Channel 4 Reveals Wallis Simpson's Secret Letters" (Press release). Channel Four Television Corporation. 23 August 2011 . Retrieved 22 April 2018. It was women who came face to face with the German conquerors on a daily basis – perhaps selling them clothes or travelling alongside them on the metro, where a German soldier had priority over seats. By looking at collaborators to resisters, actresses and prostitutes, as well as teachers and writers, including American women and Nazi wives, spies, mothers, mistresses, fashion and jewellery designers – Anne Sebba shows that women made life-and-death decisions every day, and, in an atmosphere where sex became currency, often did whatever they needed to survive. Her fascinating cast includes both native Parisian women and those living in Paris temporarily: American women and Nazi wives, spies, mothers, mistresses, and fashion and jewellery designers. Some like the heiress Béatrice Camondo or novelist Irène Némirovsky, converted to Catholicism; others like lesbian racing driver Violette Morris embraced the Nazi philosophy; only a handful, like Coco Chanel, retreated to the Ritz with a German lover. This is an utterly absorbing read as Sebba explores in minute and nuanced detail the lives of women during and after the Nazi Occupation of Paris. Organised in a year by year chronology, this moves from the early German charm offensive ('German soldiers: they were fantastic - tall, tanned, Wagnerian') to the gradual closing of the fist as, with the active collaboration of the Vichy government, Jews, résistants, Allied spies and airmen, were rounded up, imprisoned, deported, interrogated, tortured and killed. It begins in 1939 when the City becomes aware of the German threat but during the lull when the Germans are gracious and cultured and polite. Soon things begin to change and the food shortages begin and Jews are rounded up and made to wear yellow stars, Jewish companies are aranized and their owners flee or to into hiding. Many French men have already gone to unoccupied France to fight in DeGualle's army, what few are left are gathered up and sent to work in Germany for the war effort. This is a sweeping tour of the choices and life-paths of women under the German Occupation of Paris during World 2. Some are the few heroines we recognize from books and film who helped hide Jews or joined a Resistance network. Others are emblematic courtesans, entertainers, and war profiteers who forged self-serving connections with the new masters, including ones who spied and informed on Resistance activities, facilitated the roundup of Jews for internment, or reaped profits from the appropriation of their businesses, homes, and treasures. Between these poles were the vast majority of Parisian women who took a wait-and-see attitude, just trying to get along and find enough income for food and shelter. So many figures and their stories that they tend to blur together, but the collective does provide a fascinating journalistic portrait of a city under duress and themes of resilience and diverging modes of adaptation to the Occupation in its successive phases, well illustrated, indexed, and footnoted. Just don’t expect a penetrating historical analysis of causes and effects For me it was an excellent companion read to Sebastian Faulks’ recent novel “Paris Echo”, whose lead character pursues the history of women in Paris during the German Occupation. Like that book, with its highlighting of a woman who betrays a Resistance leader and his network out of personal jealousy, Seba’s collage helped me take a less judgmental attitude of those who ended up engaging in varying degrees of collaboration.

Les Parisiennes has been translated into Chinese, (SDX) Czech (Bourdon) and French (La Librarie Vuibert). In 2018, a reviewer in Le Figaro Magazine [21] coined the phrase "La Méthode Sebba" to describe the author's method of linking interviews with living people and archive material to create a tableau of women during the dark years.Rollyson, Carl (8 June 2021). "Review: Ethel Rosenberg biography shows how her execution defined the Cold War, horrified the world". Datebook. San Francisco Arts & Entertainment Guide . Retrieved 8 June 2021. Les Parisiennes chronicles the lives of French women, in particular those women of Paris, during the Second World War. Despite the book’s title, some of the women mention therein is not in Paris, usually because of the War. Sebba counts for this quite nicely by counting Parisenne as a style or sense instead just a living situation. And she really isn’t wrong when you think about it. Schillinger, Liesl (9 March 2012). "THAT WOMAN: THE LIFE OF WALLIS SIMPSON, DUCHESS OF WINDSOR". The Washington Times . Retrieved 6 June 2013. Bunder, Leslie (5 December 2006). "British Muslim Yasmin Alibhai-Brown Chairs Jewish Book Awards". Jewtastic. Archived from the original on 13 July 2011 . Retrieved 26 September 2009. Anne Sebba writes in her extensive history of the lives of Parisian women during WWII that it’s our task to understand, not to judge. And the women whose lives are covered range across such a broad spectrum, from those with selfless motives and actions to those who didn’t act as honorably as might be expected.

