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. Â Purchase the
audio edition.
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