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The Paris Architect (2013)

by Charles Belfoure(Favorite Author)

3.9 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1402284314 (ISBN13: 9781402284311)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Sourcebooks

review 1: This book was much better than I expected. It is the story of a Parisian architect during the WWII German occupation of Paris. In the beginning, the man is self-centered and totally focused on his career and money. He is offered a lucrative contract to design a munitions factory for the Germans and jumps at the opportunity even though he becomes a German collaborator. However, he must pay a secret price to get the contract; he must design a hiding place for a jew, architecturally hidden in an existing building. He agrees because he wants the factory contract. Then he continues to get sucked into designing more hiding places as the money keeps flowing. Eventually, he sees the Jews as human-beings and takes sympathy on them. He even ends up taking in a teen-aged Jewi... moresh orphan and panning him off as a distant relative of sorts. His humanity evolves throughout the novel, and by the end he is a compassionate hero. Very enjoyable WWII novel.
review 2: An architect in Nazi occupied Paris reluctantly agrees to help design hiding places for Jews. The Gestapo has been searching homes and apartments to find wealthy Jews. The Nazis take the money, art, and other items of value and deport the Jews to work camps where they are never heard from again. An underground network of gentiles risks their own lives to design and create elaborate hiding places within the homes so that the Jews can escape detection. There are several tense scenes when Gestapo agents are tearing up the floorboards with people hidden just inches away. Very suspenseful, this was a quick and engaging read. less

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