Her discovery of an unpublished series of letters from Wallis Simpson to her second husband Ernest Simpson, shortly before her eventual marriage to the former King, Edward VIII, later the Duke of Windsor, formed the basis of a Channel 4 documentary, The Secret Letters, [2] first shown on UK television in August 2011, and also a biography of Simpson, That Woman: The Life of Wallis Simpson Duchess of Windsor. Despite never having had the vote or even legally allowed to have a banking account, growing numbers contributed in small or moderate ways to helping Jews escape or hide or providing information or material support to aid those active in the Resistance. I like the example of brothel madams who hid subversives or Jews in their establishments. And the case of Edith Piaf, who drew complaints for aiding the Nazi propaganda efforts with performances at detention centers, but who used the group photos with the prisoners to create fake identity papers for many of them. I particularly loved the actions of an art archiver who was subverted by the Nazis to help with all the cataloging and distribution of stolen art treasures (Goering himself was long on the trough of that bonanza), but all the while she was keeping a secret record of the origin and disposition of each piece, and after the war used her records to good effect in recovering a lot of the art. I was also impressed with the heroism of Jenny Rousseau, a prisoner who one day refused to continue with forced labor in a munitions plant as against the Geneva Convention. The toughness of a such a choice at risk of one’s own life was revealed when we learn that the action spurred broad and brutal retribution against a whole pool of factory laborers. A similar tragic consequence applied to the work of the organization UGIF (Union Generale des Israelites de France) , which worked diligently to support the feeding and housing of orphans and refugees, but had their records of locations of Jews used for roundups by the Nazis. Les Parisiennes is a fascinating exploration of the everyday lives of French women during the war years, encompassing the personal accounts and experiences of many diverse figures such as designer Coco Chanel, novelist Irène Némirovsky, Nazi collaborator and racing driver Violette Morris and resistance fighters such as Cécile Rol-Tanguy, de Gaulle and Tillion, among countless others. Many women found ways to resist the German occupiers, and whilst their efforts were dismissed as inconsequential after liberation, we now know that they were essential to securing peace not only for France, but also for the whole of Europe. In the aftermath of the war, the book goes on to tell the tale of what happened next, and this makes very interesting reading, as people are brought to account for their actions. Raising big questions of whether everyone should be blamed for their actions, particularly when these women were practically left to fend for themselves amongst the enemy. Sebba has included a very helpful 'cast' list of all of the women whom she writes about in Les Parisiennes. These women are variously actresses, the wives of diplomats, students, secret agents, writers, models, and those in the resistance movement, amongst others. She has assembled a huge range of voices, which enable her to build up a full and varied picture of what life in Occupied Paris was like. Rather than simply end her account when the German troops leave, Sebba has chosen to write about two further periods: 'Liberation (1944-1946)', and 'Reconstruction (1947-1949)'. Les Parisiennes is, in consequence of a great deal of research, a very personal collective history.Sebba, Anne (1 June 1996). "The story they didn't want to tell". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 7 May 2022 . Retrieved 26 September 2009. The Monday Book". The Independent. 1 October 2007. Archived from the original on 2 November 2012 . Retrieved 26 September 2009. A wide range and sweeping view of the many different women, many well known, who were in Paris immediately before, during and after the Nazi occupation. Your enjoyment of this will depend on what you as the reader expect to get out of this book. It is certainly well researched, in fact the last 20% of the book is footnotes and sources. I found the huge amount of information as well as the large cast of people to be confusing and frustrating. Different people do sometimes overlap but often many chapters later. In the past few years, it seems that the role of women in war is getting more attention and study, at least in popular culture. Hopefully, Hollywood will catch up and instead of the fictional Charlotte Grey we will have a lavish movie about the real Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, who also went by the name Hedgehog. Maybe instead of a one hour program on PBS Noor Khan will finally get her own Hollywood movie. Maybe in additional to Band of Brothers and The Pacific, HBO will finally have a series about women resistance fighters – and not the by now tried and tired cliché of the woman falling in love with the German officer she is suppose to be spying on. Don’t give me that. Give me Virginia Hall and Cuthbert. Please, please, someone do that.

