Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved and Died in the 1940s

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Sebba emphasizes the difficult choices that individual women made in occupied Paris as well as the evolution of women's roles in French society as a result of the war. So many voices clamour to be heard that I initially found it quite difficult to concentrate on their stories. She read history at King's College London (1969–72) and, after a brief spell at the BBC World Service in Bush House, joined Reuters as a graduate trainee, working in London and Rome, from 1972 to 1978.

Les Parisiennes: How Women Of Paris Lived - HistoryExtra

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. Women were doing things just as brave and dangerous as the men": Anne Sebba talks to Matt Elton about her book exploring the stories of 1940s Parisian women – resistance members, collaborators and those simply trying to survive in an occupied city. 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.

Raymonde Beretta left in 1971; despite finding a replacement in Viviane Chiffre, the quartet disbanded a few months later. We hear what happened to all of the women we met at the end of this book and this is a compelling and intelligent read.

Les Parisiennes - Arielle Dombasle, Mareva Galanter, Inna Les Parisiennes - Arielle Dombasle, Mareva Galanter, Inna

Sebba is alive to the nuances and complexities of the time, and while she strives to remain non-judgmental, is also clear about the fact that everyone had moral choices to be made. Sebba tells the stories of so many people, one right after the other, often switching to a new person with each paragraph, it's hard to keep track of them all. Another estimate has it that by mid-1943, there were about 80,000 official claims for support from French women for children fathered by Germans in the occupation. This way, I feel, would cut down on confusion and there would be a greater understanding of each individual character! Quite early on, however, it becomes apparent that Les Parisiennes suffers from its ambition, as the women the book is meant to celebrate get lost in a melee of facts about, and descriptions of, wartime Paris.

Following the defeat of France by German forces early in the Second World War, Paris was occupied from 1940–44. Sebba follows the progression of the war through the years and shows how, as the situation grew more desperate for everyone, women devised and discovered a myriad of ways to cope and survive. 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.

Les Parisiennes - Moulin Roty Les Parisiennes - Moulin Roty

Despite the book’s title, some of the women mention therein is not in Paris, usually because of the War. Covering a wide range of women, from the humble to the “big names” such as Chanel, the author approaches what is essentially a very emotive subject non-judgementally and with balance and fairness.She shows how women rising to take care of family during the absence of men, pushed society forward despite what both the Germans and Vichy government tried to do. Their lives and backgrounds, careers and relationships are all explored in the context of their decisions to do what they did. She visited Turkey twice as an official observer for PEN for the trial of journalist Asiye Guzel Zeybeck.