Hiram Bingham IV Memorial Stamp

-- Larry Angert

Hiram Bingham IV, the U.S. diplomat credited with saving more than 2,000 Jews and other refugees in France from the invading Nazis, has been immortalized as part of the U.S. Postal Service’s set of “Distinguished American Diplomats” commemorative postage stamps.

In 1940 and 1941, as vice consul in Marseilles, France, Bingham issued visas and false passports to Jews and other refugees against official U.S. policies, assisting in their escape and sometimes sheltering them in his own home. Artist Marc Chagall, philosopher Hannah Arendt and novelist Lion Feuchtwanger were among the refugees he rescued.

Robert Kim Bingham, one of Bingham’s 11 children, said “I hope by bringing out my father’s story we, as a society, can further the cause of making this world a more humane and loving place.” At the dedication ceremony for the new stamp, Congressman Tom Lantos (D. California, the only member of Congress who is a Holocaust survivor), said, “Hiram Bingham's courage is an inspiration to us all. In an age when too many chose to ignore the plight of the persecuted, he became directly engaged in their cause at significant risk to himself. It is said that whoever saves one life saves the world. Humanity owes Hiram Bingham its admiration for the example he provided in saving the world many thousands of times over.”

Born to a prominent Connecticut family in 1903, Bingham graduated from Yale in 1925 and studied international law at Harvard. After he entered the Foreign Service in 1929, his postings included China, Poland, and England. Following the fall of France in 1940, the armistice required the French to “surrender on demand all Germans named by the German government in France.” Civil and military police began arresting German and Jewish refugees the Nazis marked for death. Several influential Europeans tried to convince the U.S. government to issue visas to allow the refugees to leave France and escape Nazi persecution. Because of U.S. policy at the time, American officials refused.

In 1941, the U.S. government transferred Bingham to Portugal and then Argentina. In 1945, he retired from the U.S. Foreign Service. Bingham died in 1988.

Interested in More Information?
Those interested in Bingham's activities in Vichy France ought to read Varian Fry's memoir of the period. Fry, an American correspondent, undertook to help Marc Chagall and others find the paperwork and funds to escape the Vichy zone. See his book Surrender on Demand.

Among those helped by Fry a few of the notables were:

• Hannah Arendt
• Andri Breton
• Marc Chagall
• Max Ernst
• Lion Feuchtwanger
• Heinz Jolles
• Wilfredo Lam
• Wanda Landowska
• Jacques Lipchitz
• Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel
• Andre Masson
• Otto Meyerhoff
• Marcel Duchamp
• Franz Werfel
• Heinrich Mann

The USA was then neutral and, not wishing to annoy Marshal Petain's puppet Vichy regime, President Roosevelt's government ordered its representatives in Marseilles not to grant visas to any Jews. Bingham found this policy immoral and, risking his career, did all in his power to undermine it.

In defiance of his bosses in Washington, he granted over 2,500 USA visas to Jewish and other refugees, including the artists Marc Chagall and Max Ernst and the family of the writer Thomas Mann. He also sheltered Jews in his Marseilles home, and obtained forged identity papers to help Jews in their dangerous journeys across Europe. He worked with the French underground to smuggle Jews out of France into Franco's Spain or across the Mediterranean and even contributed to their expenses out of his own pocket. In 1941,Washington lost patience with him. He was sent to Argentina, where later he continued to annoy his superiors by reporting on the movements of Nazi war criminals.

Eventually, he was forced out of the American diplomatic service completely. Bingham died almost penniless in 1988. Little was known of his extraordinary activities until his son found some letters in his belongings after his death. He has now been honored by many groups and organizations including the United Nations and the State of Israel.