This memoir is incredible! Brilliantly and beautifully written, a story of a few years that lasts a lifetime. I literally could not put it down, and it followed me in my dreams... (I also did end up reading parts of it in the middle of the night when one of my kids woke me up).

Justus Rosenberg’s journey from Danzig to the US via France and Germany during and after just WW2 is quite simply amazing. He left Danzig to study in Paris (a great decision made by his parents at the time), and after the invasion of France in 1940 ended up in Marseille, then Grenoble, then various areas in the Drôme, before joining a US battalion and then the official refugee aid agency at the time (before it became the UNHCR). He spent time working to help refugees get out of France while being a refugee himself, escaped capture to then join the Résistance proper. I loved reading about his experiences making his way around France, living with Surrealists such as André Breton, working undercover in Grenoble (the city where I grew up), and his days as a flâneur in Paris. I really enjoyed the author’s descriptions of flânerie, descriptions that match my own personal way of discovering a new place I call home as well as old ones. I also loved how his memoir is peppered with his own personal thoughts and interpretations of events and possible future events, memories clear as day to both author and reader all these decades later.

Justus Rosenberg knows his story of survival and resistance is incredible but also knows that it was very much a mix of circumstance, luck, place, time, his observation skills, his quick thinking, his education, and also due to how he looked (young for his age and blond with blue eyes). But to me Justus didn’t just survive, he made the most of his circumstances to help others as much as he could, even when his own situation was pretty dire. He is such as inspiration and I can’t wait to read about more of his life (those FBI files sound very interesting!).

Justus Rosenberg will be 100 years old in 2021. His story is amazing, and in my opinion a must read, both in terms of how we need to remember the past, but also because his life philosophy is something that I think would bring hope to many, and maybe inspire many more to be like him. I am certainly inspired.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read this amazing memoir in exchange for an honest review!