Other events that serve as a backdrop for this story that will be familiar are the bombing of Wieluń, Poland, in September of 1939, where I imagined Piotr was killed, and the Vél’ d’Hiv’ Roundup in July of 1942, when Rachel and her family members are taken. The objectives of the Luftwaffe bombing of the small and nonmilitary town of Wieluń, arguably the first major act of World War II, are not entirely clear. Some historians have suggested that the Germans received reports of the presence of Polish cavalry, like Piotr’s character, in the vicinity of the town, but others disagree.

Regardless of motive, beginning in the early morning of September 1, the Luftwaffe dropped 46,000 kilograms of bombs on civilian targets, including the clearly marked hospital. There are also numerous accounts of the Luftwaffe strafing fleeing civilians. The timing of the initial bombing is a subject of debate, with Polish sources marking the first run at 4:30–4:40 a.m., while German records show the first run beginning at 5:40 a.m. For the purposes of this novel, I have used the German military records.

There is no debate, however, on the timing of the 1942 Vél’ d’Hiv’ Roundup, which began at 4:00 a.m. on July 16, 1942. Over 13,000 Jews were arrested by French police, more than 4,000 of them children. The majority of those arrested were held at the Vélodrome d’Hiver or other internment camps before being deported by cattle car to Auschwitz, though there are numerous stories of individuals hidden by friends or neighbours or who managed to escape arrest.

One of these courageous people who helped Jewish children escape occupied France altogether was the Frenchman Georges Loinger, whose creative methods of getting children out of France and into Switzerland included dressing up his charges as mourners and leading them through a cemetery located along the Swiss border. Aviva’s journey out of France in this novel is based loosely on Loinger’s efforts.

Lastly, the network of men and women that Estelle and Jerome were a part of was based on the very real Comet Line. This resistance organization operated in occupied Belgium and France and helped Allied airmen and soldiers evade capture and return to Britain. An estimated 3,000 civilians assisted the Comet Line by hiding or escorting Allied airmen, and up to seventy percent of these helpers were women.

Questions for Readers