Sins of the innocent

"This is Marokvia's second memoir, following Immortelles: Memoir of a Will-o'-the-Wisp), which focused largely on her French childhood (she was born in 1908). Here she moves ahead to her 1939 marriage in Germany to a German artist and photographer named Abel. After they were married in a civil ceremony, it was particularly jarring for her when the clerk gave her not the traditional Bible but Mein Kampf. When Germany invaded France, the couple's citizenship status became ambiguous. Abel was forced to work as a photographer for the German army or face imprisonment. Marokvia, left alone and watched as a possible French spy in Germany, drew on a well of strength to live a quiet, determined life and survive the war. Passionate, straightforward, and enthralling, this new memoir offers a glimpse of the seldom-seen life of a French citizen in Germany during World War II. Now in her late nineties, Marokvia is working on the final installment of a trilogy, which will pick up with the couple's postwar move to America."--Library Journal.