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Marie Curie's story has fascinated and inspired young readers
decades. The poor Polish girl who worked eight years to be
able
to afford to attend the Sorbonne in Paris became one of the
most important scientists of her day, winning not one but two
Nobel Prizes. Her life is a fascinating one, filled with hard work,
humanitarianism, and tragedy. Her work with her husband,
Pierre - the study of radioactivity and the discovery of the
elements radium and polonium - changed science forever. But
she is less well known for her selfless efforts during World
War
to establish mobile X-ray units so that wounded French
soldiers
could get better care faster. When she stood to profit
greatly
from her scientific work, she chose not to, making her
methods
and findings known and available to all of science. As a result,
this famous woman spent most of her life in need of money,
often to buy the very elements she discovered.
Marie Curie's life and work are given a fresh telling, one
that
also explores the larger picture of the effects of radium in
world
culture, and its exploitation and sad misuse.
On August 4, 1940, an unassuming American journalist named Varian
Fry made his way to Marseilles, France, carrying in his pockets the
names of approximately two hundred artists and intellectuals - all
enemies of the new Nazi regime. As a volunteer for the Emergency
Rescue Committee, Fry's mission was to help these refugees flee to
safety, then return home two weeks later. As more and more people
came to him for assistance, however, he realized the situation was
far worse than anyone in America had suspected - and his role far
greater than he had imagined. He remained in France for over a
year, refusing to leave until he was forcibly evicted.
At a time when most Americans ignored the atrocities in Europe,
Varian Fry engaged in covert operations, putting himself in great
danger, to save strangers in a foreign land. He was instrumental in
the rescue of over two thousand refugees, including the novelist
Heinrich Mann and the artist Marc Chagall.
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