192 pages / 6.00 x 9.00 inches / 19 halftones, 2 maps
History / France | History / World War II | Medical / Physicians
Doctors at War tells the stories of physicians in France working to impede the German war effort and undermine French collaborators during the Occupation from 1940 to 1945. Determined to defeat the Third Reich’s incursion, one group of prominent Paris doctors founded a medical network to treat injured Resistance fighters who they then secretly transported to Allied countries to avoid forced labor in Germany. Another team of medics organized a cabal focused on intelligence gathering and sabotage that became one of the largest in wartime France, even after the Gestapo arrested and imprisoned its leaders. Deported to concentration camps, these physicians continued to frustrate Nazi efforts by rendering aid and keeping their fellow prisoners alive. Others joined rural guerrilla camps to care for the young conscripts fighting to block German reinforcements from reaching Normandy after the D-Day landing.
These stories, assembled here for the first time, add a crucial dimension to the history of Occupied France. Written for both historians and general readers of World War II history, Doctors at War stands as a dramatic, character-driven account of physicians’ courage and resilience in the face of evil. It serves as a window into life under a fascist regime and the travails of doctors who negotiated the terrifying moral labyrinth that was the German military’s occupation of France.
Ellen Hampton is the author of Women of Valor: The Rochambelles on the WWII Front. She has a doctorate in history from L’École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris and is a former lecturer at Sciences Po in Reims and the Université de Paris II-Panthéon.
Patrice Debré is professor emeritus of immunology at Sorbonne University in Paris and a member of the French National Academy of Medicine. His grandfather Robert Debré worked as a physician in France and coordinated resistance efforts during the Occupation.
“Doctors at War is a fascinating, suspenseful account of French Resistance physicians who braved their lives for their country and their integrity, as well as the story of their colleagues who became reluctant or enthusiastic collaborators. Richly researched using letters, archives, and personal accounts of the period, this gripping story shows how German officers commandeered hospitals as some French doctors were arrested and deported to concentration camps.”—Anne-Marie O’Connor, author of The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt’s Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer
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