Village of Secrets: Defying the Nazis in Vichy France

“Le Chambon has long been mythologized in France for the actions of its inhabitants. . . . But, as this riveting history shows, the story is more complex. . . . If the picture Moorhead paints is messier than the myth, this only serves to enhance the heroism of the main actors.”— The New Yorker

From the author of the New York Times bestseller A Train in Winter comes the absorbing story of a French village that helped save thousands hunted by the Gestapo during World War II—told in full for the first time.

Le Chambon-sur-Lignon is a small village of scattered houses high in the mountains of the Ardèche, one of the most remote and inaccessible parts of Eastern France. During the Second World War, the inhabitants of this tiny mountain village and its parishes saved thousands wanted by the Gestapo: resisters, freemasons, communists, OSS and SOE agents, and Jews. Many of those they protected were orphaned children and babies whose parents had been deported to concentration camps.

With unprecedented access to newly opened archives in France, Britain, and Germany, and interviews with some of the villagers from the period who are still alive, Caroline Moorehead paints an inspiring portrait of courage and determination: of what was accomplished when a small group of people banded together to oppose their Nazi occupiers. A thrilling and atmospheric tale of silence and complicity, Village of Secrets reveals how every one of the inhabitants of Chambon remained silent in a country infamous for collaboration. Yet it is also a story about mythmaking, and the fallibility of memory.

A major contribution to WWII history, illustrated with black-and-white photos, Village of Secrets sets the record straight about the events in Chambon, and pays tribute to a group of heroic individuals, most of them women, for whom saving others became more important than their own lives.

• A Hidden History of the Holocaust: Go beyond the myth of Le Chambon to discover the more complex, and more heroic, true story of how its people saved thousands from the Gestapo, based on newly opened archives and survivor interviews.
• The Secret Rescue Network: Uncover the web of pastors, farmers, teachers, and doctors—many of them women—who risked everything to shelter Jewish children, Allied agents, and political refugees from the Nazis.
• A Village Against Vichy: Witness the gripping tale of silence and defiance, as an entire community stood against the collaborationist French government in a country infamous for betrayal.
• Righteous Among the Nations: A deeply moving tribute to the ordinary men and women who, guided by faith and conscience, chose to save others at a time when it was more dangerous than anything else.