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WW2 – A remarkable book about the Nazi occupation of France by a woman who was there and experienced the most terrible period of history firsthand
Suite française
What you need to know before your trail
Paris: the Nazi occupation, 1940.
This is the remarkable story of a city and its people thrown together in the most horrific and unbelievable set of circumstances. As many Parisians as possible flee the city, the brutality of the Germans knows no bounds and ever present – the fear of what the labour camps, located elsewhere really mean.
But for now, life is about living with the enemy and hoping against hope that humanity lives amongst them.
Locations
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When Irène Némirovsky began working on Suite Française, she was already a highly successful writer. But because she was also a Jew, she was arrested and deported to Auschwitz in 1942 during the German atrocities. She sadly died at the camp and her work might have remained uncovered if not for the determination of daughter who rescued the notebooks she’s written in and got them published.
This book takes you to some dark places but real history and real people in occupied France.
You could smell the suffering in the air, in the silence. Even people who were normally calm and controlled were overwhelmed by anxiety and fear.
Iréne’s descriptions of occupied France took our breath away for she evokes such simple every day things so vividly and in such detail that you’re right there beside her – we see a wealthy mother searches for sweets in a town without food; people scared of losing their possessions or their jobs while their world falls apart around them.
Suite française evokes a country on its knees, held captive by the Nazis but at the same time evokes a people: families, children….humans, who refused to submit their spirits and instead held their head up high as history unfolded.
The horror of the time is evident but it’s the human side of the story which will have you in tears as humanity is explored in poignant detail.
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