Neenah Public Library

A bookshop in Berlin, the rediscovered memoir of one woman's harrowing escape from the Nazis, Françoise Frenkel ; with a preface from Patrick Modiano ; dossier compiled by Frédéric Maria ; translated by Stephanie Smee

eng

autobiography

illustrations

no index present

non fiction

A bookshop in Berlin

1111789376

Françoise Frenkel ; with a preface from Patrick Modiano ; dossier compiled by Frédéric Maria ; translated by Stephanie Smee

the rediscovered memoir of one woman's harrowing escape from the Nazis

In 1921, Françoise Frenkel--a Jewish woman from Poland--fulfills a dream. She opens La Maison du Livre, Berlin's first French bookshop, attracting artists and diplomats, celebrities and poets. The shop becomes a haven for intellectual exchange as Nazi ideology begins to poison the culturally rich city. In 1935, the scene continues to darken. First come the new bureaucratic hurdles, followed by frequent police visits and book confiscations. Françoise's dream finally shatters on Kristallnacht in November 1938, as hundreds of Jewish shops and businesses are destroyed. La Maison du Livre is miraculously spared, but fear of persecution eventually forces Françoise on a desperate, lonely flight to Paris. When the city is bombed, she seeks refuge across southern France, witnessing countless horrors: children torn from their parents, mothers throwing themselves under buses. Secreted away from one safe house to the next, Françoise survives at the heroic hands of strangers risking their lives to protect her

A French bookshop in Berlin -- Paris -- Avignon -- Vichy -- Avignon -- Nice -- Somewhere in the mountains -- Return to Nice -- Grenoble -- At the border -- Annecy -- Saint-Julien -- Annecy -- At the border -- Heading for Switzerland -- Chronology -- Dossier