The World That We Knew

Ettie, on the run since her sister’s killing, makes her way to Vienne in southeastern France, near Lyon. Haunted by her sister’s brutal death and determined to avenge it, Ettie finds work in a small café. While working, she hears rumors of an active Resistance cell operating in the area to help Jewish children escape across the Swiss border and thwart Nazi military movements through coordinated guerrilla attacks: “This was what Ettie wished for. A way to fight back” (91). She contacts a local Catholic priest whom she hears is involved in these efforts. Careful not to reveal too much, Ettie volunteers.

In the nearby secluded farming village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, Marianne, the Lévis’ former maid, arrives back home after an absence of more than five years. Her aging father welcomes her home to the farm, which is barely functioning in the wake of repeated raids by roaming Nazi troops. She admits to herself that she left the village when she was only 18 determined not to let the limited, dull life of the farm define or limit her. Her time in Paris, however, watching the insidious invasion of the Nazis and the toxic campaign to eradicate the Jews, convinced her to return to her roots.