About the Book
THE TIMES NON-FICTION RECOMMENDED READ
'Chillingly relevant' DAILY MAIL
'Evocative, assiduously researched ... one girl's wartime escape [and] a brutal reckoning with Vichy France's wilful complicity in wartime atrocities' SUNDAY TIMES
'Meticulously researched with an inimitable richness, depth and levity' NEW STATESMAN
'A deeply researched and evocative true story' ANNE SEBBA
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 was dramatic. Realising that her fate would be transformed, the teenager soon found herself fleeing the capital for the South, only to then fall prey to the Vichy regime. In fear for 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.
About the Author :
John Jay is a former managing editor for business news at The Sunday Times. He is the author of Facing Fearful Odds: My Father's Story of Captivity, Escape and Resistance 1940-1945; Ninette's War is his third book. He lives in London with his family.
Review :
A coming-of-age story that unravels France's dark years of Nazi occupation with the paradox of who resisted, who betrayed and who collaborated. Compelling testimony to what it means to be forced to flee your home and yet emerge with optimism and plenty of life still to be lived
Chronicling the harrowing story of her family's wartime experience and their dizzying fall from extreme wealth and privilege to homelessness, fear and hunger, Jay skilfully weaves extracts from Ninette's diary into a wider account of what happened to French Jews. In between typical teenage musings on clothes, spots and crushes on boys, Ninette's War is not an easy read, but at a time of rising anti-Semitism across the world, it is chillingly relevant
An evocative, assiduously researched account of survival, [and] brutal reckoning with Vichy France's antisemitism and wilful complicity in wartime atrocities. Ninette Dreyfus was from a prominent Jewish family, who had lived in France for generations. Drawn from the diary she kept as well as interviews she gave Jay, family papers and secondary sources among extraordinary cases of escape and bravery... this is her story of fleeing wartime France, embedded in a rich historical background
... meticulously researched, Ninette's War is as much an evocative articulation of the horrors of the Holocaust as it is a reckoning of France's regime under Philippe Pétain. By situating Ninette's remarkable story within the broader historical and social context, Jay is able to offer a unique text with an inimitable richness, depth and, at times, levity
Jay has done an expert job, not just of telling the story of the Dreyfus family, but also the shocking progression of France, from the first European country to emancipate Jews, to a place where French people denounced, betrayed and helped to murder them ... some believed that [their secular-mindedness] would save them, even after the Nazis occupied France. Ninette's War is as much a dissection of the tragic failure of that belief, as it is a family's story of precarious survival
The ripples of stories about the courage and tragic fate of Jews in Nazi occupied Europe still reach us. John Jay's reclaiming of the wartime odyssey in France of Ninette Dreyfus - aka Lady Swaythling in a later life in Britain - is spellbinding. A worthy recalling of the past in the dark times of the present
A worthy addition to the Holocaust lexicon.
John Jay's riveting account of the life of Ninette Dreyfus, daughter of one branch of the illustrious Jewish family, skillfully unfurls a fascinating, textured account of France's betrayal of the Jews during the Second World War. Cleaving to the details of her life and that of those around her, Jay provides a gripping and fresh narrative of ever-more astonishing, pacey and ultimately world-changing events. At a time when the Holocaust and the taboo against anti-Semitism moves further away in time, Ninette's War provides urgent context and details we must not forget, alongside a compassionate, elegant tribute to one brave woman's life
Ninette Dreyfus was from a prominent Jewish family, who had lived in France for generations. This is her story of fleeing the country in wartime
Terrifying ... France's années noires seem to remain a time of unceasing fascination to memoirists and historians, but soon there will be no one like Ninette left to tell their own individual stories. Ninette was a heedless, contented Parisian schoolgirl when the Germans marched into France in May 1940. Two years earlier she had been given a diary, and her entries, sometimes in code, form the backbone to Jay's book [with] passages reminiscent of Anne Frank's musings about growing up in her attic in Amsterdam. As Maréchal Pétain set about "purifying" France of its Jewish "plague", her father managed to hold on to enough money to ensure that the family never lacked food, but acts of violent antisemitism exploded around them. And once the Germans occupied the Riviera, with their network of traitors and informers, it finally became clear that even French born Jews were no longer safe.
The 12-year-old Ninette Dreyfus- Jewish by name and descent, yet utterly oblivious of Jewish history, ritual and belief-made the first entry in a diary that she had been given for her birthday. Filled with details of the misery of her first adolescent spots, of crushes on boys, of tennis and swimming parties ... [her wealthy family were], like so many, very slow to recognise the danger they were in. She fled Paris with her family to avoid deportation to Auschwitz, [though] even the terrifying and arduous escape on foot across the Pyrenees to Spain seems to have been viewed by Ninette as an adventure. Mr Jay manages to tell her story with understanding, as well as detailing the wider context
The story of one french jewish girl's struggle to evade deportation to the nazi death camps ... well-researched and well-written ... [it's] strength is in describing everyday life for Jews in France, the casual antisemitism of the late 1930s which, during the occupation, grew into a wicked complicity in the Nazis' Final Solution
Praise for Facing Fearful Odds
This book is a well-written and moving act of filial homage, where Jay discusses a father always beyond his reach ... leaving behind little more than a few pages of an abandoned memoir and book of poems, Facing Fearful Odds explores the mystery and tries to make sense of his father's tragic post-war life
A pacey and well-researched from an impressive array of sources, Facing Fearful Odds is a moving testament to filial love. Jay has the journalists gift for moving a narrative along in a pacey fashion, and takes us to the heart of darkness where so many men like his father had to dwell, giving him a voice through this work of love
A fascinating account of life in a prisoner-of-war camp ... Facing Fearful Odds is remarkable reconstruction of one man's war and moving tale of endurance and courage
A vivid and engaging description of [Alec Jay's] war experience
Well written with useful maps and interesting photos ... [will be] of interest to anyone looking for a soldier's tale of captivity
