The Forgotten Names

Mario Escobar

Jun 2024 · Sold by Harper Muse

About this eBook

In August 1942, French parents were faced with a horrible choice: watch their children die, or abandon them forever. Fifty years later, it becomes one woman’s mission to match the abandoned names with the people they belong to.

Five years after the highly publicized trial of Klaus Barbie, the “Butcher of Lyon,” law student Valérie Portheret began her doctoral research into the 108 children who disappeared from Vénissieux fifty years earlier, children who somehow managed to escape deportation and certain death in the German concentration camps. She soon discovers that their rescue was no unexplainable miracle. It was the result of a coordinated effort by clergy, civilians, the French Resistance, and members of other humanitarian organizations who risked their lives as part of a committee dedicated to saving those most vulnerable innocents.

Theirs was a heroic act without precedent in Nazi-occupied Europe, made possible due to a loophole in the Nazi agenda to deport all Jewish immigrants from the country: a legally recognized exemption for unaccompanied minors. Therefore, to save their children, the Jewish mothers of Vénissieux were asked to make the ultimate sacrifice of abandoning them forever.

Told in dual timelines, The Forgotten Names is a reimagined account of the true stories of the French men and women who have since been named Righteous Among the Nations, the children they rescued, the stifled cries of shattered mothers, and a law student, whose twenty-five-year journey allowed those children to reclaim their heritage and remember their forgotten names.

• World War II historical fiction inspired by true events
• Includes discussion questions for book clubs, a historical timeline, and notes from the author
• Book length: 70,000 words
• Also by author: Auschwitz Lullaby, Children of the Stars, Remember Me, The Librarian of Saint-Malo, The Teacher of Warsaw, The Swiss Nurse

Ratings and reviews

A very difficult book to read. About a small group of French citizens and a few religious leaders from the Catholic Church who come up with a plan to save 108 Jewish children from deportation to concentration camps. All the while occupying Germans are insisting the French make their decoration quotas. Nazi War criminal Klaus Barbie is major player. Danger, sacrifice, generosity, and punishment make for a very dramatic story. Not perfectly executed, but compelling. Based on a true story.

This was a story that I very much wanted to read. So much is left out of the history books that are taught in school. It was interesting to read about the children being found, and connected to their names. I believe everybody should read this story. I also believe that all of our history should be embraced and remembered so that hopefully it will not be repeated, especially the bad parts. This is a new to me author, but I will definitely be looking for more of his works. I received an ARC o