During the most terrible years of World War II, when inhumanity and political insanity held most of the world in their grip and the Nazi domination of Europe seemed irrevocable and unchallenged, a miraculous event took place in a small Protestant town in southern France called Le Chambon. There, quietly, peacefully, and in full view of the Vichy government and a nearby division of the Nazi SS, Le Chambon's villagers and their clergy organized to save thousands of Jewish children and adults from certain death.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
Doing the Right Thing:
I am not writing this to critique the structure of the book, nor the content. I am writing this because I am overwhelmed that an entire village would, and could, combine to smuggle jewish children out of France. The phrase "I did it because I did not want there to be gaps in my conscience" resonates over and over.
Book Review:
The book "Least Innocent Blood Be Shed" arrived in time for my church book club classes and was in new condition. I'm very satisfied.
A Flawed Tale of a Flawed Man:
It is said that, during World War Two, the village of Le Chambon in southern France was the safest place in Europe. It was this small village where Andre Trocme, a Protestant pastor, charged his church and his entire village with the task of protecting refugees, and primarily the Jewish refugees who were fleeing Nazi oppression. The story of this man and, to a lesser extent this village, is told in Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed, written by Philip Hallie, a philosopher and ethicist whose study of the horrors... more info
More powerful than evil:
Philip Hallie, a Jewish philosopher, had slipped in to a state of depression as a result of his research of human cruelty, especially regarding the Holocaust. He felt as though he was a prisoner in that he wished harm on evil doers and had himself become untouched by suffering. He was doing research when he noticed something unusual, he was weeping. The reason? He had come across a short article about a village in France, which had resisted Hitler during the French Occupation (1940-1944). The village was... more info
