Hotel Exile Paris in the Shadow of War by Jane Rogoyska

 Eva Tichaeur, aged 15, looks at Paris from the Sacre Coeur, and thinks how wonderful it is to be in such a beautiful city with her whole life ahead of her. Life is fine for Eva with her relatively well-off parents, but for the other German exiles, it is difficult, and soon it will become much harder. They include professionals, artists and writers, many of whom were used to fine living in Berlin, but now they are refugees, mostly struggling and unwelcome by the French.

Nevertheless, several decide to fight against Hitler, astonished that such a regime could form government in their country, famous for its civilisation and culture. They form groups and committees which meet at one of Paris’s grand old hotels, the Hotel Lutetia on the Left Bank. The Art Deco hotel’s emblem is a storm-tossed ship inscribed Fluctuat Nec Mergitur, which translates from Latin to "Tossed by the waves, but never sinks". This traditional Parisian motto emphasizes the resilience of the city, and the hotel. They’re both going to need every bit of that resilience in the years ahead.

The fight of the exiles is useless. As the war comes closer to Paris, some manage to escape, but several are interned, or put into concentration camps. The intelligence division of the Nazis, the Abwehr takes over the hotel as ‘the City of Light’ falls into darkness. A German officer hands the Commander Oscar Reile a glass of champagne as he enters the palatian hotel’s doors. There was a little bit of resistance, however. Marcel Weber, the maitre’d, saw to it that the hotel’s fine wines were hidden in a secret cellar, which the Germans never discovered.

Redemption comes in the form of the survivors of the concentration camps who form a steady stream through the hotel’s doors when it’s requisitioned for this purpose by General de Gaulle. Starved and ghostly, they’re shockingly sprayed with DDT. Their friends and families and onlookers are stunned and horrified to see the evidence of their barbaric treatment. However, the survivors mostly remember being treated with kindness, gentleness and humanity at the hotel, apart from the DDT.

This is a fascinating book, which sets vivid scenes, and contains the stories of several intriguing characters and their relationship with the Hotel Lutetia. They include General de Gaulle who spends his honeymoon there years before the war, and leaves an army trunk there when he flees to London to set up a resistance force, James Joyce, who often stays there, and his close friend and secretary, Paul Leon. Highly recommended!

I received this free ebook from NetGalley in return for an honest review.