Outwitting the Gestapo (Paperback, New Ed)

A suspenseful rendering of Aubrac's experiences as a French Resistance fighter during WW II. This memoir owes its existence to the 1983 extradition to France of Klaus Barbie, the "Butcher of Lyon": In order to refute Barbie's defenders and former collaborators, Aubrac told her story publicly for the first time - and it became a bestseller in France. Focusing on a nine-month period that begins with the conception of her second child, Aubrac looks back 40 years at experiences of enduring intensity. During the war, the author, her Jewish husband Raymond, and other "resistants" published and distributed underground newspapers, found new identities and homes for fugitives, forged permits, stole guns, and blew up roads and bridges - all routine Resistance activities. What makes this account special, however, is Aubrac's irrepressible energy and resourcefulness, and the graceful way in which she interweaves her separate but parallel lives. As a mother and wife struggling in a wartime economy, she bartered for bard-to-find items; as a devoted schoolteacher, she applied the lessons of history to current events; as a secret member of the Resistance, she couldn't disclose her true identity even to her most trusted colleagues, switching names and identities like a quick-change artist. Three times, she helped free her husband from prison. The last incarceration was the most harrowing: Walking into a trap, Raymond was arrested, tortured, and sentenced to die by Barbie himself. Despite her anguish, Aubrac tricked her husband's captors into meetings and masterminded an intricate rescue. The Aubracs' escape by airlift to London, where their baby was born, is tremendously exciting. A breathtaking account that feeds the soul as much as it satisfies the appetite for vicarious danger. (Kirkus Reviews)

Lucie Aubrac (1912-2007), of Catholic and peasant background, was teaching history in a Lyon girls' school and newly married to Raymond, a Jewish engineer, when World War II broke out and divided France. The couple, living in the Vichy zone, soon joined the Resistance movement in opposition to the Nazis and their collaborators. Outwitting the Gestapo is Lucie's harrowing account of her participation in the Resistance: of the months when, though pregnant, she planned and took part in raids to free comrades—including her husband, under Nazi death sentence—from the prisons of Klaus Barbie, the infamous Butcher of Lyon. Her book is also the basis for the 1997 French movie, Lucie Aubrac, which was released in the United States in 1999.   Purchase the audio edition.

General

Imprint:	University of Nebraska Press
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	November 1994
First published:	November 1994
Authors:	Lucie Aubrac
Translators:	Konrad Bieber • Betsy Wing
Introduction by:	Margaret Collins Weitz
Dimensions:	215 x 137 x 16mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback - Trade
Pages:	235
Edition:	New Ed
ISBN-13:	978-0-8032-5923-2
Categories:	Books > Humanities > History > General Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political ideologies > Fascism & Nazism Books > History > General
LSN:	0-8032-5923-9
Barcode:	9780803259232

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