I had the pleasure of hearing Paul Kix speak about his book The Saboteur (#730) recently at our library's BookMania!. In it, he chronicles the war time activities of Robert de La Rochefoucault, scion of one of France's noblest families.
Although he was only a teenager, Robert was opposed to the Nazis from the beginning, listening to General Charles de Gaulle's nightly broadcasts from exile in England under the noses of the Nazis billeted in the family chateau. Robert longed to contribute to the resistance, but when he was denounced in an anonymous letter to the Germans, his mother decided for his own safety that he would need to escape to England himself.
How he made his way there, was recruited and trained by the British for a commando unit, and the daring missions he carried out in France are recounted in The Saboteur. Imprisoned, tortured, La Rochefoucault managed to escape his own execution not once, but twice. It's a story as gripping and intense as any best-selling thriller. The irony is that until near the end of his long life his own family did not know the details of his wartime exploits, but he had to come clean when he received the Legion of Honor from a grateful French government. It is truly an amazing story.
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