The Art of Resistance - My Four Years in the French Underground: A Memoir
by Justus Rosenberg
An unforgettable memoir written by a 98-year-old Jewish Holocaust survivor about his escape from Nazi-controlled Danzig in the 1930's and his adventures with the French Resistance during World War II In 1937, as the Nazi Party tightened its grip on the Free City of Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland), Justus Rosenberg's parents made the heart-wrenching decision to send their son to Paris, where he would have the hope of finishing high school and going on to university in safety. He was sixteen years old, and he would not see his family again for sixteen years more. When the Nazis pushed toward Paris in the spring of 1940, Justus was penniless, in danger, cut off from contact with his family in Poland, and forced to flee south.
A chance meeting led him to Varian Fry, an American journalist in Marseille who ran a clandestine network that helped thousands of artists and intellectuals escape the Nazis, among them Hannah Arendt, Marc Chagall, Andre Breton, and Max Ernst. With Justus' German background and fluency in several languages, including English, he became an invaluable member of Fry's network as a spy and scout. For the subsequent four years, Justus relied on his wits and skills to escape captivity, survive several close calls with death, and continue his fight against the Nazis, working with the French Resistance and later becoming attached with the United States Army. At the war's end, he emigrated to America and built a new life.
Featuring never-before-seen photographs from Justus' personal archives, THE ART OF RESISTANCE: My Four Years in the French Underground is a powerful saga of bravery, daring, adventure, and survival with the pacing of a spy thriller. As Justus writes, "I survived the war through a rare combination of good fortune, resourcefulness, optimism, and most importantly, the kindness of many good people."
Justus Rosenberg was born in the Free City of Danzig in 1921. When the Nazis rose to power there, he moved to France, where he joined an extralegal French-American network that helped to bring anti-fascist intellectuals and artists from Vichy, France to the United States. He subsequently served with the United States Army, who awarded him a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. For the last 70 years, he has taught at American universities, and is currently a professor emeritus of languages and literature at Bard College. He is the co-founder of the Justus & Karin Rosenberg Foundation, which works to combat antisemitism. In 2017 the French ambassador personally made Justus a Commandeur in the Legion d'Honneur, France's highest decoration. Professor Rosenberg lives in Rhinebeck, New York.
THE ART OF RESISTANCE - My Four Years in the French Underground: A Memoir
By Justus Rosenberg
304 pages Hardcover ISBN: 978-0062742193
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