Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Children under the Allied bombs in France provides a unique perspective on the Allied bombing of France during the Second World War which killed around 57,000 French civilians. Using oral history as well as archival research, it provides an insight into children's wartime lives in which bombing often featured prominently, even though it has slipped out of French collective memory. How prepared were the French for this aerial onslaught? What was it like to be bombed? And how did people understand why their 'friends' across the Channel were attacking them? Divided into three parts dealing with expectations, experiences and explanations of bombing, this book considers the child's view of wartime violence, analysing resilience, understanding and trauma. It contributes significantly to scholarship on civilian life in Occupied France, and will appeal to students, academics and general readers interested in the history of Vichy France, oral history and the experiences of children in war.
Synopsis
This book provides a unique perspective on the Allied bombing of France during the Second World War, a campaign that claimed the lives of around 60,000 French civilians. Weaving the words of ordinary French people together with extensive archival research, it explores a little-known part of the Allies' European air war from the ground up. Total war brought violence into the domestic space more than ever before, and bombs were a prominent part of many wartime childhoods. Oral history reveals intimate experience and memory over time, shedding light on how children coped, what they understood, and how traumatic events affected them at the time and into adulthood. Personal memories add to an understanding of the collective memory of the Occupation era, in which bombing has featured very little. Just as children learnt to cope at the domestic level, so the local authorities and the Vichy government developed systems to deal with the upheavals wrought by bombing further up the scale. How prepared were the French for this aerial onslaught? What was it like to be bombed? And how did people make sense of the idea that their 'friends' across the Channel were attacking their factories, ports and railways? Divided into three parts dealing with expectations, experiences and explanations of bombing, this book gives a textured insight into French children's wartime lives. It will appeal to students, academics and general readers interested in the history of Vichy France, the experiences of children in war, the impact of air war on civilians and the practice of oral history.
Synopsis
Provides a unique perspective on the Allied bombing of France during the Second World War which killed around 57,000 French civilians. Using oral history and archival research, it provides an insight into children's wartime lives in which bombing often featured prominently, even though it has slipped out of French collective memory.