Codename Suzette : an extraordinary story of resistance and rescue in Nazi Paris / Anne Nelson.
Material type: TextPublisher: Crows Nest, NSW : Allen & Unwin, 2017Description: xvi, 319 pages, [16] pages of plates : photographs, map ; 24 cmContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9781925266207
- 1925266206
Item type | Current library | Collection | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Non-Fiction | Gonville Library Non-Fiction | Non-Fiction | 940.5318 NEL | In transit from Gonville Library to Davis (Central) Library since 28/03/2024 | T00632520 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
Codename Suzette is one of the untold stories of the Holocaust, an account of extraordinary courage in the face of evil.
"An extraordinary story of resistance and rescue in Nazi Paris"--Cover.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Suzanne Spaak was born into the Belgian Catholic ruling class and married into the country's leading political family. Her brother-in-law was the Foreign Minister and her husband Claude was a playwright and patron of the painter Renee Magritte. Having moved to Paris in the late 1930s she appeared to part of the elite. Her neighbour was Collette, France's most famous living writer, and Jean Cocteau was part of her circle of intimates. But Suzanne was living a double life. Her friendship with a Polish Jewish refugee led her to her life's purpose. When France fell and the Nazis occupied Paris, she joined the Resistance. She used her fortune and social status to enlist allies among wealthy Parisians and church groups. Under the eyes of the Gestapo, Suzanne and women from the Jewish and Christian resistance groups 'kidnapped' hundreds of Jewish children to save them from the gas chambers. In the final year of the Occupation Suzanne was caught in the Gestapo dragnet that was pursuing a Soviet agent she had aided. She was executed shortly before the liberation of Paris. Suzanne Spaak is honoured in Israel as one of the Righteous Among Nations.