Robert Gildea on the French Resistance

The story of the French Resistance is central to French identity, but it is a story built on myths. ‘La Resistance francaise’ was not simply a national effort to free the country from German occupation, but a wider struggle, filled with conflicts and division. It included Spanish republicans, Italian and even German anti-Nazis, while the defence against the Holocaust brought in Jewish resisters and Christian rescuers. The movement itself was split between left and right, fighting for very different visions of the world.  In Fighters in the Shadows, award-winning historian Robert Gildea returns to the testimonies of the resisters themselves, with a particular focus on women, to get to the real story. The result is a gripping and entirely new account of one the  Second World War’s most compelling narratives.