Les Parisiennes

How Parisians survived Nazi Occupation—to what extent they resisted or collaborated—has been debated for decades but Sebba looks through a new lens: What did Parisiennes, specifically, do during these years? She was just in time to interview some key women who, having survived concentration camps, went on to live defiantly long lives. Others wouldn’t speak, still traumatised by their experiences. But Sebba has plenty to work with, and the pace at which she pulls it all together propels this book’s sense of importance. One can’t help but feel relieved that these stories have now been told. Some of it… show more.

Les Parisiennes lays out in graphic detail the significant inequities handed down throughout the war with regard to social, economic, and religious status for women of world war II Paris. Ms. Sebba uses a timeline of pre-, during, and post-world war II to paint a picture of what daily life was like depending on how much money you had or whom you knew. She uses real-life examples like Coco Chanel, Genevieve de Gaulle, and Edith Piaf to help the reader understand the consequences of various choices made during wartime.

Living with the enemy, during the occupation, the women of Paris had to navigate their way between defiance and collusion. This grey area is brilliantly depicted in the interviews with the Parisiennes, as they swing between glamour and deprivation, fear and love. And then came liberation, followed by the years of recovery, retribution, and revenge. These women’s true accounts inspired me for my second book.

Ladies, what would you take if you had to flee your home suddenly? Clothes? Food? Sentimental objects? How would you manage if you had your period when enemy soldiers took you prisoner?

These are the kind of blindsiding questions we catch ourselves asking as we read Anne Sebba’s engrossing study of the way French women lived and loved through the Second World War. Drawing on first-hand interviews with a range of remarkable women, Sebba’s skill lies in the way she focuses on intimate, everyday details to which we can all relate. The result is a book which reaches through time… show more.