Project. He was the best of the brightest. They saved us and they've doomed us. Both. And he knew this.
Franck also rose in 1933. He smelled the odor we now smell again.
Ginia nails it. Fry nailed it. Franck nailed it.
Let's nail it, now, before we relive Hitler and worse.
14
I attended yesterday's very impressive symposium at Green-Wood Cemetery. For me, now there are topics I would like to learn more of. One is the illegal clandestine crossing of the Pyrenees led by the Fittkos. Another is to learn more about the circle(s) who helped Fry. & yet another is how the fascist Spanish regime of Franco helped/hindered the escape of anti-Nazis coupled with the government's assistance to Nazis who wanted to escape Europe after the fall of the Nazi regime. Feel that the role of fascist Spain is so unrecognized. Nearly 3/4 of a century & still unknowns of such magnitude.
12
Extraordinary achievement.
9
I think it is cool that I learned of Varian Fry's heroic work from a bus shelter in Berlin. Casual Berlin tourists at least know the name Varian Fry because there is a street named for him at Potsdamer Platz. Germans do not hide their shameful past but try to learn from it.
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The U.S. State Department makes a constant effort to hide its role in lying about quotas being filled (when they were not) to keep escaping people out of the country in WW2....most often returned to Germany where they met their death. Their blood is on the hands of the U.S. State Department.
8
Inspiring. Yes, both men today would be trying to help the Rohingya fleeing in the midst of another genocide. And, over these past decades, they would have tried to help in the Balkans and Africa and anywhere evil ran rampant.
11
These fine men's biographies ought to be on our schools' reading lists. Perhaps learning about the heroic actions of real people could help counter the adulation our teens hold for animated and game action figures, who risk nothing because they are not real.
20
Once again, and always, I love The New York Times, today.
The unsung find voice. The Greenwood Cemetery finds fame, yet again.
Wonderful piece, Gina.
Just what we needed today.
Dark Times Again.
The unsung find voice. The Greenwood Cemetery finds fame, yet again.
Wonderful piece, Gina.
Just what we needed today.
Dark Times Again.
22
So good, Ginia B.
Just terrific!!!
Just terrific!!!
3
Another example of a person who did the right thing as opposed to what is expedient or comfortable. We need more exposure and celebration if these heroes of yesterday and, especially, today as a contrast to our current crop of public officials who seem mostly interested in maintaining their positions and raising money.
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I went to the symposium at Green-Wood. The panelists were interesting and the musical interlude, six songs by Alma Mahler-Werfel, one of the people he saved, was gorgeous. I learned one surprising fact - immigration had been handled by the Department of Labor (Frances Perkins) but was transferred to the State Department which greatly limited the number of refugees. I had assumed it was always handled by State.
22
I was there, too, and what a beautiful dedication to Mr. Fry. Thank you Green-Wood!
11
I first learned of Varian Fry's righteous work in 2001 when I read Sheila Isenberg's "A Hero of Our Own: The Story of Varian Fry." I highly recommend it. The New York Times summarized it well in its review:
“Varian Fry was the American Schindler. He even had a list. Sheila Isenberg’s book A HERO OF OUR OWN helps rescue Fry from obscurity. And with its stories of desperate exiles, menacing Nazis, forged documents and midnight escapes through the mountains, it reads at times like the script for some old Hollywood movie. Think Warner Brothers in the 1940′s. Think CASABLANCA (even down to the transit visas for Portugal). All that’s missing is Peter Lorre.”
Sorry I missed the symposium on this great, unassuming man.
“Varian Fry was the American Schindler. He even had a list. Sheila Isenberg’s book A HERO OF OUR OWN helps rescue Fry from obscurity. And with its stories of desperate exiles, menacing Nazis, forged documents and midnight escapes through the mountains, it reads at times like the script for some old Hollywood movie. Think Warner Brothers in the 1940′s. Think CASABLANCA (even down to the transit visas for Portugal). All that’s missing is Peter Lorre.”
Sorry I missed the symposium on this great, unassuming man.
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The Holocaust Museum in DC created an exhibit on Varian Fry as its first temporary exhibit at the time of its opening in 1994. As US Consul General in Marseille, I worked to assist the Museum in its preparations and research.
Some time after I left Marseille, the city renamed the plaza outside the Consulate as "Place Varian Fry." So his heroism is not entirely forgotten.
Some time after I left Marseille, the city renamed the plaza outside the Consulate as "Place Varian Fry." So his heroism is not entirely forgotten.
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Thank you, Ann K for emphasizing the excellent temporary exhibit at the Holocaust Museum on Fry's activities.
Among the fascinating highlights was the documentation of State Department memos, on display, showing the effort to thwart Fry. Cordell Hull must have been quite a piece of work. Fry would write to Eleanor Roosevelt telling her how getting Jews out of France was being blocked by State. Then we would see the letter from Eleanor to highlighting what State needed to do to help, sometimes Eleanor would have to keep at it until she wore some official down, and the cycle would repeat.
Having urged Fry to take the job seemed to know she had to help. Occasionally she had to push FDR himself to intervene.
The difference between proactive officials using their creativity to help and foot-draggers is remarkable.
You wonder as much about how US Officials then and now lived with themselves thereafter in the face of thwarting life and death choices, as you were inspired at how this young and inexperienced man could act in the face of evil when only he for the United States could.
