Voices from the Dark Years: The Truth About Occupied France 1940-1945

Description

What was life really like in German-occupied France during the Second World War? Douglas Boyd paints the clearest picture yet, using hitherto unpublished first-person accounts of ordinary men and women who lived through this extraordinary and dangerous time, when a few made fortunes, but most went cold and hungry. Less than 1 per cent of the French was pro-German. It is pure coincidence that the same percentage actively resisted the Germans despite knowing that, if caught, their husbands, wives and children were considered equally culpable under the brutal Teutonic principle of Sippenhaft - guilt by association? Using new, meticulously researched material, Douglas Boyd tells an enthralling and sometimes chilling narrative history of the Occupation, as lived by the French people. It is a record of great heroism and ultimate cruelty. Read it and ask yourself, 'How would I have reacted, living in Occupied France?' The answer may surprise you. Title -- Quote -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- List of Abbreviations -- Introduction -- Part 1 Defeat and Occupation -- 1 From Sitzkrieg to Blitzkrieg -- 2 Pétain Quells the Panic -- 3 An End to the Killing -- 4 'Trust the German Soldier!' -- 5 Behold the Man! -- 6 The Lie that Was True -- 7 The Number of the Beast -- Part 2 Life, Love and Loot under Pétain's New Order -- 8 Clearing up the mess -- 9 Of Cheese, Plays and Books -- 10 Of Bread and Circuses -- 11 Courage of a Quiet Kind -- 12 Culture and Crops -- 13 Saving the Children -- 14 The Women's Ordeal -- 15 'We Have Learned of the Scenes of Horror …' -- 16 The Protests Gather Strength -- Part 3 1944 - The Beginning of the End -- 17 Soap and Sabotage -- 18 Casualties in the Great Game -- 19 Happy New Year! -- 20 Dancing in the Dark -- Part 4 The Price of Liberation -- 21 Atrocities on Both Sides -- 22 Murderous Midsummer -- 23 'Hell is the Other People' -- 24 A Carpet of Women's Hair -- 25 Death of a Town -- 26 After the War was Over … -- Further Reading in English -- Plates -- By the Same Author -- Copyright.