Kirjahaku

The Interpreter, unbeknown to many in 1942 - except to those whose life he saved - was the German official charged with advising and interpreting for the hopelessly monolingual Wehrmacht major running the German Kommandatur from the town hall of the small town of Germigny in the Cher department. This town's significance had increased manifold as it was in the ideal position from which to control the demarcation line separating Occupied from Vichy France and running from the Atlantic to the Alpes. Nobody without a pass could cross it. It became known only after the war that the interpreter had been acting as an informer to the Allies with whom he was in radio contact at great personal danger. What is an established fact is that he, named Frank von Heugen in this book, was awarded the Croix de la R sistance posthumously by G n ral de Gaulle in 1945. The story goes that he left a coded diary telling posterity of his remarkable life and heroic deeds.

A story of courage, fear and defiance based on the authors own experience. A Pack Horse Called Rachel is the remarkable tale of a girl of twenty, daughter of a Jewish father, caught in the extraordinarily brutal world of France in 1944. Rachel moves through the pages of the book with her faithful dog Nourse, as her work with the Maquis based in the Auvergne takes her perilously close to danger. The account is based on personal experience, and the description of historical events is as true as memory will allow. It is beautifully written and at the same time captures the painful and lonely reality of life in the Maquis. Although all names have been changed the writing includes some fine characterisations of the friends and foes the heroine meets and it describes the hardships resistance fighters, the 'Maquis', in the Auvergne had to face, the climate prevailing in winter, the Vichy traitors and the hostility of ordinary people in Vichy France Rachel overcomes the initial animosity and mistrust of the lecherous and alcoholic farmer Raboullet on whom she comes to rely; the wrath of the Gestapo, the betrayal of St Pr , a love and its tragic loss. From the opening raid to the closing trial of St Pr the book gives an incisive view, as we understand the mind and soul of the resistance better with each page.

Unbeknown to many in 1942 - except to those whose life he saved - was the German official charged with advising and interpreting for the hopelessly monolingual Wehrmacht major running the German Kommandatur from the town hall of the small town of Germigny in the Cher department. This town's significance had increased manifold as it was in the ideal position from which to control the demarcation line separating Occupied from Vichy France and running from the Atlantic to the Alpes. Nobody without a pass could cross it. It became known only after the war that the interpreter had been acting as an informer to the Allies with whom he was in radio contact at great personal danger. What is an established fact is that he, named Frank von Heugen in this book, was awarded the Croix de la R sistance posthumously by G n ral de Gaulle in 1945. The story goes that he left a coded diary telling posterity of his remarkable life and heroic deeds.