Based on the true story of one ordinary woman who risked everything to reunite Jewish children with the true names they hadn’t even realized they’d lost.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Mario Escobar’s The Forgotten Names, which is out June 11th 2024.
France, 1992. Law student Valérie Portheret is in the middle of researching her thesis on the Klaus Barbie trials when she stumbles across an unexplained list of 108 names. Curious, she investigates further and discovers that the list contains the names of Jewish children who were smuggled out from under the Nazi regime during WWII by receiving new names, new lives, and hiding in plain sight by “boarding” in homes like the Chateau de Peyrins. While visiting the Chateau, the son-in-law of the original owner shows Valérie the meticulous hidden records of the children who found safety behind the castle’s walls. She finds it difficult to distinguish between the names of the legitimate French children who boarded and the changed names of the Jewish children, but Valérie resolves to locate each of the original children–who are now adults–in order to hear their stories and shed light on their true origins.
Facing escalating opposition from people who would prefer to forget the Holocaust ever happened or even deny it outright, Valérie embarks on a twenty-five-year quest to right the extreme wrongs of history and reunite individuals with their birthright heritages.
The Forgotten Names reminds the world of the impact that one person can have in the face of overwhelming odds.
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