by Robert Wilkinson
If you haven't heard of him, he saved thousands of people from the Nazis.
Given his relative obscurity, he is an interesting historical figure. Hiram "Harry" Bingham IV (July 17, 1903 – January 12, 1988) was a global diplomat who served in Beijing, Warsaw, and London before his historically significant role as Vice Consul of Marseilles where he issued exit visas to thousands of people so they could escape the Nazis.
(As a historical aside, we are told by Wikipedia that his dad was the first American to explore Machu Picchu, and his great-grandfather Hiram Bingham I and grandfather Hiram Bingham II were the first missionaries to the Kingdom of Hawai'i. Whether that was a good or bad thing is left entirely to the judgment of the reader.)
More from Wikipedia on this brave man who did a remarkable thing. He was a bureaucrat who refused to obey orders, thereby saving thousands from concentration camps and sure death:
In 1939, Bingham was posted to the US Consulate in Marseilles, where he had responsibility for issuing entry visas to the USA.On May 10, 1940, Adolf Hitler's forces invaded France and the French government fell. The French signed an armistice with Germany and forced most of France's large population of foreign refugees to move to internment camps. Many thousands of refugees went to Marseilles to seek visas for the USA and other foreign destinations.
Anxious to limit immigration into the United States and to maintain good relations with the Vichy government, the U.S. State Department actively discouraged diplomats from helping refugees. In Marseilles, as elsewhere, foreign service staff usually showed little flexibility or compassion towards the desperate refugees. However, American rescue workers soon noticed that "Harry" Bingham was an exception. Bingham personally toured some of the wretched internment camps and sought American aid to improve conditions. He helped many refugees to avoid internment and prepare for emigration and freely issued Nansen passports, a useful form of identity for stateless persons.
An American rescue worker, Martha Sharp, organized a group of children to leave southern France for the US in late 1940. She had this to say about Bingham, “I am proud that our government is represented in its Foreign Services by a man of your quality,” she wrote. “I feel so deeply about this that I shall take the earliest opportunity to transmit it through the Unitarian Service Committee to the United States State Department, for I believe that such humane and cooperative handling of individuals is what we need most coupled with intelligence and good breeding."
Bingham also cooperated a great deal with Varian Fry, the most effective rescue worker based in Vichy France during the early years of the war. Bingham worked with Fry on notable cases, including the emigration of Marc Chagall, political theorist Hannah Arendt, novelist Lion Feuchtwanger, and many other distinguished refugees. In the case of Feuchtwanger, Bingham went so far as to help spirit the novelist out of an internment camp and sheltered him in his own house while plans were made to help the refugee walk over the Pyrenees….
In 1941, the United States government abruptly pulled Bingham from his position as Vice Consul and transferred him to Portugal and then Argentina. When he was in Argentina, he helped to track Nazi war criminals in South America. In 1945, after being passed over for promotion, he resigned from the United States Foreign Service.
Bingham did not speak much about his wartime activities. His own family had little knowledge of them until after Bingham's death in 1988. In 1991, Bingham's widow Rose and son Thomas found 50-year-old Marseilles documents in the Connecticut farmhouse. Rose and Thomas subsequently donated these documents to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Several years later, Bingham's youngest son found documents in a cupboard behind a chimney and family members continued to unearth documents at the farmhouse. The materials told of Bingham's struggle to save German and Jewish refugees from death, details long hidden from the public.
… Hiram Bingham IV has been honored by many groups and organizations including the United Nations, the State of Israel, and by a traveling exhibit entitled "Visas for Life: The Righteous and Honorable Diplomats". The exhibit records the events of that time and the efforts of Bingham and others who risked and lost so much to help their fellow man.
I suppose a single candle can indeed cast a big light even in the midst of a vast darkness.
© Copyright 2023 Robert Wilkinson
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