The author of When Paris Went Dark returns to World War II to tell the remarkable story of the youngest members of
the French Resistance and their war against the German occupiers and their
collaborators
On June 14, 1940, German tanks entered a
nearly deserted Paris. Eight days later, France accepted a humiliating defeat
and foreign occupation. Many adapted to the situation—even allied themselves
with their new overlords. Yet amid increasing Nazi ruthlessness, shortages and
arbitrary curfews, a resistance arose—a shadow army of workers, intellectuals,
shop owners, police officers, Jews, immigrants, and communists. Among this army
were a remarkable number of adolescents and young men and women; it was
estimated by one underground leader that “four-fifths of the members of the
resistance were under the age of thirty.” Months earlier, they would have been
spending their evenings studying for exams, sneaking out to dates, and finding
their footing at first jobs. Now they learned the art of sabotage, the ways of
disguise and deception, how to stealthily avoid patrols, steal secrets, and
eliminate the enemy—sometimes violently.
Nevertheless, in most histories of the French
Resistance, 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 meet
blind Jacques Lusseyran, who created one of the most influential underground
networks in Paris; Guy Môquet, whose execution at the hands of
Germans became a cornerstone of rebellion; Maroussia Naïtchenko, a young
communist uncannily adept at escaping Gestapo traps; André Kirschen, who at
fifteen had to become an assassin; Anise Postel-Vinay, captured and sent to a
concentration camp; and bands of other young rebels who chose to risk their
lives for a better tomorrow. But Sudden Courage is more than an inspiring account of youthful
daring and determination. It is also a riveting investigation of what it means
to come of age under the threat of rising nativism and authoritarianism—one
with a deep bearing on our own time.
