Q&A

The courage and dedication of those who joined the Resistance movement carried them through. But also, Churchill’s Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents began developing networks in France with the Resistance. By 1944, the two very different entities had formed an alliance that helped win the war. The Resistance often hid SOE couriers, and couriers helped organize Resistance efforts in tandem with Allied actions.

Interviews with Chantal de Pouilly and two others who lived during that time. Also, when I began writing this, there seemed to be limited knowledge of how the Resistance helped prepare the ground prior to the Allied invasion on June 6, 1944—especially regarding small, local, actions. Americans with whom I spoke knew little about the French Resistance movement or about the politics that led to its creation.

For me, the Resistance movement was instrumental to the Allied success. Their efforts and sacrifices remind me of early American colonists who fought a well-armed British monarchy. Both groups risked everything to defend their rights: freedom from tyranny and independence from authoritarianism.

While there are known facts about what happened during that time, writing this as a novel allowed the freedom to explore the day to day lives of those who were a part of the Resistance. I also wanted to illustrate how people from all walks of life joined the movement. One interesting fact that did come up was the Parisian Jesuit decision to split with Rome during the war. Rome backed the Vichy and Nazi regimes. The Jesuits in Paris sided with the Resistance. Most helped people escape France or had printing machines to make counterfeit identity cards. There were also Catholic clerics in France who fought alongside Resistance members.

I like to immerse myself in the setting before beginning a story. It helps me understand the characters and how they lived, what hardships they faced and what pleasures. I like to be descriptive, to let readers experience the setting where the action happens. ‘Setting’ is an important ‘character’ in a story.

Much of this is conjecture. But through interviews, I was better able to understand how difficult it was to live during that time. Alliances and secrecy were more than important. A person could be arrested or a network exposed if there was a betrayal. A stranger had to be introduced by someone ‘known’ before being welcomed. My husband and I have encountered this type of guarded behavior even today.

I love all of my characters but three stood out for my beta readers as the most charismatic: Gerard, a young member of a Resistance circuit, Dee, an Allied spy, and Martin, a young boy whose parents embrace the Nazi regime (he does not).

My husband, who is a biomedical researcher, has worked collaboratively with a university in France for many years. We have grown to love the country, its customs, and its people. Of course, France is known for its wonderful food, but the food itself is an example of French culture. It’s not just about the food, it’s a meal lovingly prepared in someone’s home that lasts for an afternoon, where all matter of things are discussed, including politics and religion. It’s a restaurant chef who takes time to make sure the presentation of the food on the plate pleases the diner at the table, even before the meal is eaten.

France did not choose to be involved in WW2. Germany invaded the country. France had no choice. To this day, some fault Marechal Phillippe Petain who was the leader of the French forces before being named Vice Premier, for how easily he surrendered his country to the Nazi regime.

Oppressive and frightening by some accounts. Most likely very stressful. I think about current communities of color in the United States who must have similar feelings of oppression. The Brown shirts in pre-war and Nazi Germany, officially known as Storm Troopers, used similar tactics to today’s ICE agents in the United States to arrest and oppress the German population.

This was always tricky. Strangers were never immediately trusted, including SOE agents. Secret codes were developed sometimes linked to well-known folk songs of a region. In the early days of the French Resistance, there was fear that Britain also wanted to take over France, even though that was not the case. Trust had to be proven. There was always the chance that someone was a plant, put there by the Germans to inform —as proven by the raids on a Resistance training site in La Ferte St. Aubin.

Churchill developed the Special Operations Executive, a spy network that sent agents into France to disrupt enemy activities in any way possible. His agents developed ties with the French Resistance and as war progressed, the two groups formed a strong alliance. I found the work of one of his agents particularly compelling. Pearl Witherington Cornioley, code named Pauline, was charged with coordinating SOE and Allied activities in a network of more than 2,000 Resistance fighters in central France in 1944. She was also known as one of SOE’s best snipers. She chose to keep a low profile after the war and move on with her life.

I encourage any American who has not been to the Normandy beaches and battlefields to visit. What the Allies accomplished is astounding. Thousands were killed on the beaches of Normandy, shot by German forces entrenched in cement fortresses in cliffs above those beaches. Churchill’s strategy was brilliant, of creating a port where none existed, by sinking barges in the shallows on one of those beaches. It took the enemy by surprise and gave the Allies a beach head from which to launch troops. I am not sure Americans know that on Veterans Day and Armistice Day (May 8), throughout Europe, Europeans STILL tend to the grave sites of American soldiers killed during the wars.

Personally, I view the No Kings protests as a strong form of speaking out, of voicing discontent. By definition, resistance is a form of discontent. By contrast, the French refer to the current United States protests as ‘demonstrations.’ When the French resist and protest, they block roads, organize strikes, and disrupt access to essential buildings and services. In terms of parallels, the actions of the current US government against people of color is alarmingly reminiscent of the Brown shirts, Hitler’s Storm Trooper militia that was given free rein to silence voices of dissent, seemingly outside the rule of law.