The Forgotten Bookshop in Paris

by Daisy Wood

them out of the country to safety in Switzerland. Approximately seven thousand Jewish children in France were saved, yet over eleven thousand were deported to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1942. Most were gassed on arrival. The fact that French police were in charge of rounding them up remains a matter of national shame.

It seems extraordinary that the same old stories of destruction and loss are playing out, over eighty years later – yet humanity and kindness are also in evidence, and an unquenchable human spirit that binds us together in times of greatest need.

Jacques wants to share the joy of discovering an author who speaks to one’s soul, the thrill of losing oneself in a story more vivid and exciting than real life. He will call his shop La Page Cachée – The Hidden Page – because he knows the magic that is to be found within the covers of a book.

‘We have to try. A life without freedom is no life at all.’

‘We’ve run out of time but you know how much you mean to me, don’t you? I was lost until I found you, standing there with a book in your hand and smiling at me as though we’d known each other for years. We recognised each other straight away, didn’t we? I fell in love with you before you’d even said a word. You were my fixed point from that moment on, the centre of my world, and you always will be.’

One day our children will grow up in a free country, we have to believe that, and they will be able to act and think as they please. Don’t be afraid, chéri.

Finally, he allowed himself to hate them for what they were doing to his country, for their careless, casual cruelty, their arrogance, their ignorance and greed.

I’m glad you don’t have to see how terrible things are in Paris, chérie, he told her silently, but I miss you so much, it sometimes feels too heavy a burden to bear.

What havoc could be inflicted on the world by one man with a lust for power!

We shan’t meet again, I’m afraid, but I wanted to tell you one last time how very much I love you, and how happy you have made me. Our marriage has been the greatest joy of my life. Stay strong, my brave, beautiful girl. I should like to think of you having children and bringing them up in the freedom we have fought so hard for – if not with me, then with some other lucky man. Have no regrets. I will always be a part of you, as you are of me.

‘Think about it, Emily. I’ve lived a whole life and now I’ve been given the chance of another. Isn’t that just extraordinary?’