Ninette's War

A Jewish Story of Survival in 1940s France

By: John Jay

Narrated by: Rupert Bush, Alexandra Boulton

This is the heart-wrenching true story of a young Jewish girl coming of age in France during World War II.

Ninette Dreyfus belonged to one of the most influential Jewish families in Paris—second only to the Rothschilds—her parents' social circle ranging from Einstein to Colette. But all that privilege counted for nothing when the Nazis arrived; the family was high up on the list of Philippe Petain's targets.

Inspired by diary entries and by conversations the author had with Ninette before she died, Ninette's War narrates the family's fall from grace alongside the creeping understanding of the Vichy government's collaboration with the Nazis. Through Ninette's eyes we witness how it all unfolded: from the anti-Semitism in the playground—sometimes from her own teachers—to Ninette's first crush under a false identity.

Woven into the political backdrop of a nation turning inward on itself, this is the tale of a life once filled with riches becoming rootless, where friends were left behind and politicians legislated their own people out of existence—and to their deaths—culminating in what we now know as the Holocaust.

©2025 John Jay (P)2025 Tantor Media

will have to buy the book!

Started this audio book but quit mid-chapter 2 because the reader is so terrible. Is that a real or a fake English accent, with brassy overtones, pauses mid-way through every sentence, and indistinguishable pronunciation? Very irritating to cope with while driving on an interstate highway. I decided I was losing 1/3rd of the content and so quit. This is probably an interesting book and I will look forward to reading it the old fashioned way.