“The Paris Library” - Janet Skeslien Charles

📚 This fantastic historical fiction was based on very real events. A courageous team of French and international staff and volunteers kept the American Library in Paris during World War II - particularly important during the German occupation of Paris. Charles includes many of these real people in her story. In her author’s note, she tells us what happened to Helen and Peter, Miss Wedd, Miss Turnbull, Clara de Chambrun (who penned “Shadows Lengthen,” a memoir), Dr. Fuchs, Boris, and Miss Reeder.

📚 The American Library prepared books to be shipped out to British and French troops because as Miss Reed states: “People read. War or no war”. Donated books filtered in to be packaged and shipped out. The Red Cross, Quakers, and YMCA volunteers joined the effort. It was a significant form of morale boosting; book and magazine requests poured in from wherever troops were stationed, biding their time.

📚 TPL follows two seemingly distinct timelines: WWII-era Paris, and Cold War era Montana. We meet idealistic Odile in Paris, and naive Lily in Montana. Charles elegantly connects these timelines.

📚 While our Parisian protagonist and her American best friend were entirely fictitious, the denunciation or “crow” letters that feature prominently in this story, were rampant during the German occupation. Either out of petty greed or jealousy, French citizens who anonymously submitted such letters claiming to out Jewish neighbors, did so in the realm of 500,000 letters. The French police were under Nazi orders to investigate each claim, and imprison the victims. Sadly, we know the fate that many of these victims faced. Charles wrote the crow letters about the APL based on other such letters, but those Odile finds about specific persons, were real!

📚 TPL provides an interesting counterpoint to “The Last Bookshop in London” as it gives us a vivid picture of occupied Paris, and the dangerous crucible created by Nazis in which Parisians could turn on one another. The realities of Dunkirk were kept from the French people - they were reassured that all was well, and Germany was being routed. The French citizenry was lead to believe that the Maginot Line was an impregnable defense.

📚 I learned that there was a point in time where things looked particularly grim, that France cut diplomatic ties with England following the English sinking of French ships as a precautionary measure. I also learned, that the Nazi chokehold on dissenting voices had an actual staff assigned to eliminating contrary reading material; it was known as the Bibliotheksschutz or “book gestapo”.

📚 TPL inspired reading:

• Chekov’s short stories
• “The Little Prince” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry