Sudden Courage

Youth in France Confront the Germans, 1940-1945

von Ronald C Rosbottom

336 Seiten, Taschenbuch

Kurzbeschreibung des Verlags

The author of When Paris Went Dark returns to World War II to tell the remarkable story of the youngest members ofthe French Resistance and their war against the German occupiers and theircollaboratorsOn June 14, 1940, German tanks entered anearly deserted Paris. Eight days later, France accepted a humiliating defeatand foreign occupation. Many adapted to the situation—even allied themselveswith their new overlords. Yet amid increasing Nazi ruthlessness, shortages andarbitrary curfews, a resistance arose—a shadow army of workers, intellectuals,shop owners, police officers, Jews, immigrants, and communists. Among this armywere a remarkable number of adolescents and young men and women; it wasestimated by one underground leader that “four-fifths of the members of theresistance were under the age of thirty.” Months earlier, they would have beenspending their evenings studying for exams, sneaking out to dates, and findingtheir footing at first jobs. Now they learned the art of sabotage, the ways ofdisguise and deception, how to stealthily avoid patrols, steal secrets, andeliminate the enemy—sometimes violently.Nevertheless, in most histories of the FrenchResistance, the substantial contributions of the young have been minimized or,at worst, ignored. Sudden Courage remedies that amnesia. Amid heart-stopping accounts of subterfuge,narrow escapes, and deadly consequences, we meetblind Jacques Lusseyran, who created one of the most influential undergroundnetworks in Paris; Guy Môquet, whose execution at the hands ofGermans became a cornerstone of rebellion; Maroussia Naïtchenko, a youngcommunist uncannily adept at escaping Gestapo traps; André Kirschen, who atfifteen had to become an assassin; Anise Postel-Vinay, captured and sent to aconcentration camp; and bands of other young rebels who chose to risk theirlives for a better tomorrow. But Sudden Courage is more than an inspiring account of youthfuldaring and determination. It is also a riveting investigation of what it meansto come of age under the threat of rising nativism and authoritarianism—onewith a deep bearing on our own time.

• Themen: Geschichte und Archäologie Geschichte Besondere Ereignisse und Themen Genozide und ethnische Säuberung Holocaust
• ISBN: 9780062470041
• Sprache: Englisch
• Erscheinungsdatum: 01.09.2020
• Größe: 218 x 141 mm
• Verlag: HarperCollins