Resumo de Suite Francaise - Irene Nemirovsky

Denise Epstein, the only surviving daughter of socialite and author Irene Nemirovsky, was 13 years old when German soldiers took her mother from their home in Issy l'Eveque, France in July 1942. Irene gave Denise a suitcase to guard with her life. Denise and her 5 year old sister never saw their mother again. Irene Nemirovsky was 39, charming, privileged and popular. Her family were Jewish emigres who escaped Russia during the revolution. High profile, high flying Irene was a natural target for the vicious new laws against Jews during wartime France. Michel Epstein, her husband, wrote to and contacted everyone for her whereabouts. Michel made too mich trouble for himself to be left at liberty, he was arrested by September, 1942. The arresting German officer refused to arrest the children, he showed Denise a photograph of his own 5 year old daughter, he urged Julie Dumont, a family friend, to care for the children. The 2 children, with Julie their guardian, went on t! he run in rural France. Catholic nuns and priests and country people sheltered them, evading the Germans and French military police for 2 years. Albin Michel, Irene Nemirovsky's Paris publisher set up a trust fund for the children whilst Julie Dumont had put her name to Irene's pre-war books and diverted the income to Irene's family both taking enormous risks.Albin Michel settled the children in Toulouse after the war.Denise Epstein, 77 years old today in Toulouse did not open the suitcase until 30 years after the war. Irene Nemirovsky was never officially accounted for, in fact, she only survived in Auschwitz a few weeks, her father was killed on arrival at the same camp some months later.Inside the suitcase was the manuscript for the first 2 novels of an intended 5 volume epic, the story of life in France under wartime German occupation. Over 20 years using a magnifying glass, Denise Epstein desciphered and transcribed the reams of minuscule handwriting. She took the manuscript to a French publisher. The interest was instant, here was a unique memoir, by a renowned author that survived against all odds. Apart from the Diary of Anne Frank, little like this memoir, written in real time, survived the war. The book published in 2004, was hailed as a masterpiece, compared fourably with Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. The first volume, Storm in June, narrates the panicked exodus from Paris as the Germans advance, portraying deceptions, betrayals and rare acts of heroism.The second volume,Dolce, is set in a small village in occupied France, where a young French wife (her husband is a POW) falls in love with the honourable German officer billeted in her house, a brilliant commentary on how people respond to crisis, capturing everyday life and behaviour. It was published in France under Irene's original title Suite Francaise. Why didn't she flee France? She saw the dangers. Everyone talked about work camps not death camps. Mass killing was inconceivable. They stayed expecting to survive.Today, Denise Epstein is calm, self contained with a strong philosophy that has driven her whole life. She has forgiven much and fought to stay free of bitterness in the country that visited such horror on her family. 'The most beautiful victory is my mother's book. Suite Francaise has brought the dead back from the grave, stronger than ever, and for my mother and all those who died, it is a marvellous thing.'

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