"Varian Fry, a 32 year old Harvard-educated classicist and editor from New York City, helped save thousands of endangered refugees who were caught in the Vichy French zone escape from Nazi terror during World War II. Yet this man, known as "the American Schindler," died in obscurity, without recognition, having been reprimanded by the US government for his actions....
In 1991, 50 years after his courageous actions in France saved thousands of innocent lives and 24 years after his death, Fry received his first official recognition from a United States agency, the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. In 1996, Varian Mackey Fry was named as "Righteous Among the Nations" by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Heros and Martyrs Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem -- the first American recipient of Israel's highest honor for rescuers during the Holocaust, an honor also received by Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg."
excerpted from : http://www.almondseed.com/vfry/)