The Forgotten Names ~ a book review

 

The Forgotten Names by Mario Escobar was one of the hardest books that I've read in a very long time.  

While it is a novel, it is built on facts and the people named in the book, for the most part, are truly the people who took part in this rescuing of 108 Jewish children during the French Resistance.

The story begins with a young woman by the name of Valerie Portheret who is doing her thesis at the Jean Moulin Lyon 3 University, which at the time of the French Resistance was a bastion of anti-Semitism.  Her instructor tried to persuade her to write her thesis on Klaus Barbie who was known as the "Butcher of Lyon".  He had just shortly before this come to trial at last for his part as a commander in Lyon for the Nazis.

However, Valerie had a different interest.  There had been 108 Jewish children who had been saved from being taken to the concentration camps where they would either be used as slaves for the Germans or be killed for the simple reason that they were born Jews...just as their parents were also being bused out to the concentration camps in Germany.  Valerie wanted to learn about how these children had escaped and who the people were that were responsible for helping them.

The book takes the reader from one sorrowful story to another of children being separated from their parents, parents signing over their rights to their children to the people who were helping the children to safety and then being bused away to where they would be put on trains to Germany.

I was blessed by (and convicted as well) all of the men and women who put their own lives on the line in order to help these children to safety.  It was a brutal time to be alive...whether you were Jewish or not, but especially if you caught helping the Jews.

I feel it necessary to say that there's some rough reading where Klaus Barbie is concerned.  He was a German...he was a Nazi with power and wanting to advance in the ranks.  His language, as well as his actions, were filled with hatred and cursing and his actions were anything but pleasant.  Considering the time that this is written about, some of that is to be expected, but I just felt the need to let the readers know what to expect ahead of time.

In the "clarification from history" section at the back of the book, the author does say that Klaus Barbie was in the region at the time of the Venissieux roundup, but he was not authorized to take action in Lyon until the fall of that year, which kept him from personal involvement in the search for the children rescued from Venissieux.  It's where the "fiction" part of the historical novel comes in.

In the end, Valerie did actually locate some of these children (I believe 93 out of the 108), fifty years later and was able to interview them and give them back their identity.  Valerie had started her search in 1992, and she had identified the names of all 108 of the children by 2018.  She had also reconstructed the stories of 90 of the children and had personally met with as many of the children and the rescue workers as possible.

Here are a few quotes that really spoke to me.

Father Glasberg is speaking, "No matter how unbearable the obstinate cold of winter, life would rise from the ashes.  Behind each death lay a new beginning, just as a seed must die to produce its abundance."

Magda is speaking to Madeleine here, "As aristocrats, my family had it all, but maybe not the most important thing: love.  We can't take anything from this world with us, but the love we've sowed will endure."

If you, as the reader, are interested in reading books of this time period, I can recommend two other books that are done with much grace and passion.

The first one would be 

Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed by Philip Hallie.

The second would be

Fragments of Light by Michelle Phoenix

They both are amazing!

And one interesting thing that I found in all three of these books that I read about this time period in France...a common thread was either a Jewish girl or a Jewish boy in these camps had a violin and how their playing that instrument was often used to calm the children's spirits.

Along these same lines, although my review is of a movie rather than the book, I would recommend 

The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler

This link will take you to a trailer of the movie on YouTube,

but I did find the entire movie for free on Roku.

I had been familiar with Irena from a project called Life in a Jar, 

so, when I saw a link on Barbara's blog about the movie

I really wanted to watch it.

If you are unfamiliar with Irena, her story aligns with these three books that I have mentioned above.

She was responsible for helping to save the lives of 2500 Jewish children in Warsaw.  If you choose to watch the movie,

you will soon understand where the ministry of Life in a Jar got its name from.