Among the fascinating highlights was the documentation of State Department memos, on display, showing the effort to thwart Fry. Cordell Hull must have been quite a piece of work. Fry would write to Eleanor Roosevelt telling her how getting Jews out of France was being blocked by State. Then we would see the letter from Eleanor to highlighting what State needed to do to help, sometimes Eleanor would have to keep at it until she wore some official down, and the cycle would repeat.
Having urged Fry to take the job seemed to know she had to help. Occasionally she had to push FDR himself to intervene.
The difference between proactive officials using their creativity to help and foot-draggers is remarkable.
You wonder as much about how US Officials then and now lived with themselves thereafter in the face of thwarting life and death choices, as you were inspired at how this young and inexperienced man could act in the face of evil when only he for the United States could.
9
I think the U.S. State Department is proud of its disgusting role. They have no shame or regrets.
3
I believe it was in the fall of 2010 I attended The David S. Wyman Institute's conference on the American response to the Holocaust whose subject that year was Varian Fry and Hiram Bingham and the work they did. It was the first time I heard of Fry and his work. I believe there is still an article about him and Bingham on the Institute's website (wymaninstitute.org)
25
Fry is honored at Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among Nations, for his work to help people escape the clutches of Nazi Germany. So are Martha and Rev. Waitstill Sharp, a Unitarian couple, who worked in Czechoslovakia and then the south of France & Spain & Portugal to facilitate escapes. The Sharps were sent to Europe to set up a Unitarian version of the Quakers' American Friends Service Committee. Fry arrived after the Sharps had set up shop in the south of France, and they worked together for a time.
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For more information on Fry (who also saved André Breton and the Cuban surrealist painter Wifredo Lam) I recommend visiting the website villa air-bel 1940.fr named after a rambling old house where Fry carried out his daring rescue plans. It also housed the Breton family and was the center of artistic activities and free thinking discussions by the persecuted artists, musicians, writers etc. who had gathered in Marseille either to hide or to be helped by Fry in getting visas. Fry's Marseille story is on par with the best espionnage literature only it is documented fact. Also the website is a visual pleasure.
32
I never heard of Varian Fry before reading this article. Just as I had never heard of Sir Nickolas Winton before he died. Just as I had never heard about, the very great, the very brave and just, and still living in Paris at 92, Adolfo Kaminsky! They are ALL MY HEROES! Along with other great men and women who risked there lives to save other human beings from the HORROR.
Varian Fry will no longer have his bravery unsung or forgotten--not ever! He is added to my very long list of human beings which I celebrate for not only their bravery in the face of sheer madness, but for knowing and understanding what it means to be a REAL human being and remaining humane in the face of great danger and death.
Varian, can you hear me singing for you now in heaven? Bless your soul. And thank you from the bottom of my heart!
Varian Fry will no longer have his bravery unsung or forgotten--not ever! He is added to my very long list of human beings which I celebrate for not only their bravery in the face of sheer madness, but for knowing and understanding what it means to be a REAL human being and remaining humane in the face of great danger and death.
Varian, can you hear me singing for you now in heaven? Bless your soul. And thank you from the bottom of my heart!
84
They are my heroes too! One more you might not have heard. Ambassador Luis Martins de Souza Dantas, in charge of the Brazilian diplomatic mission in France, illegally granted diplomatic visas to enter Brazil to hundreds of people who were trying to escape from the horrors of nazism. He saved about 800 people from extermination. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/luiz-martins-de-souza-dantas
45
These amazing people almost forgotten now , but credit NYT's for this biography of a true saint. I also learned of Adolfo Kaminsky recently from your illustrated story and recent interview of that saint in Paris at 92.
These and all the others in this exclusive "club" , should be recorded and bound together to enable all of us to identify the real heros of this and other historic events.
CT has is right.........." they are ALL MY HEROES"
These and all the others in this exclusive "club" , should be recorded and bound together to enable all of us to identify the real heros of this and other historic events.
CT has is right.........." they are ALL MY HEROES"
35
A true hero-as was Brigham.
President 45, however, may see him as a "loser"
President 45, however, may see him as a "loser"
18
Conservatives have a habit of valuing loyalty over integrity (e.g., leaking evidence of wrongdoing is worse than the wrongdoing), so troublemakers are rarely celebrated. Can you imagine President Reagan giving a tribute to anti-Nazi resistance fighters instead of honoring loyal Nazi soldiers at the military cemetery in Bitburg? Or of Helmut Kohl inviting him to do it?
3
No Trump would not. He is supporting the Constutution. You and the NYT are conflating persecuted Holocaust victims with illegal immigrants. It's truly a terrible injustice to conflate the two.
"President 45" is the real loser--an overaged man-child who only serves his id. HIs fellow Republicans are worse: they would have allied us with the Axis rather than tighten their belts.
4
Thank you for giving this just man his do.
35
A story of a life well-lived and well-served . . . and noteworthy in today's worldwide political climate.
In the article, note the phrase "moral calling."
We already know that America's Beast, its Liar- & Predator-in-Chief, its National Fool & Buffoon, who has no moral compass, also has absolutely no moral calling.
In the article, note the phrase "moral calling."
We already know that America's Beast, its Liar- & Predator-in-Chief, its National Fool & Buffoon, who has no moral compass, also has absolutely no moral calling.
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