The Forgotten Names The Forgotten Names

The Forgotten Names

    • Pre-Order
    • Expected Jun 11, 2024
    • $12.99
    • Pre-Order
    • $12.99

Publisher Description

In August 1942, French parents were faced with a horrible choice: watch their children die, or abandon them forever. Fifty years later, it becomes one woman’s mission to match the abandoned names with the people they belong to.

Five years after the highly publicized trial of Klaus Barbie, the “Butcher of Lyon,” law student Valérie Portheret began her doctoral research into the 108 children who disappeared from Vénissieux fifty years earlier, children who somehow managed to escape deportation and certain death in the German concentration camps. She soon discovers that their rescue was no unexplainable miracle. It was the result of a coordinated effort by clergy, civilians, the French Resistance, and members of other humanitarian organizations who risked their lives as part of a committee dedicated to saving those most vulnerable innocents.

Theirs was a heroic act without precedent in Nazi-occupied Europe, made possible due to a loophole in the Nazi agenda to deport all Jewish immigrants from the country: a legally recognized exemption for unaccompanied minors. Therefore, to save their children, the Jewish mothers of Vénissieux were asked to make the ultimate sacrifice of abandoning them forever.

Told in dual timelines, The Forgotten Names is a reimagined account of the true stories of the French men and women who have since been named Righteous Among the Nations, the children they rescued, the stifled cries of shattered mothers, and a law student, whose twenty-five-year journey allowed those children to reclaim their heritage and remember their forgotten names.
World War II historical fiction inspired by true eventsIncludes discussion questions for book clubs, a historical timeline, and notes from the authorBook length: 70,000 wordsAlso by author: Auschwitz Lullaby, Children of the Stars, Remember Me, The Librarian of Saint-Malo, The Teacher of Warsaw, The Swiss Nurse

GENRE
Fiction & Literature
AVAILABLE
2024
June 11
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
336
Pages
PUBLISHER
Harper Muse
SELLER
HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS

More Books by Mario Escobar

Auschwitz Lullaby Auschwitz Lullaby
2018
The Teacher of Warsaw The Teacher of Warsaw
2022
The Librarian of Saint-Malo The Librarian of Saint-Malo
2021
Children of the Stars Children of the Stars
2020
The Circle The Circle
2017
Remember Me Remember Me
2020