Customer Reviews

Villa Air-Bel: World War II, Escape, and a House in Marseille

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The "book description" above states that this book "explores the diaries, memoirs, and letters of the individuals involved." "Explore" may not be the right word.
One of the main figures in "Villa Air-Bel" is beautiful heiress Mary Jayne Gold, who initially rented the villa and spent 1940-41 in Marseille torn between her participation in the remarkable rescue effort run by fellow American Varian Fry--and her affair with a young French gangster. She told it all, very flavorfully, in her published 1980 memoir, "Crossroads Marseilles 1940"--on which the new book, without permission, draws extensively and slavishly. Check it out!

This book centers on Varian Fry's year in Marseille and is the third such biography to come out in the last decade or so. This author is a Canadian and previous Fry biographies were penned by a Brit (Andy Marino) and an American (Sheila Isenberg). Sullivan's work offers little new information on Varian Fry or on most of his colleagues. If you look at her bibliography you might get the impression that she has done a great amount of research. However, anyone familiar with the story, will find echoes of previous works, and much that borrows from Marino's book, which is superior.

The core of her book is transforming four memoirs written by rescuers - Varian Fry, Lisa Fittko, Mary Jayne Gold, and Danny Benedite - from the first person to the third person voice. Her approach for doing this has two misleading results. First, she does not give enough credit to the memoirs of the humanitarians who wrote them (just footnotes at the back). Second, observations presented by the memoirists related to passing events and impressions, she introduces as facts, denying the reader the original context for the various events. Instead of organizing her material skillfully, she presents scores of chapters, making for a choppy narrative. Hopefully, this type of appropriation will not become the standard for "creative non-fiction."

To be honest, I picked this up as part of a research project I'm doing on Max Ernst, so I've only read the parts that concern his time at Air-Bel and his relationship with Leonora Carrington. Those chapters are well-written and at some point I'll give the rest of the book its deserved reading. This is an important story to tell and although other books are out there about Air-Bel, I wouldn't overlook this one based on other reviews here.

An excellent read, especially for world war 2 and history buffs in general. After the Nazis invaded France with the collaboration of Marshal Petain's Vichy France many artists, intellectuals, Jews and Communists were in jeopardy. A rescue committee led by the heroic patriot Varian Fry was established in Vichy France. They helped many escape the clutches of the invaders and their French collaborators with great risk to the rescuers. Some did not get rescued and ended up in concentration or work camps. A true story that will bring the heroics of Fry and his helpers back to life.

This is the remarkable story of how in one year Varian Fry against great odds and hinderance both from fascist Vichy France and his own state department was able to actively assist more than 1,500 individuals flee France and nearly certain death.
When he arrived in Marseilles in August 1940, Fry had $3,000 and a short list of refugees under imminent threat of arrest. Clamoring at his door came anti-Nazi writers, avant-garde artists, musicians and hundreds of others desperately seeking any chance to escape from France. Villa Air-Bel financed by an American heiress became his home which he shared with some of his able team as well as Andre Breton and Victor Serge and their families. On Sundays the Villa was open day for the Surrealists and their friends awaiting escape.
Over 20,000 people sought assistance, of these the committee was able to extend help to 4,000. Travel papers, passes and permits were obtained both legally and by forgery; money was changed on the Black Market; escape routes were set up over the Pyrenees and to Switzerland; community enterprises were set up around Grasse and in the Var to help refugees both hide and survive and about 300 British Service personnel were smuggled out of the country.
It took until 1996 for US Secretary of State Warren Christopher to apologise "Regretfully during his lifetime, his heroic actions never received the support they deserved from the US Government including, I also regret to say, the State Department".
A story of great accomplishment under adversity told in a lively style. Rosemary Sullivan tells the background of the individuals running the Emergency Escape Committee both at work and at play; from the surrealist games at Villa Air-Bel to starve off hunger and cold (they ate the goldfish) and the filth, starvation and humiliation in the internment camps. A history which should never be forgotten.
Varian Fry died alone in 1967. At his funeral the sculptor Jacques Lipchitz remarked "He was like a racehorse hitched to a wagon load of stones".

'Villa Air Bel' is a stunning story of endangered artists and intellectuals in pre-WW2 France. Rosemary Sullivan has masterfully juxtaposed personal histories and historical events to create an urgent and tense book. It is a riveting account of the ordeal suffered by individuals who were being hunted down by the Nazis and of the heroism of young rerscuers willing to endanger their own lives in an effort to help them escape. This book is a compelling page-turner. I couldn't put it down.

This is an interesting book for those who want to know more about some aspects of Vichy France.

I did not find any problem in how the book was written, but one comes away with a feeling of disgust with Varian Fry and the criteria he used to select those who would be saved and hopefully given refuge in America. He could have sought out people who could have made a valuable contribution to American society, e.g. doctors, scientists, etc. Instead the whole program was based on trying to save communists, anarchists, agitators, friends of Leon Trotsky, and others of such ilk. What a wasted effort.