The Winter Rose - Grace Tonquin is an American Quaker who works tirelessly in Vichy France to rescue Jewish children from the Nazis. After crossing the treacherous Pyrenees, Grace returns home to Oregon with a brother and sister who lost their parents during the war. Though Grace and her husband love Elias and Marguerite as their own, echoes of Grace’s past and trauma from the Holocaust tear the fragile new family apart. More than fifty years after they disappear, Addie Hoult arrives at Tonquin Lake, hoping to find the Tonquin family. For Addie, the mystery of what happened to them is a matter of life and death for her beloved mentor Charlie, who is battling a genetic disease. Though Charlie refuses to discuss his ties to the elusive Tonquins, piecing together their story is the only way to save his life—and potentially mend the wounds from his broken past.
Fun Facts About The Winter Rose - The author, Melanie Dobson, came up with the idea for this WWII novel in the midst of the 2020 pandemic when she had heard about the American and British Quakers in France who helped Jewish children during World War II. According to Dobson, “The Winter Rose is not meant to be a reflection of modern-day Quakerism but a historical account of one woman who devoted her life to Christ and caring for His children. It is also a tribute to the men and women who sacrificed their lives to transport kids of all ages over the Pyrenees.
The Forgotten Names - Five years after the highly publicized trial of Klaus Barbie, the "Butcher of Lyon," law student Valérie Portheret began her doctoral research into the 108 children who disappeared from Vénissieux fifty years earlier, children who somehow managed to escape deportation and certain death in the German concentration camps. She soon discovers that their rescue was no unexplainable miracle. It was the result of a coordinated effort by clergy, civilians, the French Resistance, and members of other humanitarian organizations who risked their lives as part of a committee dedicated to saving those most vulnerable innocents.
Theirs was a heroic act without precedent in Nazi-occupied Europe, made possible due to a loophole in the Nazi agenda to deport all Jewish immigrants from the country: a legally recognized exemption for unaccompanied minors. Therefore, to save their children, the Jewish mothers of Vénissieux were asked to make the ultimate sacrifice of abandoning them forever. Told in dual timelines, The Forgotten Names is a reimagined account of the true stories of the French men and women who have since been named Righteous Among the Nations, the children they rescued, the stifled cries of shattered mothers, and a law student, whose twenty-five-year journey allowed those children to reclaim their heritage and remember their forgotten names.
Fun Facts About The Forgotten Names - Spanish author, Mario Escobar, first learned about Valerie Portheret and her work from a French newspaper, discovering how her story has moved French society. Through that, Mario Escobar wrote The Forgotten Names. In the Clarifications From History section of his book, Escobar shares something incredible:
“It is true that Valerie dedicated herself to identifying the names of the 108 children and locating them personally. Thus began a journey that lasted more than twenty-five years, a journey to return to those children their original identities and to listen to their stories. By 1994 she had identified the names of 93 of the 108 children from a list found in the archives of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, a French organization. In 2003 she uncovered eighty-two of the waivers from the Venissieux camp in which parents signed away their parental rights and entrusted their children to members of Amitie Chretienne. Among the children on the list of those rescued from Venissieux was a girl named Eva Stein. Eva was one of the last children Valerie found, and not until 2018. Altogether, Valerie has identified the names of all 108, has reconstructed the stories of 90 of the children, and has personally met with as many as of the children and the rescue workers as possible.”
My Thoughts - World War II novels are quite possibly my favorite sub-genre in our library, and here’s why: There was so much pain and devastation that came from that time. The concentration camps, the Blitz, countries and families falling apart. It would have been so easy to lose hope in the midst of all that pain and suffering. But as many authors and researchers have found, hope wasn’t lost. Like the people that these two books are based on, there were courageous heroes who helped where they could and never lost faith. And that ‘s why I love World War II books. They remind us that no matter how dark things get, there’s always a light.