LEADER 03683cam a2200445 i 4500001 280742 005 20240624132540.0 008 171006s2018 nyua b 001 0deng 010 2017047180 020 9780190499549 |q(hardcover) |q(alkaline paper) 020 |z9780190499563 |q(epub) 020 |z9780190499556 |q(updf) 035 (DLC) 2017047180 035 (DLC)280742 042 pcc 043 e-fr--- 041 1 eng |hfre 040 DLC |beng |erda |cDLC |dDLC 050 00 D811.5 |b.W471613 2018 082 00 940.53/44092 |223 100 1 Werth, Léon, |d1878-1955, |eauthor. 240 10 Déposition. |lEnglish 245 10 Deposition, 1940-1944 : |ba secret diary of life in Vichy France / |cLéon Werth ; edited and translated by David Ball. 264 1 New York, NY : |bOxford University Press, |c[2018] 300 xxxix, 325 pages : |billustrations ; |c25 cm 336 text |btxt |2rdacontent 337 unmediated |bn |2rdamedia 338 volume |bnc |2rdacarrier 504 Includes bibliographical references (pages 309-311) and index. 520 Historians agree: the diary of Léon Werth (1878-1955) is one of the most precious--and readable--pieces of testimony ever written about life in France under Nazi occupation and the Vichy regime. Werth was a free-spirited and unclassifiable writer. He is the author of eleven novels, art and dance criticism, acerbic political reporting, and memorable personal essays. He was Jewish, and left Paris in June 1940 to hide out in his wife's country house in Saint-Amour, a small village in the Jura Mountains. His short memoir 33 Days recounts his struggle to get there. Deposition tells of daily life in the village, on nearby farms and towns, and finally back in Paris, where he draws the portrait of a Resistance network in his apartment and writes an eyewitness report of the insurrection that freed the city in August 1966. From Saint-Amour, we see both the Resistance in the countryside--derailing troop trains, punishing notorious collaborators--and growing repression: arrests, torture, deportation, and executions. Above all, we see how Vichy and the Occupation affect the lives of farmers and villagers and how their often contradictory attitudes evolve from 1940 to 1944. Werth's ear for dialogue and novelist's gift for creating characters animate the diary: in the markets and in town, we meet real French peasants and shopkeepers, railroad men and the patronne of the café at the station, schoolteachers and gendarmes. They come off the page alive, and the countryside and villages come alive with them. With biting irony, Werth records, almost daily, what Vichy-German propaganda was saying on the radio and in the press. We follow the progress of the war as people did then, day by day. These entries make interesting, often amusing reading, a stark contrast with his entries on the persecution and deportation of the Jews. Deposition is a varied and complex piece of living history, and a pleasure to read. -- Inside jacket flaps.7 591 Record updated by Marcive brief record update service 24 June 2024 599 Shelved at 49-5-7 600 10 Werth, Léon, |d1878-1955 |vDiaries. 650 0 World War, 1939-1945 |vPersonal narratives, French. 651 0 France |xHistory |yGerman occupation, 1940-1945. 655 7 Diaries. |2lcgft 655 7 Personal narratives. |2lcgft 700 1 Ball, David, |d1937- |eeditor, |etranslator. 776 08 |iOnline version:Werth, Léon, 1878-1955 author. |tDeposition, 1940-1944 |dNew York : Oxford University Press, [2018] |z9780190499556 |w(DLC) 2017048650 852 0 |breceiving |kShelved at 49-5-7