Ninette’s War : A Jewish Story of Survival in 1940s France

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2025 AND THE TIMES NON-FICTION RECOMMENDED READ ‘Chillingly relevant’ DAILY MAIL’An intimate portrait of of the Holocaust in France’ NEW YORKER’Meticulously researched with an inimitable richness, depth and levity’ NEW STATESMANNinette Dreyfus was a cosseted scion of one of France’s most prominent Jewish families – a cousin to Albert Einstein and family friend to Colette. But when the Second World War broke out and the Germans occupied Paris, the fall was dramatic. Realising that her fate would be transformed, the teenager soon found herself fleeing the capital for the South, only to then fall prey to the Vichy regime.

In fear for her life at the hands of the Nazis and their French collaborators, she became somebody else. Woven together from Ninette’s own diaries and interviews with author John Jay before she died, NINETTE’S WAR traces the frailty of national and personal unity through the eyes of a young woman, in compelling and unforgettable detail.