Reading is my passion. I can’t imagine not having access to books, yet this is exactly what happened to Jewish readers in France during World War II. During the Nazi Occupation, Jewish people were stripped of their rights. They could no longer work in many professions. They did not have the right to enter parks or libraries.
They were in tremendous danger: a quarter of France’s Jewish population was killed. Yet librarians at the time reached out to Jewish readers to ensure they remained part of the community. My novel, The Paris Library, tells the true tale of the international team of librarians who defied the Nazis in order to hand-deliver books to Jewish readers.
I first learnt about the story when I worked at the American Library in Paris (ALP). I wanted to write about the courage of the Parisian librarians during the war. I read letters from staff who worked during the Occupation and interviewed those who lived through it. At the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, I devoured memoirs by women, from foreign journalists, to a Parisienne madam who claimed that her Nazi clientele behaved “correctly”, to a gutsy wife who followed her husband to the army base where he was drafted.
When you research World War II, every detail feels important. The letters, news clippings and journal entries are so fascinating that you wish you could include every single person, every single moment in your book. Today, I’m thrilled to be able to share some behind-the-scenes photos and stories of the staff who kept the Library open during World War II.
Read the article by Janet Skeslien Charles in The Sydney Morning Herald.
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