Overview
In August 1942, French parents were faced with a horrible choice: watch their children die, or abandon them forever. Fifty years later, it becomes one woman’s mission to match the abandoned names with the people they belong to.
Five years after the highly publicized trial of Klaus Barbie, the “Butcher of Lyon,” law student Valérie Portheret began her doctoral research into the 108 children who disappeared from Vénissieux fifty years earlier, children who somehow managed to escape deportation and certain death in the German concentration camps. She soon discovers that their rescue was no unexplainable miracle. It was the result of a coordinated effort by clergy, civilians, the French Resistance, and members of other humanitarian organizations who risked their lives as part of a committee dedicated to saving those most vulnerable innocents.
Theirs was a heroic act without precedent in Nazi-occupied Europe, made possible due to a loophole in the Nazi agenda to deport all Jewish immigrants from the country: a legally recognized exemption for unaccompanied minors. Therefore, to save their children, the Jewish mothers of Vénissieux were asked to make the ultimate sacrifice of abandoning them forever.
Told in dual timelines, The Forgotten Names is a reimagined account of the true stories of the French men and women who have since been named Righteous Among the Nations, the children they rescued, the stifled cries of shattered mothers, and a law student, whose twenty-five-year journey allowed those children to reclaim their heritage and remember their forgotten names.
Review
This is an impassioned and moving tale involving the disappearance of 108 children during the occupation of France by Germany in 1942. Valérie Portheret, a law student, is researching her doctoral thesis. What she discovers is astonishing. She uncovers how 108 children were saved from the Nazis.
Due to a loophole in the Nazi doctrine, a coordinated effort by clergy, civilians, the French Resistance, and members of other humanitarian organizations risk their lives to save these children. But to do this, the mothers must give up their rights to their children. And to save their children’s lives…these mothers did just that!
Talk about a tough decision with life time consequences. I do not see how these mothers did this. How agonizing and terrifying. I swear, I learn something new every day about this terrible time in history.
No one tells a Holocaust story quite like Mario Escobar! My favorite novel by this author is The Teacher of Warsaw. I highly recommend you read that book as well!
This novel is superbly narrated by Saskia Maarleveld.
Need a good, emotional read…THIS IS IT! Grab your copy today.
I received this novel from the publisher for a honest review.
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