The home stretch

 

The last day of our six-day mini-trip was May 17th. Along TX 36 southeast of Abilene some great clouds graced the way. The wildflowers densely spreading across the bottom of the first picture were brown bitterweed, Helenium amarum var. badium.

 

 

(Just because I’m showing these pictures from the last day of the trip now doesn’t mean you won’t still be seeing more scenic views from earlier during our journey. You will.) 

 

 

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From my interest in the ancient civilizations of the Americas I’d long been aware of Hiram Bingham III, who in 1911 undertook an expedition to Peru. There he ended up going to the all-but-forgotten ruins of the ancient Inca city of Machu Picchu, which he then publicized to the outside world.

The other day I learned about one of his seven sons, Hiram Bingham IV. As Wikipedia describes:

 

“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 United States 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 a May 27th Tablet article by Patrick Henry you can read more about Americans who saved Jews and others during World War II.

 

 

© 2024 Steven Schwartzman