Andy Marino (1)

Fantastically written and a moving story. This country owes so much to the contributions of people who've come to this country, whether welcomed or more often than not, weren't. Admittedly, I am biased about this time period as it seems our country was at its worst, but also its best. Varian Fry was probably destined to be just another average American, but through selflessness and conviction, helped save so many people who without his help, would have almost assuredly died at the hands of show more Hitler. Just an all out great read. show less

Although I have read a lot about the Nazi occupation of France during World War II, I had never come across Varian Fry until I read And the Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris by Alan Riding where Fry briefly came up. His seemed an interesting story so I followed up by reading A Hero of Our Own: The Story of Varian Fry by Sheila Isenberg. That was one disappointing book. I learned quite a bit about him and his work, but I thought the book was poorly written and didn't do show more justice to its subject -- one of the great and mostly unknown heroes of WW II. So I ploughed ahead with Assignment: Rescue, an authobiography by Varian Fry. This is an abridged edition, intended for school children, of Fry's initial book, Operation Rescue that I couldn't get hold of.

This book, A Quiet American, wins the prize. It is an excellent book -- throughly researched and well written. Fry saved the lives of close to 2000 artists, writers, political figures, and academics -- Germans, French, Austrian, and others, many of them Jewish, all of them in danger of being arrested and killed by the Nazis. His proteges included Marc Chagall, Heinrich Mann, Hannah Arendt, Max Ernst, and Andre Breton. His story is compelling and this book is the best I've found to explain it. show less

In November 1939, 17-year-old German Jewish refugee Herschel Grynszpan walked into the German embassy in Paris and shot the first official he could find -- the diplomat Ernst vom Rath. Vom Rath died of his wounds a few days later, and the Nazis used his murder as the pretext to launch Kristalnacht, the infamous pogrom of the German Jews which made nationwide news and caused everyone to realize at last that the Germans were serious about this "we will destroy the Jews" thing. As for Herschel, show more after some twenty months in the custody of French authorities, he was taken to Berlin as a political prisoner of the Nazis and never heard from again. The time and manner of his death -- if he is indeed dead -- have never been established.

I must say I think this book is highly speculative and I'm not entirely convinced by the author's arguments. I think he takes too many liberties with his information -- such as stating as a fact exactly what Herschel was thinking/feeling at a given time when, of course, he couldn't know. I think things certainly COULD have happened the way Marino believes they did, but many other scenarios are equally possible.

That said, this is well-researched and definitely a page-turner -- almost a thriller -- about an obscure but very influential figure of the mid-twentieth century. Recommended. show less

Very informative, reads well, presents the ideas of Modi and his background, presents clearly the 'Gujarat model'