US Stamp to Honor Holocaust-Era "Righteous Gentile"

Hiram "Harry" Bingham IV, a US diplomat who risked his career to help save more than 2,000 of the world's leading writers, musicians, and artists -- most of them Jewish refugees -- from the Nazis, will be honored on a US postage stamp.

Bingham (1903-1988), a US vice-consul in France under the pro-Nazi Vichy regime, secretly worked side-by-side with rescue activist Varian Fry until the Roosevelt administration halted their activity in 1941, by refusing to renew Fry's passport and transferring Bingham out of France.

The U.S. Postal Service has announced that Bingham will be one of six US diplomats featured on forthcoming postage stamps, chosen from among more than 50,000 stamp proposals that the Postal Service receives each year. He will appear as part of a six-stamp souvenir sheet honoring unique American diplomats, including the first Black US ambassador and the first woman US ambassador.