Authors interview Authors:
Writers talk about their work with other writers.
In Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation, Charles Glass offers a rich portrait of the eccentric, original and disparate group of Americans who remained in Paris throughout the war. Many—though not all—engage in remarkable acts of courage and heroism while navigating the treacherous waters of Vichy. Their voices—opinionated, outrageous, arrogant, and impossibly witty—are a particular treat, as is the reminder of the complexities of a forgotten time when most Frenchmen honored Petain and reviled De Gaulle. Whether preserving Paris, helping the resistance, or reaping war profits, these remarkable expats sparkle in this fascinating book written by a renowned author and journalist who for many years covered the Middle East.
Laurel Zuckerman talks with Charles Glass for Paris Writers News.
LZ: What attracted you to the topic of Americans in Paris during WWII? Is there any link to your previous work as a Middle East correspondent?
CG: The draw was personal. Living in Paris and studying the occupation, I asked the inevitable question: what would I have done? I studied what other Americans who lived here did, and I thought their stories would make a good book.
LZ: How did you choose your subjects?
CG: Not easy, because there were so many interesting people here then. I studied the lives of all those I could track down and settled on a mix of men and women, collaborators and resistants, socialites and bohemians. Some moron on Amazon criticized the book for not writing about American residents of Paris who had been to Fresno State. Given that Fresno State was a small teachers' college that did not offer advanced degrees until after World War II, it should not have been surprising that few of its grads lived in Paris before and during the war. Most had been to Ivy League colleges, because traveling to and living in Paris then was expensive and fairly unusual.
LZ: You show us astonishing heroes as well as people with divided loyalties but no outright villains. Why?
CG: Among the Americans in Paris, I did not find any. There may have been a few, but their names do not appear in the records. Remember, most people who came to Paris from American then were escaping conformity, racism and sexism: they were not likely to welcome the Nazis, who incarnated all three.
LZ: There are wonderful quotes. Where did you find them?
CG: Most were in letters and diaries that I found in archives in the US and France. Some came from memoirs written by the principals, especially Sylvia Beach.
LZ: Did you have difficulty accessing archives?
CG: They are all open to the public, and most of their staffs are helpful.
LZ: The Chambrun family is a study in divided loyalites. Was this ambiguity common among the Franco-American elites, or do the Chambruns represent an extreme exception?
CG: The latter. Because of the marriage of Aldebert and Clara's son, Rene de Chambrun, to the daughter of Pierre Laval, they were closer to the Vichy hierarchy than almost every other American. They did their duty as they saw it, keeping open the American Library and the American Hospital. They did not conspire with the Germans, despite their family relationship with Laval.
LZ: The Chambruns place their hopes in Pétain and loath De Gaulle. Was this a common attitude?
CG: In 1940, it was the only attitude. Only a few Frenchmen had heard of de Gaulle, and Petain was a Marechal of France with a reputation from World War I. Even the majority of French servicemen who had escaped to England from Dunkirk in June 1940 elected to return to France and live under Petain than to fight on the side of de Gaulle. Vichy convicted de Gaulle of treason, and most of the French office corps approved. As time went on and Germany began to lose the war, attitudes changed.
LZ: The book is filled with ironies. Did you make a special effort to search for them or is that simply what characterizes this period?
CG: The ironies were in the material. The period is so rich that one does not need to impose anything.
LZ: What was your impression of Charles Bédaux? Do you think you could meet such a amoral businessman today?
CG: Is there any other kind? In fact, the people who bankrupted our economies last year and plunder most of the third world are probably worse.
LZ: Do you think that justice was possible –or desirable—after the war?
CG: The events of the epuration in the aftermath of liberation were horrible and anything but just. It was a black period in French history. Equally bad was the fact that many of the guilty got away with their crimes for years.
LZ: As a Middle East specialist, do you see any parallels with wars and occupations in that region?
CG: Foreign occupations tend to be unpopular, whether the occupier is the Wehrmacht in France, France in Algeria, the US in Iraq and Afghanistan or Israel in the West Bank and Gaza. It is not for nothing that most people will fight for their self-determination.
LZ: What do you like best about France?
CG: The list is too long.
LZ: What are you working on now?
CG: A book on American and British deserters from the armed forces in World War II. There were 150,000 of them, and they all have compelling stories.
=======
Americans in Paris : Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation 1940-1944 amazon.fr and amazon.com
Les Américains à Paris: Vie et Mort sous l'Occupation Nazi 1940-1944 at amazon.fr
FOR MORE PARIS WRITERS NEWS INTERVIEWS
Follow us on Twitter @ParisWriters !
