One of the untold stories of the Holocaustâthe nail-biting drama of Suzanne Spaak, who risked and gave her life to save hundreds of Jewish children from deportation from Nazi Paris to Auschwitz âvividly dramatizes the stakes of acting morally in a time of brutalityâ (The Wall Street Journal).
Suzanne Spaak was born into the Belgian Catholic elite and married into the countryâs leading political family. Her brother-in-law was the Foreign Minister and her husband Claude was a playwright and patron of the painter RenĂŠe Magritte. In Paris in the late 1930s her friendship with a Polish Jewish refugee led her to her lifeâs purpose. When France fell and the Nazis occupied Paris, she joined the Resistance. She used her fortune and social status to enlist allies among wealthy Parisians and church groups. Then, under the eyes of the Gestapo, Suzanne and women from the Jewish and Christian resistance groups âkidnappedâ hundreds of Jewish children to save them from the gas chambers.
Suzanneâs Children is the âdoggedâŚpage-turning accountâ (Kirkus Reviews) of this incredible story of courage in the face of evil. âAnne Nelson is superb at showing the upheavals in Europe since WWI through vivid, illuminating detailsâŚand she also masterfully describes the incremental changes in the Jewsâ plight under the Occupationâ (Booklist). It was during the final year of the Occupation when Suzanne was caught in the Gestapo dragnet that was pursuing a Soviet agent she had aided. She was executed shortly before the liberation of Paris. Suzanne Spaak is honored in Israel as one of the Righteous Among Nations. Nelsonâs âheartfelt story is almost a model for how popular history should be written; it will satisfy lovers of history, Jewish history in particularâ (Library Journal).