Résistance
A Woman's Journal of Struggle and Defiance in Occupied France
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Agnès Humbert was an art historian in Paris during the German occupation in 1940. Stirred to action by the atrocities she witnessed, she joined forces with several colleagues to form an organized resistance-very likely the first such group to fight back against the occupation. (In fact, their newsletter, Résistance, gave the French Resistance its name.)
In the throes of their struggle for freedom, the members of Humbert's group were betrayed to the Gestapo; Humbert herself was imprisoned. I n immediate, electrifying detail, Humbert describes her resistance against the Nazis, her time in prison, and the horrors she endured in a string of German labor camps, always retaining-in spite of everything-hope for herself, for her friends, and for humanity. Originally published in France in 1946, the book is now translated into English for the first time.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Translated into English after more than 60 years of near-obscurity, Humbert's firsthand account of her work for the resistance in occupied Paris and her subsequent arrest and deportation to a forced-labor camp in Germany is an invaluable addition to works highlighting the role of women during wartime. At the fall of Paris, Humbert verges on despondency until she hears de Gaulle's broadcast calling for all Frenchmen to carry on the struggle. Prompted to action, she begins networking, bringing together some of the key figures of the resistance, including Boris Vild and Pierre Brossolette, with whose help she and others produce the underground liberation newspaper, R sistance. But the indelibility of the human spirit is most fully revealed in Humbert's account of her imprisonment, during which she retains her dignity amid the humiliating circumstances through small, individual acts of resistance such as sabotaging the work she does in the labor camps. She also provides heartfelt testament to numerous other women in the prison, many of whom were arrested for helping French and British soldiers escape. In a fair-minded account, Humbert relays the atrocities of the Third Reich as well as the sympathy of some of the camp inmates' captors
