Suzanne's Children

A Daring Rescue in Nazi Paris

By: Anne Nelson

Narrated by: Anne Nelson

A story of courage in the face of evil. The tense drama of Suzanne Spaak who risked and gave her life to save hundreds of Jewish children from deportation from Nazi Paris to Auschwitz. This is one of the untold stories of the Holocaust.

Suzanne Spaak was born into the Belgian Catholic elite and married into the country's leading political family. Her brother-in-law was the Foreign Minister and her husband Claude was a playwright and patron of the painter Renee Magritte. In Paris in the late 1930s her friendship with a Polish Jewish refugee led her to her life's purpose. When France fell and the Nazis occupied Paris, she joined the Resistance. She used her fortune and social status to enlist allies among wealthy Parisians and church groups.

Under the eyes of the Gestapo, Suzanne and women from the Jewish and Christian resistance groups "kidnapped" hundreds of Jewish children to save them from the gas chambers.

In the final year of the Occupation, Suzanne was caught in the Gestapo dragnet that was pursuing a Soviet agent she had aided. She was executed shortly before the liberation of Paris. Suzanne Spaak is honored in Israel as one of the Righteous Among Nations.

©2017 Anne Nelson (P)2017 Tantor

Critic reviews

“A riveting book about a truly heroic woman in a Paris of resignation and shame. A must read !" (Diane von Furstenberg, New York Times best-selling author)

Confusing

It was a great story, but there were so many people in it, it was hard to follow at times.

Something for everyone!

Captured my imagination like a fine novel, my anger like witnessing a great crime, my guilt of my owe sins of neglect and selfishness, my heart like a love song!