Ninette’s War
Discover the heart-wrenching true story of a
young Jewish woman coming of age in wartime France.
“
Jay has the gift for forging a voice and moving narrative from an impressive array of sources’”
JEWISH CHRONICLE
For readers of House of Glass: the heart-wrenching true story of a young Jewish woman coming of age in wartime France
Ninette Dreyfus was a cosseted scion of one of France’s most prominent Jewish families – a cousin to Albert Einstein and family friend to Colette. But when the Second World War broke out and the Germans occupied Paris, the fall from grace was dramatic. Realising that her fate would be transformed, the teenager soon found herself fleeing the capital for the South, only to fall prey to the Vichy regime. In fear of her life at the hands of the Nazis and their French collaborators, she became somebody else.
Woven together from Ninette’s own diaries and interviews with author John Jay before she died, Ninette’s War traces the frailty of national and personal unity through the eyes of a young woman, in compelling and unforgettable detail.
Ninette’s War: A Jewish Story of Survival in 1940s France, will be published by Profile Books in January 2025.
What they say about Ninette’s War
“
John Jay’s riveting account of the life of Ninette Dreyfus, daughter of one branch of the illustrious Jewish family, skilfully unfurls from exclusive access to Ninette’s diaries and scrupulous archival work a fascinating, textured account of France’s betrayal of the Jews during the Second World War. Always cleaving to the details of her life and that of those around her, Jay provides a gripping and fresh narrative of ever-more astonishing, pacey and ultimately world-changing events. Those with a particular interest in France – occupied France and Vichy France both – will enjoy this hugely, as will those more familiar with other parts of the history of the War. At a time when Jews are freshly embattled, and the taboo against anti-Semitism dissolves as the Holocaust moves further away in time, Ninette’s War provides urgent context and details we must not forget, alongside a compassionate, elegant tribute to one brave woman’s life in time.”
Zoe Strimpel, Sunday Telegraph columnist and author of Seeking Love in Modern Britain: Gender, Dating and the Rise of the ‘Single’.
“
The ripples of stories about the courage and tragic fate of Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe still reach us. John Jay’s reclaiming of the wartime odyssey in France of Ninette Dreyfus – aka Lady Swaythling in a later life in Britain – is spellbinding. A worthy recalling of the past in the dark times of the present.”
Colin Shindler, Emeritus Professor, University of London.
“
Although subtitled a Jewish War of Survival this important and fast-paced book is far more than that. Ninette’s War is compelling testimony to what it means to be forced to flee your home, see family betrayed and shot and yet emerge with optimism and plenty of life still to be lived.
It’s a brilliant mélange of haute-couture clothes, golf and foie gras mixed with false identity papers, cyanide powder and courage. It’s also a coming-of-age story as readers see the teenage Ninette Dreyfus, who barely understands the gravity of her family’s situation, mature into the elegant dowager Lady Swaythling who, in her final decade, tells the story of her family’s escape across the Pyrenees and new life in the UK to the author. Surely a film awaits?
Jay writes with great sympathy and narrative skill using a mixture of interviews and archive material to create a deeply researched and evocative true story that is also a page turner. Based on diaries and archives as well as more recent interviews, Ninette’s War will become a valuable resource helping historians and novelists alike as they try to understand France’s dark years of Nazi occupation and unravel the paradox of who resisted, who betrayed and who collaborated to save their own skin.”
Anne Sebba, author of Ethel Rosenberg – The Short Life and Great Betrayal of an American Wife and Mother.
“
John Jay … skilfully weaves extracts from [Ninette’s] diary into a wider account of what happened to French Jews. For all her adult life, Ninette … worked hard to get recognition for the French gentiles who had helped save Jews during the war, but she never got over her horror at the speed with which the country of her birth turned against its Jewish population. Ninette’s War is not an easy read, but at a time of rising anti-Semitism across the world, it is chillingly relevant. Can we really say with confidence, ‘Never again’?”
Constance Craig Smith, Daily Mail
“
Holocaust memoirs and biographies are plentiful but what makes Ninette’s War unusual is that its subject is a prominent French Jewish family …
The heart of the book is a brutal reckoning with Vichy France’s antisemitism and wilful complicity in wartime atrocities …
Jay wisely widens his focus beyond Ninette to other family members and friends, embedding their stories in rich historical background. In one vignette Ninette learnt that Coco Chanel was taking part in raiding parties at their Jewish friends’ abandoned homes …
[Ninette’s immediate family’s] … survival is told in strong detail, as are the many stories of other family members and friends rounded up by the French police, Jew hunters and Gestapo … Among these are extraordinary cases of escape and bravery.”
Francesca Angelini, The Sunday Times
“
Ninette’s father was chief executive of Banque Louis Dreyfus, and a cousin of Albert Einstein. The family were rich and privileged, part of a Jewish high society that appeared settled within the French establishment.
Many of them weren’t particularly religious – Ninette herself learned more about the Jewish faith from her Catholic nanny than from her secular-minded parents.
Some believed these things would save them, even after the Nazis occupied France. Ninette’s War is as much as dissection of the tragic failure of that belief, as it is a family’s story of precarious survival.
This year will be the 80th anniversary of the ending of World War II. It’s not just that we need to remember the Holocaust; we need to remember the detail of it.
The acts of betrayal and cowardice, the failure to see and speak, the spirit of collaboration, that made it possible. And, too, the episodes of courage, self-sacrifice and quiet resolution that meant that some, like Ninette, … survived.”
Emily Hourican, Irish Independent
“
By situating Ninette’s remarkable story within the broader historical and social context, Jay is able to offer a unique text with an inimitable richness, depth and, at times, levity (such as at Ninette’s first Yom Kippur, where she donned a Hermès scarf whose motifs included a ham).”
Zoë Huxford, The New Statesman
“
Passages of Ninette’s diary are reminiscent of Anne Frank’s musings about growing up in her attic in Amsterdam. But, unlike Anne, Ninette survived. False papers were acquired and smugglers led them to safety in Spain. The family returned to Paris only after liberation, to find their house requisitioned and many of their relations and friends deported. Thirty-eight thousand Parisian houses had been looted.”
Caroline Moorehead, Times Literary Supplement
“
Surviving to marry an Englishman and live her life to the full, Ninette retained an abiding abhorrence for her French countrymen who so shockingly turned against their own; she worked tirelessly to gain recognition for French gentiles who had saved, rather than betrayed, Jews. Mr Jay manages to tell [Ninette’s] story with understanding, as well as detailing the wider context.”
Henrietta Bredin, Country Life
