Suzanne's Children - A Daring Rescue in Nazi Paris by Anne Nelson - 2017 - 336 Pages

July in Paris - 2019 - Week One

Suzanne's Children: A Daring Rescue in Nazi Paris by Anne Nelson. 2017

An Autodidactic Corner Selection

Works Read so for Paris in July 2019

1. At the Existentialist Cafe:Freedom, Being and Apricot  Cocktails by Sarah Blackwell.  2016 - An exploration of the Parisian origins of French post World War Two Existentialism 
2. Suzanne's Children: A Daring Rescue in Nazi Paris by Anne Nelson. 2017- an important addition to French Holocaust Literature

Please consider participating in Paris in July 2019, hosted by Thyme for Tea.  

Suzanne Spaak

Born July 6, 1905 in Brussels, Belgium

Murdered August 12, 1944 by the Gestapo

April 21, 1985 named by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations for her instrumentality in saving hundreds of Jewish children from death at Auschwitz.

Suzanne's Children: A Daring Rescue in Nazi Paris by Anne Nelson tells in detail for the first time the heroic story of Suzanne Spaak's  role in saving hundreds of Jewish children in Nazi controlled Paris from being sent to Auschwitz (almost all   deported French Jews were sent there).  

From an elite Catholic family, in Brussels, born into a life of privilege seemed on the surface she seemed an unlikely hero.  Spaak, her husband, a well known playwright, and their two children were living in luxury when the Germans took control of Paris.  At first it superficially seemed things might not be do bad for French Jews, many with roots going back to the time of Charlemagne.  French Jews proved their loyalty in World War One.

Spaak had a close French Jewish friend.  There were rumours about what was happening to Jews in Eastern Europe but people at first thought French Jews would be spared.  At first the Germans and the French authorities reached a devil's comprise.  Only foreign born Jews would be deported.  A fiction was kept up that they were just being sent to work on farms and factories, filling in for German soldiers.  Many of the French shared the attitudes of the Germans toward Jews, a mixture of hatred and envy.  Soon the mission of the Gestapo changed.  All Jews were to be deported.  It was understood for most, and for all children, this was a death sentence.  Spaak joined an underground network devoted to saving children.  At first others involved felt a wealthy society woman like Spaak would not be truly dedicated to this cause.  They could not have been more wrong.

Nelson shows us how Spaak raised funds needed to protect children.  She needed to find homes for the children which was an immense task.  She was tireless in her efforts.  Her life had a purpose.  Nelson lets us see the many people who helped her in this cause.  We also learn about the efforts of the Gestspo.  She was questioned several times before her final arrest.  She knew well she was risking her life.

In telling the story of Suzanne Spaak Nelson has to describe Paris under the Germans and Vichy France.  Nelson made this well known period vividly real.

In  At the Existentialist Cafe:Freedom, Being and Apricot  Cocktails by Sarah Blackwell we see how the rise in popularity of French Existentialism was driven in large part by the failure of much of French society to stand up to the Nazis.

I really appreciated learning of the post war history of many involved in the rescues.

This is a wonderful book.

From Anne-nelson.com

Anne Nelson is an author and lecturer in the fields of international affairs, media and human rights. As a journalist she covered the conflicts in El Salvador and Guatemala, and won the Livingston Award for best international reporting from the Philippines. She served as the director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. In 1995 she became the director the international program at the Columbia School of Journalism, where she created the first curriculum in human rights reporting.

Since 2003 Nelson has been teaching at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), where her classes and research explore how digital media can support the underserved populations of the world through public health, education and culture.

See her webpage for more information.

Suzanne's Children: A Daring Rescue in Nazi Paris by Anne Nelson is a very valuable edition to French Holocaust studies.  

On my sidebar there is an image of Irène Némirovsky. 

She moved to Paris as a child with  her parents to escape pograms in the Ukraine.  She died two weeks after arriving at Auschwitz.  She loved Paris and beautifully chronicled it in her many wonderful novels and stories. Murdered at thirty-nine, she would have written many more works.  

As anti-immgrant xenophobia grips America and Europe, with anti-Semitism on the rise, it is good to learn of the heroic activities of Suzanne Spaak.

Mel u