Download Village of Secrets: Defying the Nazis in Vichy France AudioBook Free
From the author of the New York Times bestseller A Train in Winter comes the exciting story of your French village that helped save thousands hunted by the Gestapo during World Conflict II. High up in the mountains of the southern Massif Central in France rest tiny, remote control villages united by an extended and particular background. Through the Second World Conflict, the inhabitants of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon and its own parishes saved thousands wished by the Gestapo: resisters, Freemasons, communists, and, most importantly, Jews, most of them orphans whose parents have been deported to attentiveness camps. There were no informers, no denunciations, and nobody broke rates. During raids, the children would hide in the woods, their packs on the backs, waiting to listen to the farmers' song that told them it was safe to come back. After the battle, Le Chambon became one of only two places on earth to be honored by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among Nations. Just why and exactly how Le Chambon and its own outlying villages arrived to save more and more people has never fully been told. With unprecedented usage of newly opened archives in France, Britain, and Germany, along with interviews documenting the testimony of making it through villagers, Caroline Moorehead paints an inspiring family portrait of courage and perseverance: of what was accomplished when a small group of individuals banded jointly to oppose tyranny. A major contribution to the annals of the next World War, Community of Secrets sets the record straight about the events in Chambon and pays tribute to several heroic individuals for whom saving others became more important than their own lives.
