Paris Undercover – A Wartime Story of courage, Friendship and Betrayal, Matthew Goodman (2025)
At times inspiring, at others horrific, this is an impressive example of historical scholarship and its value in setting the record straight – as opposed to its all too prevalent effect of skewing history to the writer’s preferences.
In the midst of WWII the Etta Shiber’s purported memoir Paris-Underground is published in New York describing the exploits of herself and Kitty Bonnefous, two female resistance workers in Nazi-occupied France. How that book came about, how much it was fact and how much fiction, and what were the effects its publication, are this current book’s subjects.
Part One of this volume gives us a factual record of the women’s actual lives and actions, up through Etta’s capture trial and imprisonment by the Nazis, thru her eventual release and arrival in New York. (At least I believe this is the factual version. Given what follows, I do wish Goodman gave us a more explicit assurance to that effect. In particular, his choice to open with the moment of Etta’s arrival in New York and then backtrack to their exploits confused me when, in Part Two, he informed us that is the way in which Etta’s book was structured.)
Readers looking for a pleasant and inspiring book could perhaps stop right here, and be somewhat satisfied.
Part Two is Goodman’s account of how Etta’s book came to be, how it was or was not written and by whom (there are differing accounts), and the impacts it had on her life..(This is where Goodman details that book’s departures from fact, and where I became a bit confused as to whether what I’d previously read was the true facts, or a replaying of the wartime book’s fabrications. Perhaps a more diligent reader would not experience any confusion, but I did). What does seem clear though, is that Paul Winkler, himself a Jewish refugee from France, had the leading role as publisher and assembler and probably came out farther ahead financially than anyone else did. Certainly the book sold well, and Etta Shriber did not get much for it. What is also clear is that the book’s publication would certainly cause the Nazis to revisit Kitty’s case with even more sadistic vigor than before, likely with deadly consequences for her and others.
By the end of this section, one is angry with Winkler and others, but mostly on the edge of one’s seat, impatient to learn where Kitty has been imprisoned how she has fared while this profit-oriented sideshow was taking place in the safety of North America. An excellent demonstration of how even a nonfiction book can be structured to maximize its suspense.
Part Three: Into the Night and Fog is the crux of Goodman’s work, a detailed account of Kitty’s imprisonment and mistreatment, the effect of Etta’s book on her such, the terrible privations she and other prisoners of the Nazis had to endure to survive and even after being ‘freed’ by Soviet troops and, at long last, Kitty’s eventual return to the land of the living, where she lived to very nearly 80 years of age, at last enjoying some comforts and peaceful pleasures despite the debilitating effects of her ordeal.
(Given the chaos and destruction endemic to wartime, especially the end of a World War, it is amazing that Goodman is able to reconstruct this period in such detail and anecdote. Since the overall purpose of the current volume is to expose the fabrications of Etta’s earlier book, it would have been worthwhile for him to address head on how he is able to be so comprehensive and how he avoided inserting his own imaginings in it, though the extensive Acknowledgements, Notes and Bibliography do help in this regard.)
As with other accounts of wars and particularly the Nazi Reich, one comes away from Paris Underground near despair at the eagerness of some men (and a few women, too) to inflict unnecessary pain and agony on other humans. And, at the same time, amazed at the ability of many humans to survive mistreatment and hardships that would seem, if described in the abstract, unendurable.
A compelling and thoroughly worthwhile read, but not pleasant, and not for the faint of heart.
