The Defiant Idealist

<p><strong>The Defiant Idealist: The True Story of Varian Fry the American Who Smuggled Europe's Greatest Minds from the Gestapo</strong></p><p><strong>In 1940 the Nazis sought to silence Europe's soul. One American journalist refused to let them.</strong></p><p>When France fell the greatest artists writers and scientists of the continent-including <strong>Marc Chagall</strong> <strong>Hannah Arendt</strong> and <strong>Max Ernst</strong>-were trapped in the Vichy port of Marseille marked for death by the Gestapo. Their only hope was Varian Fry a 32-year-old classicist who arrived on a three-week tourist visa with a short list of people to save.</p><p>Fry quickly realized official rescue was a myth. Defying both the hostile Vichy regime and his own indifferent American State Department he transformed himself into the head of a clandestine underground network. Operating from a lavish safe house the Villa Air-Bel he pioneered the use of <strong>forged documents</strong> <strong>black-market funding</strong> and <strong>treacherous smuggling routes</strong> through the Pyrenees.</p><p>Over thirteen months Fry and his small eclectic team fought bureaucracy espionage and betrayal to secure the lives of approximately 2000 individuals-the intellectual vanguard of the 20th century. Approx.170 pages 29400 word count</p>