Excellent, illuminating, very well researched, inspiring and scary how much Trump resembles the Nazis. ( )

Authors need to do lots of research for historical stories. However, they shouldn't feel compelled to share all of it with their readers. The first 6 chapters gave us life stories of a few of the children rescued to the Plateau Vivarais-Lignon. The next couple of chapters details the rescuers and their organizations and then moves onto the plateau and gives us the local history. I threw up my hands when we got detailed histories of each of the Protestant groups that have found shelter there. Too much! Can we just tell the story, please? I have encountered this story before, in [Lest We Forget] and this book does afford a better picture of why this spot was particularly ideal. It's not just geography and independence. The infrastructure was already in place. This spot next to the Alps was already a summer spa destination for sickly children. ( )

I think I needed to read the first book to get the full effect.

Nonetheless this book is very insightful as to the development of the events of WW2, the horror of the event, and the hurt and trauma that followed.

Sadly I found it connected to current events. Not a happy thought.

Recommended. Not a light read. But important. ( )

Caroline Moorehead - [Village of Secrets: Defying the Nazis in Vichy France]
During the second world war some villages in unoccupied France sheltered jews from Nazi persecution. The Vichy government in collaboration with the Germans ruled the unoccupied area which covered roughly half of France. The Village of Secrets is really a collection of villages on the Plateau Vivrais-Lignon which succeeded in frustrating some of the Vichy government's attempts to round up jews for deportation to the German death camps. The villages unique position in the mountains of the central massif and the religious culture that was prevalent inspired the inhabitants to do more than most frenchmen to save Jews from the holocaust. The Vichy government were intent on carrying out the bidding of their German masters and some might say they were overzealous. Although the Vichy government were ruling their country in collaboration with the Germans they saw themselves as protecting the nation of France. It is not difficult then to understand why French officials and the police force fearing occupation and the loss of their identity as a nation would carry out, and in some cases encourage the persecution of minorities who were not french. Unfortunately there are many examples of racial hatred as a tool used by politicians to cling on to power.

After the end of the war while France was busy taking revenge against the collaborators it was also trying to move on from some actions regarded as shameful during the occupation. There was a collective denial of the events surrounding the rounding up of the Jews to placate the voracious Nazis final solution. Moorehead's book was published in 2014 when France had belatedly admitted to the role of the Vichy government in the holocaust. It was therefore not as controversial as it might have been, but would have added to the unease of many inhabitants of villages and towns in rural France that were in Vichy territory, because many were far more compliant with the Nazis aims. It should also of course stir up unease in many readers who might well ask themselves what action or non action they would have taken in a similar situation. This was a horror story that happened in living memory.

I found Village of Secrets a well organised book. The first few chapters fill in the background to the Vichy Government's policies and the setting up of the French internment camps, from there we learn of conditions inside the camps and start to meet some of the individuals who will feature in the story of the 'Secret' villages. We follow the lucky ones who made the journey up into the mountains and are with them when they meet the people who will be responsible for trying to save their lives. Chambon the most important village is described along with the characters who will play an active part in the story. The unique protestant culture is explained with the pacifist pastor André Trocmé being an inspirational preacher, but in surrounding villages there were Darbyists and Ravenist; protestant cults who new the price to be paid for being different. When the first of the Jewish children arrived in Chambon it was not too difficult to find safe houses for them with the reclusive religious families. On to 1942; it is the Vichy officials who are the main threat with a system of informers and collaborators, more children arrive through an unofficial network and by 1943 conditions have become so desperate that a network of people smugglers is set up to get children and Jews on a wanted list across to Switzerland. In 1944 it is the Germans who are the enemy, facing defeat they desperately try to complete the extermination programme themselves, while the Vichy armed police fight it out with the maquis. Morehead tells her story through incidents in the lives of the refugees during the four years of German control. We follow their stories and the stories of the villagers that helped them. Characters emerge and just as tragically disappear as Moorehead chillingly documents numbers of the convoy train carriages that take them to the death camps. Some just disappear, but many are kept alive through the hard work and risks taken by the villagers. The liberation of France while stopping the immediate threat to life and limb did not solve the long term issues for children who have lost their parents and adults who have lived in fear for four long years and Moorehead provides some living testimony to this.

There is an after-word that ties up some loose ends, but also questions the veracity of some of the stories. It is still not clear who among the Vichy officials lent a helping hand when they could. There were double agents and some acted pragmatically, but by the very nature of clandestine actions it will never be known who were the good guys and who were the traitors. Publications and films made of the events have tended to cloud the issue. A book by Philip Hailie an American historian published in 1979 based on an autobiography by Andre Trocmé, which seemed to claim that the pacifist views of the pastor were the main reason the villages were successful: caused much distress amongst the villagers. Moorehead has tried to let the villagers and the jews speak for themselves when she can, but their stories are couched with her own research of the events. It is probably even more difficult to arrive at a true version of events when people are still alive to give their versions; relying on a memory that stretches back 70 years or the stories of their parents.

Caroline Moorehead's book is a sobering account of life in an area of France where people had sometimes to make life or death decisions. At the time the German extermination camps were not common knowledge, but the evidence was everywhere to be seen of the ill treatment of the jews, identified by the Nazis as an inferior race. The people of the Plateau Vivrais-Lignon did better than most areas of the country in the preservation of human dignity, by taking risks to save others. Moorehead provides a lively background to her history and the events are described in a style that bends towards journalism, which makes it an enthralling and realistic read. The lists of primary sources and secondary sources at the back of the book is evidence of her research. Perhaps not the last word on the treatment of jews in Vichy France, but being tied to a relatively small area with characters brought alive by their stories it makes for a good book and so 4 stars. ( )

This is the true story of how a small village in the mountains of France (one of many in the resistance network) helped to hide and save thousands of Jewish people during World War II, many of whom were children. That area of Vichy France were collaborators with the Nazis between those years of 1940-44. The author has done extensive homework to uncover the real stories of who was involved, how, and exactly what happened. She is a very good writer and although I have read a lot of literature (both fiction and non-fiction) of this era, I learned a lot of the history and politics of that particular part of the world that I hadn't known before.

On some level, I almost felt that there were too many characters to follow, but then, every single one of them had a story, and every one of them was important to the overall big picture. As well, each person truly deserved this recognition, at long last. Moorehead used archives, interviews with survivors and their descendants, and her own meticulous research to tell this story. It is good - and important - to read about ordinary people doing extraordinary things to help their fellow humans, in times of great need. As timely today as ever. ( )