In 1921, Françoise Frenkel, a Jewish woman from Poland, opened La Maison du Livre, Berlin's first French bookshop, which became a haven for intellectual exchange even as Nazi ideology began to poison the culturally rich city. Frenkel's hopes were ultimately shattered in November 1938 as hundreds of Jewish businesses were smashed in the infamous Kristallnacht. Her own shop was spared, but fear of persecution forced Frenkel on a lonely flight to Paris. As the Germans invaded, she sought refuge across southern France where, as she recounts in this 1945 memoir, she witnessed countless horrors, but was saved by strangers who risked their lives to protect her.

"Insightful, sympathetic, suspenseful, and eventually triumphant, this memoir is a worthy addition to the WWII canon."—Booklist (starred review)