Hero of the Week 7

Welcome back viewers!

This week's hero is...

Hiram Bingham IV

Hiram Bingham IV was born on July 17, 1903 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In the year 1940, he was an American diplomat who served as a Vice Consul in Marseilles, France during World War II. His job there, was to issue traveling visas to those who wished to travel to the United States. On May 10, 1940, the forces of Nazi Germany invaded and conquered France. When a German controlled government (Vichy France) was set up in France, it began to actively target the country's Jewish population (beginning with foreign Jews). For the next year, thousands of Jews were rounded up and placed in internment camps throughout France and many would later be deported to concentration camps. This caused many Jewish people to seek visas from the US consulate located in Marseilles.

Despite the pleas of the refugees, most American diplomats were unwilling to issue visas. This was largely due to an anti-immigration policy from the US government which was hoping to maintain good relations with the new Vichy government. Hiram Bingham was one of the few who felt sympathetic to the plight of the Jews. In direct defiance to America's immigration policy, he issued visas to the refugees. For the next ten months, Bingham (with help from the journalist Varian Fry) issued 2,500 visas to refugees, enabling them to emigrate to the United States. Some of those he helped to emigrate included famous people like the novelist Lion Feuchtwanger, the artist Marc Chagall, and the activist Hannah Arendt.

However, when the American government learned of Bingham's actions, he was pulled from his position as Vice Consul and transferred to Portugal and later Argentina for the remainder of World War II. He eventually resigned from the US Foreign Service in 1945, after being passed over for promotion (likely due to his defiance of American foreign policy). For the rest of his life, Bingham lived off an inherited sum and hardly spoke of his wartime activities (even to his own family). He died January 12, 1988 at the age of 84. It was not until after Bingham's death that his widow (Rose Morrison Bingham) and of his sons (William Bingham) discovered a number of old documents that revealed details about the people Hiram Bingham had helped rescue. These documents were later donated to the United States Holocaust museum which contacted many of former refugees (or their decedents). After this, Hiram Bingham finally received recognition for his actions in Marseilles.

Hiram Bingham was an exemplary human being who defied his own government to do the right thing. He was directly responsible for saving more than 2,000 people from being murdered in the Holocaust. He did so much and received so little in return. His heroism should serve to educate and inspire those who wish to learn from the tragedy that was the Holocaust and prevent similar horrors from ever happening again.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hero-quietly-did-the-right-thing/

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/saving-the-jews-of-nazi-france-52554953/

http://archives.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2006_05/where.html

https://www.facinghistory.org/rescuers/hiram-bingham-iv