Ninette's War

Jay has the gift for forging a voice and moving narrative from an impressive array of sources - JEWISH CHRONICLE

Ninette Dreyfus was a cosseted scion of one of France's most prominent Jewish families - a cousin to Albert Einstein and family friend to Colette. But when the Second World War broke out and the Germans occupied Paris, the fall from grace was dramatic. Realising that her fate would be transformed, the teenager soon found herself fleeing the capital for the South, only to fall prey to the Vichy regime. In fear of her life at the hands of the Nazis and their French collaborators, she became somebody else.

Woven together from Ninette's own diaries and interviews with author John Jay before she died, Ninette's War traces the frailty of national and personal unity through the eyes of a young woman, in compelling and unforgettable detail.