Stanford, Peter (15 August 2004). "The Exiled Collector by Anne Sebba". London. Archived from the original on 7 May 2022 . Retrieved 26 September 2009. This was a horrific time and it was interesting to read how many women, from all walks of life, reacted to the Nazi's. Some fought, some hid their heads in the sand, some collided, many did what ever they could to survive. This part I loved but as I said the constant name changes, focuses often broke up the narrative if one could even call it that. It sometimes felt like just a recitation of names and facts. So in essence well researched, but frustrating nonetheless. What Sebba brings to the the story is an interest in what this meant for women: in 1940 when Paris fell to the Nazis, women had no vote, were not allowed to have bank accounts, were not supposed to have jobs, yet with most of the men either in the army or in prison or escaped overseas with de Gaulle's Free French, much of the burden of everyday living, of caring for children and the elderly, fell to women: 'Paris became a significantly feminized city, and the women had to negotiate on a daily basis with the male occupier'.Ethel Rosenberg: A Cold War Tragedy, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson (UK) in 2021, concerns the Rosenberg espionage case. Sebba's book was described by Oliver Kamm, in a Times review, as "wildly false and an intellectual disgrace... Sebba’s incuriosity runs through this alternately saccharine and obtuse book, of which nothing good can be said and from which nothing but harm will arise." [22] Adam Sisman of the Literary Review said “In Anne Sebba, Ethel Rosenberg has found the ideal biographer, sympathetic without being blind to her faults and with a sure understanding of the period … Her portrayal is compelling”. [23] In the San Francisco Chronicle Carl Rollyson described the book as a "compassionate account of Ethel's character as a wife and mother" and an "engrossing narrative". [24] In The Critic Gerald Jacobs described Sebba's reconstruction of the trial as “gripping” and went on to say “Anne Sebba has given Ethel Rosenberg a towering memorial”. [25] In The Telegraph Jake Kerridge said "Sebba gets her readers under the skin of both Ethel and her era so effectively that this shameful saga had me alternately close to tears and boiling with rage.She is right to identify this as a uniquely despicable episode in US history." [26] Rachel Cooke in the Observer called Ethel Rosenberg as "a powerful biography" and "gripping". [27] In The Guardian Melissa Benn said "Sebba has dug deep beneath this famous and archetypically male story of spying, weapons and international tensions to give us an intelligent, sensitive and absorbing account of the short, tragic life of a woman made remarkable by circumstance". [28] Bibliography [ edit ] In many ways, Sebba’s book is important because it balances the women on the sidelines stories that seem to be so much of popular and easily accessible World War II history. It’s true that there are several books about the role of women in the British SOE, but it wasn’t until this year that WW II woman pilots (WASPS) could legally be buried at Arlington. Usually, there are a few general statements, books about women rescuers of Jewish civilians, and information about nurses. You really have to look to find books about women, and finding books in English about French resistance woman fighters is especially hard in some cases. So we do need books about this. That’s not to say that such romances between German officers and French women didn’t happen. Sebba’s book does detail some of those relationships, though how many of them occurred between a woman resistance member and the man she was spying on, Sebba doesn’t say. (I do wonder why it is always that pairing in fiction at least). So, we go through 1940, when Paris was abandoned as many took a desperate, terrifying flight across France. However, when the German army arrived, they were often well-dressed, amiable and polite – at least at first and to most of the city’s inhabitants… People began to return, but gradually resistance groups emerged. There are arrests, denunciations, betrayal, fear, solidarity and every possible emotion through the war years. Always there is danger and hunger, but still Parisian women remade their dresses, put wooden soles on their shoes and pounced on parachute silk to make clothes.