The title of the book from the period of the Second World War is derived from Article XIX of the German-French Armistice Treaty. It stated that the French were obliged to "extradite" to Germany (or more precisely to the Greater German Reich of the German nation) anyone, but especially German citizens of Jewish origin fleeing the then Reich before the Hitler regime. American journalist and humanitarian Varian Fry worked in Vichy France from August 1940 to September 1941. During that time, he managed to save about four thousand fleeing intellectuals, social democrats, anti-fascists and Jews. Among them were prominent personalities such as Bohuslav Martinů, Marc Chagall, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Heinrich Mann and Lion Feuchtwanger. Fry was helped by many brave people, among them the Czechoslovak consul Vladimír Vochoč. During his lifetime, Varian Fry did not receive general recognition in his country, but in 1997 he received the title of Righteous Among the Nations posthumously from the State of Israel as the first American in history. Based on his book, the Canadian-British-American film Varian's War was made in 2000.