About this item
The Rsistance Between Us is a tough, realistic account of a conscientious life ultimately well-lived. It is serious fiction, far closer to the literary vein of Irene Nemirovsky's Suite Franaise than any of today's World War II fiction novels, and not unlike the visual integrity of the film, "Saving Private Ryan."However, if you enjoyed reading All the Light We Cannot See or Kristen Hannah's Nightingale, or you value sweeping epics like Gone With the Wind, you are sure to be fascinated with this novel.The narrator/heroine, Ingrid de Vochard Fellner, is an alluring, wealthy widow, a philanthropist, who lives in the small, fictional town of Duchamps, along the Doubs River, at the heart of a small part of Occupied France, located somewhere near the real city of Besanon, and within sight of the Jura Mountains.
About the Author
My Jewish grandfather was a seventh-generation goldsmith who
worked for Fabergé in Odessa in the Ukraine. After he and his
fiancé were caught in crossfire during the murderous pogrom of 1905,
they vowed never to raise their children in such peril. He brought his
wife, children and in-laws to America.
My Bavarian grandfather, a pacifist Catholic farmer in the tradition of
beatified Nazi resister and martyr, Franz Jäggerstätter, refused to fight
for Germany in WWI. Germany had suppressed his Czech language,
and his nation's freedom of self-rule. He stowed away on a Norwegian
sailing ship for two years, before landing in Canada. He walked across
the New York State border and met his Lutheran-Hungarian bride in
Philadelphia.
Holiday dinner conversations in my youth sparkled in English,
Yiddish and high and low German dialects. The old guard's wild tales
of life before America underscored strong beliefs in peace, personal
responsibility, and the power of love and dignity. They were a cultural
mix religiously, economically, and artistically. They shared exuberant
diversity and intense belief in learning, along with ironic, heartwarming
and sometimes dark, humor.
They rooted dialogue, stories and settings in my heart. Their suffering
taught me to give back for blessings received. They championed my
love for literature, music and fine arts. I sought spiritual understanding
through the Tao, Judaism, Christianity, and Eckankar.
My father, eighth generation jeweler, a platinum smith, was born
in the United States. His experience taught me never to forget the
Holocaust. As a twenty-one-year-old American tourist, then a sculptor,
he and his older brother, a violinist, were in Salzburg, Austria on the eve
of Kristallnacht in November 1938. They heard the glass shatter in the
looting of Jewish businesses and smelled the synagogue burning. That
night my father realized why his parents had fled to the US after the
1905 pogrom in Odessa. The following day in Munich he almost picked
a fight with an SS standing in front of a Munich art museum. My uncle,
born in Russia, grabbed my dad by the scruff of his neck and whispered,
"Moishe, what the hell's the matter with you? You'll get us arrested! My
passport is in my Jewish name, Pincus. They'll know we're Jews! We don't
know if we have protection as Americans and we're not going to find
out - right, boychik? "
Apparently, my dad's oral history would not be my only enlightenment.
In 1957, in fourth grade, a boy in my class accosted my neighbor
and me on our walk back to school at lunchtime. This classmate called my
neighbor a "dirty Jew," and me - the cute little blonde pigtailed gamine
with pierced
