The Art of Resistance: My Four Years in the French Underground: A Memoir
The Art of Resistance: My Four Years in the French Underground: A Memoir
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Overview
An unforgettable World War II memoir set in Nazi-occupied France and filled with romance and adventure: a former Eastern European Jew remembers his flight from the Holocaust and his extraordinary four years in the French underground. Justus Rosenberg, now 98, has taught literature at Bard College for the past fifty years.
In 1937, as the Nazis gained control and anti-Semitism spread in the Free City of Danzig, a majority German city on the Baltic Sea, sixteen-year-old Justus Rosenberg was sent to Paris to finish his education in safety. Three years later, France fell to the Germans. Alone and in danger, penniless and cut off from contact with his family in Poland, Justus fled south. A chance meeting led him to Varian Fry, an American journalist in Marseille who was helping thousands of men and women escape the Nazis, among them artists and intellectuals Hannah Arendt, Marc Chagall, Andre Breton, and Max Ernst.
With his German background, understanding of French cultural, and fluency in several languages, including English, Justus became an invaluable member of Fry’s refugee network as a spy and scout. The spry blond who looked even younger than his age flourished in the underground, handling counterfeit documents, secret passwords, and black market currency, surveying escape routes, and dealing with avaricious gangsters. When Fry was eventually forced to leave France, his trusted colleague JustusGussie, as he was affectionately knowncould not get out. For the next four years, Justus relied on his wits and skills to escape captivity, survive several close calls with death, and continue his fight against the Nazis, working with the French Resistance and eventually the United States Army. At the war’s end, Justus emigrated to America and built a new life.
Justus’ story is a powerful saga of bravery, daring, adventure, and survival with the soul of a spy thriller. Reflecting on his past, Justus sees his life as a confluence of circumstances. As he writes, "I survived the war through a rare combination of good fortune, resourcefulness, optimism, and, most important, the kindness of many good people."
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781094105222 |
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Publisher: | HarperCollins Publishers |
Publication date: | 01/28/2020 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |
Product dimensions: | 5.40(w) x 6.80(h) x 0.60(d) |
About the Author
JUSTUS ROSENBERG was born in Danzig (present-day Gdańsk, Poland), in 1921. Graduating from the Sorbonne, in Paris, he worked with the French underground for four years and then served in the United States Army. For his wartime service, Rosenberg received a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. For the last seventy years, he has taught at American universities; his is professor emeritus of languages and literature at Bard College, where he has been on faculty for fifty years. He is the cofounder of the Justus & Karin Rosenberg Foundation, which works to combat anti-Semitism. In 2017 the French ambassador to the United States personally made Rosenberg a Commandeur in the Légion d’Honneur, among France’s highest decorations, for his heroism during World War II. He lives with his wife in New York’s Hudson Valley.
Rob Shapiro is a musician, writer, voice actor, and Earphones Award–winning narrator. He performed several seasons of radio comedy on Minneapolis Public Radio and voiced the titular lion in Leo the Lion. He is a musician and composer with his critically acclaimed band Populuxe. He is also a business consultant and software system designer.
Table of Contents
Map of Europe, 1936-1939 x
Map of Western Europe, 1940 xi
Map of Occupied France xii
Prologue 1
Part I
The Free City of Danzig (1921-1937) 5
A Pogrom German-Style (Spring 1937) 10
Preparing to Leave Danzig (Summer 1937) 23
At the Station (September 1937) 31
Berlin (September 2-12, 1937) 34
Part II
Paris (September 1937-September 3, 1939) 47
"The Phony War." (Paris, September 1939-June 1940) 65
The Debacle (Paris and Bayonne, June 1940) 73
Toulouse (June and July 1940) 90
To Marseille, in Marseille (August-September 1940) 97
Over the Pyrenees (September 11-13, 1940) 107
Walter Benjamin (Late September 1940) 113
Villa Air-Bel (November 1940-February 1941) 116
Mafia (February-June 1941) 128
Chagall (Spring 1941) 134
Max and Peggy Depart (July 1941) 135
The Expulsion of Fry; My Mountain Climbing Adventure (August-December 1941) 136
Grenoble (December 1941-August 26, 1942) 146
Part III
Internment (August 27-29, 1942) 153
Escape (September 6, 1942) 167
Underground Intelligence at Montmeyran (Autumn 1942-March 1943) 174
Manna from the Skies (November 1943-May 1944) 188
Last Days on the Farm (June 1944) 192
Becoming a Guerrilla (June 1944) 195
Haute Cuisine in the Camp (June-July 1944) 201
The Ambush (July 1944) 203
The 636th Tank Destroyer Battalion (August-October 1944) 208
The Teller Mine Incident (October 11, 1944) 219
Homecoming to Paris (December 1944-February 15, 1945) 223
Granville (February 15-March 8, 1945) 230
Unrra (April 1945-October 1945) 235
To America (October 1945-July 13, 1946) 247
Epilogue: What Happened to 251
Acknowledgments 275
Index 277