When Paris Went Dark: The City Of Light Under German Occupation, 1940-1944 (2014) - Plot & Excerpts
WHEN PARIS WENT DARK is a marriage of the years of when Pais was occupied by the Germans in WW II. Written a man who is quite familiar with the city, it's people and its attitudes,, customs and behavior, and who apparently has great affection for all of that, it is not by any means a dry historical recitation of facts or statistics. It is instead an novelistic survey of what and how Parisians lived in those dark years of occupation, of how they were affected by boredom, fear, want and depression.The author has done hie research. He cites many private journals, eyewitnesses of it all to bring home his point. The point is that the people were not heroes, and some were certainly villainsThey felt deserted by the army and their political leaders . They were on their own in a hostile environment of foreign conquerors whose iron fist was only slightly covered by a soft leather glove. So to judge them now one must know them as things were then.Thenational guilt at collaboration of the puppet government, of some civilian Frencmen and women, and the ease with which so many turned a blind eye to the roundup of Jews runs deeply. Yet not all stood by; there were those who fought back in ways small and large. Paris's wartime scars run below its surface.Reading this book helps us all who wonder what we might do in similar situations: go along to get ahead, fight back or just try to stay in the background and survive? A very good book and recommended. Paris, of course, is a cultural icon as well as a city, and this book is as much a meditation as it is a history. It tells the story of Paris under the WW II German occupation and in the years thereafter. Using a wealth of primary materials including interviews, diaries, and memoirs by both the Occupiers and the Occupied as well as underground materials published during les annees noir, Amherst College professor Ronald Rosbottom keeps the focus on the city, resisting the temptation to report concurrent military and political events except insofar as they directly affect Paris and its people. Throughout the book there is a reflection on guilt and shame. Spared any significant damage by the swift capitulation of their once vaunted army, Paris becomes a tourist center for soldiers of the Reich. With their men herded into concentration camps in violation of the Armistice, some French women are initially attracted to the strong, disciplined young Wehrmacht troops, while some businessmen find it expedient to accommodate to their presence. Meanwhile, in unoccupied France, the Vichy Government collaborates with the oppressors. As the Occupation, thought by many to be temporary, continues, life in Paris gets more difficult as property is expropriated, food and fuel become scarce, and increasing restrictions are placed on the Jews. More chilling, Jews, first foreigners and immigrants, then naturalized French citizens, and finally native born French Jews are rounded up, not by the Germans but by the French gendarmes who turn them over to the Gestapo for transport to the death camps. As the Jews' homes and businesses are vacated, local concierges and neighbors (some of whom reported them) compete with Germans to move in and strip them of their furnishing. Other Parisians protect the Jews and resist the Occupation. As resistance increases, so do German executions of suspected resistants and hostages. As the Allies advance after the D-Day invasion, contrary to Hitler's orders to raze the city, the local German forces withdraw leaving the monuments and buildings intact but the soul of Paris wounded. Preceded by Free French (and Spanish) troops in US supplied uniforms and tanks, Allied military forces liberate the city. As de Gaulle declares a new government headed by, who else, de Gaulle, Parisians turn on one another, humiliating and executing suspected collaborators, profiteers, and people they just plain don't like in an attempt to prove their patriotism and purge themselves of the shame of surrendering and surviving. As factions form, right wing Gaullists clash with left wing Communists over who will dominate not only Paris but France in the years to come. In the concluding chapters, Rosbottom describes how the moral issues and guilt stemming from the Armistice, the Occupation, and the Liberation haunt many Parisians and influence French politics to the present day.
What do You think about When Paris Went Dark: The City Of Light Under German Occupation, 1940-1944 (2014)?
I really enjoyed this book. The author did an amazing job.
—Sydneyyymadison
