Third place middle school: Tia Stangel

Tia Stangel, an eighth-grader at Glover Middle School, placed third in the 10th annual Eva Lassman Memorial Creative Writing Contest. Here is her essay:

Inspired by His Memory

In dark times such as the Holocaust, the true character of regular people is revealed. Some are shown to be cowards, who turn a blind eye when mass murders are committed just down the road. Others, however, rise to the occasion, putting their own lives on the line to save another. Varian Fry was a man, that despite never being labeled “unsuitable for life,” sacrificed his own safety for those less fortunate. Fry’s story is one that shows how a person who was born with everything can still risk it all for someone who has nothing.

Varian Fry was born in New York City in 1907. He grew up in New Jersey, graduated from Harvard University, and became a journalist. When on a trip to Berlin for his journal, Fry saw Jews being abused by Nazis in broad daylight, and he was deeply disturbed. “Fry, who cared deeply about the well-being of all people, could not comprehend the narrow, selfish isolationist viewpoint of a majority of Americans who wanted neither to fight in the war nor to help its victims.” (Isenberg). Here was a man who never experienced oppression, and wanted to help those suffering from it. He put together a rescue committee to pull Jews out of the hands of Nazis. Fry and a group of American Diplomats he gathered traveled to Vichy France to smuggle some of the world’s greatest Jewish artists, musicians, and authors across the French-Spanish border. Some of the people he saved include famous novelist Hannah Arendt, artist Marc Chagall, and physicist/biochemist Otto Fritz Meyerhof. In 1940 and 1941 his rescue committee smuggled over two thousand Jewish intellectuals out of France.

When word began to spread that Fry was aiding Jews out of France, the hotel where he did his business was flooded with Jewish refugees looking for help. Officials in France started to become suspicious. Fry was even arrested at one point, but with the help of a colleague persuading the police, he was released. At this time, the United States became concerned that Fry was jeopardizing their ties with Vichy France. They made clear that the U.S. did not condone the actions of Varian Fry. Fry was expelled from France, ending his rescue operations. It was fifty years before he received any recognition for his heroic acts, from the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.

Varian Fry is an inspiration to people all over the world. To me, he represents my own struggle to realize how blessed I truly am, and use that to help others not so fortunate. Fry wasn’t someone who stood back and relished in the fact that he would never be oppressed because of what he was born into. He saw the world through the eyes of a man who believed that we should all be given the same opportunities, that every life has worth. The world would be grimmer if he hadn’t secured the lives of so many poets, artists, and musicians. To know that he was nothing but a man until he stood up for the lives of others, inspires me to become more than a success, to ensure the success of others who had so many more obstacles than I.

Heroes of the Holocaust aren’t just meant to be remembered, they’re meant to be taken inspiration from, to become heroes to those fighting in modern genocides. The first genocide to occur in the 21st century was the war in Darfur, a region in Sudan. In Darfur, rebel organizations arose and took up arms against the Sudanese government over complaints about lack of protection from nomad attacks. To dispel them, the government sent Arab militias, which destroyed hundreds of villages, killing 400, 000 men, women, and children. 400,000 people that could have been authors, or artists, or musicians. Those people could not save themselves, they were born and raised in Darfur. A hero is not someone who knew the people of Darfur were being killed and stood idly by. A hero is someone who knew they had the capabilities to do something about it, and followed through. The people who raised money, the people who spread the word, they walked with memories of Varian Fry and others like him. Fry isn’t just a hero of the Holocaust; he’s a hero of modern day genocide as well, for all the people who didn’t just make a difference because they were affected, but because they could.