Varian Fry Institute

Upcoming in 2024...

A Year That Mattered:
Varian Fry and the Refugee Crisis, Marseille 1940-1941

upcoming feature documentary (3-minute trailer)

the true story that is "highly fictionalized" (!) in the current Netflix series Transatlantic

by the filmmaker of Weapons of the Spirit

And soon...

We said we didn't know.
We said we couldn't have done anything even if we had known.

Meet Peter Bergson!

Not Idly By ̶
Peter Bergson, America and the Holocaust
a documentary by Pierre Sauvage (59 min., 2023)

Peter Bergson, a militant Jew from Palestine,
led a controversial American effort to fight the Holocaust.

This is his testimony.

Available for screenings at film festivals and other special events.
Winner, Documentary Award, Toronto Jewish Film Festival

A Palestinian Jew who had served with the nationalist Irgun organization in pre-Israel Palestine, Peter Bergson (born Hillel Kook, 1915-2001), had come to the U.S. in 1940. In America, this firebrand led what came to be known as the Bergson Group, whose strenuous efforts from 1941 to 1945 underscore just how much was known—and how much could have been attempted during those difficult years. Sometimes vilified at the time, Bergson remains a controversial yet relatively obscure figure in the history of America and the Holocaust.

The only documentary to draw on both of the only filmed interviews with Peter Bergson, Not Idly By provides the riveting first-hand testimony of the charismatic and eloquent Bergson, who comments on the response to the crisis by non-European Jews and describes his group's determined efforts to fight the Holocaust. This notably included the fiery 1943 production We Will Never Die by Ben Hecht and Kurt Weill (Madison Square Garden, Hollywood Bowl), presented extensively for the first time in the documentary.

Yes, this is a one-sided view of those times: Peter Bergson’s. Isn't it about time we gave further though to that side?

Not Idly By ̶ Peter Bergson, America and the Holocaust (more information)