ThoughtGallery.org > France, Rescue, and the Church

France, Rescue, and the Church

In very different books — one a historian’s portrait, the other a journalist’s family story — Susan Zuccotti and Leslie Maitland both focus on France and the Holocaust. Their works will be the focus of a discussion at the Museum of Jewish History.

Tickets will be available from 4pm on a first-come, first-served basis.

About the books: Susan Zuccotti’s Père Marie-Benoît and Jewish Rescue: How a French Priest Together with Jewish Friends Saved Thousands during the Holocaust explores the life and work of Père Marie-Benoît (1895-1990), a courageous French Capuchin priest who risked everything to hide Jews in France and Italy during the Holocaust, by providing false papers, helping them to elude their persecutors. From monasteries first in Marseille and later in Rome, Père Marie-Benoît worked with Jewish co-conspirators to build remarkably effective Jewish-Christian rescue networks. To shed light on the priest’s life, Zuccotti delved into archives in France and at the Vatican and personally interviewed Père Marie-Benoît, his family, Jewish rescuers with whom he worked, and survivors who owed their lives to his network.

Leslie Maitland’s Crossing the Borders of Time is a journalist’s depiction of a world at war, and a daughter’s investigation into what became of her mother’s lost love 50 years after the fact. On a pier in Marseille in 1942, Leslie Maitland’s mother, Janine, then an 18-year-old German Jewish girl, was pried from the arms of Roland, the Catholic Frenchman she loved and promised to marry. Janine would build a new life in New York with an American husband to whom she was unhappily married. However, she never ceased yearning to reclaim her lost love. In the 1990s, Leslie went in search of her mother’s first love with the secret hope of reconnecting them.











When: Wed., Dec. 11, 2013 at 7:00 pm
Where: Museum of Jewish Heritage
36 Battery Pl.
646-437-4202
Price: Free; donations welcome
Buy tickets/get more info now
See other events in these categories:

In very different books — one a historian’s portrait, the other a journalist’s family story — Susan Zuccotti and Leslie Maitland both focus on France and the Holocaust. Their works will be the focus of a discussion at the Museum of Jewish History.

Tickets will be available from 4pm on a first-come, first-served basis.

About the books: Susan Zuccotti’s Père Marie-Benoît and Jewish Rescue: How a French Priest Together with Jewish Friends Saved Thousands during the Holocaust explores the life and work of Père Marie-Benoît (1895-1990), a courageous French Capuchin priest who risked everything to hide Jews in France and Italy during the Holocaust, by providing false papers, helping them to elude their persecutors. From monasteries first in Marseille and later in Rome, Père Marie-Benoît worked with Jewish co-conspirators to build remarkably effective Jewish-Christian rescue networks. To shed light on the priest’s life, Zuccotti delved into archives in France and at the Vatican and personally interviewed Père Marie-Benoît, his family, Jewish rescuers with whom he worked, and survivors who owed their lives to his network.

Leslie Maitland’s Crossing the Borders of Time is a journalist’s depiction of a world at war, and a daughter’s investigation into what became of her mother’s lost love 50 years after the fact. On a pier in Marseille in 1942, Leslie Maitland’s mother, Janine, then an 18-year-old German Jewish girl, was pried from the arms of Roland, the Catholic Frenchman she loved and promised to marry. Janine would build a new life in New York with an American husband to whom she was unhappily married. However, she never ceased yearning to reclaim her lost love. In the 1990s, Leslie went in search of her mother’s first love with the secret hope of reconnecting them.

Buy tickets/get more info now