When Paris Went Dark

July 21, 2014
When Hitler toured his legendary conquest in 1940, occupied Paris was sinking into a colorless tedium of paranoia and oppression punctuated by grey-clad Germans and miserable Parisians suffering from shortages and overregulation. Rosbottom, professor of French and European Studies at Amherst College, delivers distinctive, humanizing anecdotes that, while occasionally lacking attribution or further identifying context, otherwise illuminate well-documented events of the occupation. After the rise of the weak, disorganized, youth-driven resistance movement and the hunt for increasingly marginalized and imperiled Jews, the bureaucrat-driven 1944 liberation and violent aftermath of the post-occupation period seem almost anti-climactic. Bolstered by a user-friendly chronology and list of personalities, Rosbottom packs his tales with memorable descriptions of both the subtle and overwhelming changes that seeped into daily life, making for a moving portrayal of the awkward coexistence of occupationâfrom the vantage points of both weary Parisians and confused, low-level German soldiers alike. Rosbottom highlights how leaderless, ordinary people and their formerly glittering city turned as grey as the occupiers' uniforms. Maps & photos.

Rosbottom's revealing study of Paris under German occupation endeavors to capture the feeling of those strange and horrifying 1,500 days. He uses an impressive range of literary, journalistic, and eyewitness sources to offer different points of view. Malcolm Hilgartner's clear, somber voice suits the tragic, complex subject. His command of both German and French allows him to effectively convey French slang and the Teutonic word choices of the Nazi regime. He presents both the horror of the occupation and its few light moments without being overdramatic. This is not a traditional chronological history. Rosbottom's inquiry moves back and forth across time in his quest to capture the essence of the City of Lights at a dark time. F.C. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

Starred review from July 1, 2014
An exploration of "what it would have been like to be [in Paris] under the German Occupation during the Second World War."The City of Light passed the war years in a period of sustained urban anxiety, when lives were constantly disrupted and fear reigned. France's army, "the uninspired being led by the incompetent," surrendered to the Nazis in June 1940. Rosbottom (Arts and Humanities, French and European Studies/Amherst Coll.) explains the interactions of the French and their occupiers in a way that illuminates their separate miseries. He makes us see that we can never judge those who lived during the occupation just because we know the outcome. If you think you might live the rest of your life under Nazi control, you do everything you can just to survive, feed your family and not get arrested. Who can judge what is accommodation, appeasement, acceptance, collaboration or treason? When they moved in, the Germans requisitioned all automobiles, rationed food, established curfews and cut back on power. The French police were merely German puppets, responsible for nearly 90 percent of the Jewish arrests. The members of the Vichy government were equally reviled. The author attentively includes German and French letters and journals that explain the loneliness, desperation and the very French way of getting by. Both during and after the war, the French seemed to be highly prone to denouncing their fellow resistors, neighbors, friends and family, but the Resistance was nothing like we're shown in many popular portrayals. Instead, there was mostly quiet defiance, such as whistling when Nazis trooped by or printing anti-German and anti-Vichy tracts. The Resistance was only truly effective the few days before and after D-Day. Otherwise, the foolhardy deeds of a few young, disorganized men brought brutal reprisals and misery.A profound historical portrait of Paris for anyone who loves the city.

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