THE ANONYMOUS HEROES OF SUMMER 44

Their stories are unknown or forgotten. The author — a journalist who, over the course of his career, gathered the confidences of these "heroic" individuals — has set out to preserve their memory. Blanche Jacquot, a resistance fighter from the very beginning. Courier and forger, she was arrested in March 1944. Imprisoned, she escaped in the hours before the liberation of Paris. Edmond Lecouturier, a young man burning with conviction. Setting out on foot from Paris, he crossed through Caen in the midst of fighting to reach the Allied troops and enlist in the Forces Françaises Libres. Loïc Raufast, an FFL paratrooper. Born in Vladivostok and living in China, he discovered France — his country — by parachuting into Brittany on the night of 5 to 6 June 1944. Marie-Louise Pincemaille, expelled from Lorraine by the Nazis. She found refuge with her family in Oradour-sur-Glane. She escaped the massacre of the village thanks to an SS soldier. Edouard Brunet, an architect. He passed vital military intelligence to the Allies. Appointed FFI commander, his mission was to liberate his own town, Eu, in Upper Normandy. Philippe de Gaulle, the General's son. A cadet at the Free French naval academy, he commanded a torpedo boat in the English Channel and took part in the liberation of Paris. This is not a historian's book, but a collection of testimonies. Placed end to end, these accounts build, stroke by stroke — in the manner of the Impressionists — a portrait of France in that era.