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This is the first book (in either English or French) to offer readers an overview of women's experience of the Second World War and its immediate aftermath in France. It examines objectively the part that women played in both collaboration and resistance, synthesising much recent scholarship on the subject in French and English, and drawing on the author's own extensive research (including oral testimony) in Toulouse, Paris, and West Brittany. The findings are complex, and the immensely varied testimony challenges easy generalisation. This will be relevant for courses on French studies, French and European history and Women's studies.
List of contents
Introduction. Part One: Women's Lives During the War and the Occupation 1939-44. 1. Financial Resources and Paid Employment. 2. Physical Survival. 3. Collaborations. 4. Resistances. Part Two: Women's Lives After the Occupation 1944-48 - A Liberation? 5. Women and the Purges. 6. Everyday Life and Paid Employment 1944-48. 7. Women Gain New Rights and Become Citizens. Conclusion. Chronology of main events. Glossary and List of Abbreviations. Map. Bibliographical Essay.
About the author
Hanna Diamond
Summary
This study provides an account of women's experience of the French occupation and liberation during World War II. It considers the political choices they had to make and the pressures and constraints they were under.
