A great addition to memoires about the French Resistance, personal and touching. ( )

I have read a decent amount of WWII fiction and a marginal amount of non-fiction and memoirs. For the most part, they have been war/fighting based or centered on a concentration camp victim. I think this is the first time I have ever read about the Nazi labor camps as opposed to the concentration camps.

Reading this true story, even this long after WWII, was both enlightening and heartbreaking. Agnes Humbert tells her story as she helps lead one of France's first resistance newspapers and the subsequent trials she goes through as she is arrested and detained first in French camps and then later in German labor camps. The suffering she and other political (and criminal) prisoners went through was unimaginable. And yet through it all, she maintained an admirable sense of humor and lightheartedness that both made it easier to stomach her tale and served to ensure that her and her companions were able to survive to see the next morning.

I definitely recommend this read, especially to WWII enthusiasts and people who are interested in reading a truly inspirational story from a real life patriot and hero. ( )

Agnes Humbert’s memoir, Resistance, is book that should have been published in the United States decades ago. She is a well-educated woman of means with grown sons and a prestigious career. Humbert’s story of her experiences during the beginning of the German occupation of France is told through her diary. In it she tells how she and a few friends formed one of the first cells of what became the French Resistance. Her detailed accounts of their activities and identities caused me to cringe. Her diary could have been found at any time revealing the identity of so many of her comrades to the Nazis. Her naiveté and her visceral rage at the invading Germans leap off the page but both are tempered after the arrest of her and her companions, their trial and, for some, their execution.

The second part of her story, her time in custody, her trial, her time as slave labor, was obviously written after the fact but the details, the names, and the sights she remembers are remarkable and believable. They are the things anyone would remember, the kindness of a guard, the charity of a fellow prisoner, the snub of a fellow citizen. What struck me most about this section was seeing all this through the eyes of a woman. For example, the factory she was working in used vats of hot acid, I knew from seeing my father’s clothes when he worked as an electrotyper what that would do to clothing. His tee shirts would last a month before they were reduced to a series of holes joined by some threads. However, it never would have occurred to me that a woman might risk a beating to procure a safety pin to preserve her modesty after acid eat enough holes in her blouse until I read Humbelt’s account of the incident. After describing the conditions in the rayon factory where she was required to operate huge, intimidating machinery, had her hands plunged into acid, and endured molten chemicals burning into her flesh, she did not dwell on the conditions, or her tormenters but instead she wrote of the people with whom she was imprisoned, the ‘common criminal’ as well as the political prisoners.

The third part of Madam Humbert’s story was a complete revelation to me. After the rayon factory was destroyed and after being moved several times deeper into Germany, the American Army liberates the area. The prison holding her opens its gates, releasing her and her fellow inmates into chaos. She immediately begins a new diary. She also takes control of the prison, telling the former staff that she would protect them but they needed to do as she said. With the blessing of a passing American officer she did the same in the local town. She organizes relief work for the refugees and, most amazing, she began documenting the identities of the local Nazi officials and the local anti-Nazis. She did all this while armed groups of Nazis still roamed the nearby woods and the American soldiers were still pushing on toward Berlin.

I am dumbfounded that a book of this quality, with such rich details of underreported aspects of the war, written by a true hero, took so long to be translated into English and become available to those of us who are linguistically challenged. I fear that her left leaning politics might have had something to do with it. Her belief that the Soviet Union would be the nation that defeated Germany might not have been popular in the Cold War United States, or, it could just be that she was a woman. Regardless of the reason, I am thankful that it is now available and I cannot recommend it more highly.

I enjoyed this book tremendously but this does not mean I had a hard time getting through some sections. I am interested in WWII so this book was right up my alley. I did find that I would get so wrapped up in the book that I needed to keep a "fluffy" book on hand to switch between to help alleviate the mood. I would very much recommend this book to others. ( )

I enjoyed reading this book. I was amazed that Agnes Humbert survived after all she went thru. ( )