Art of Resistance

"Thrillingly tells the story of an Eastern European Jew’s flight from the Holocaust and the years he spent fighting in the French underground.” —USA Today

An American Library in Paris Book Award "Coups de Coeur" Selection

The Art of Resistanceis unlike any World War II memoir before it. Its author, Justus Rosenberg, hasspent the past seventy years teaching the classics of literature to Americancollege students. Hidden within him, however, was a remarkable true story ofwartime courage and romance worthy of a great novel. Here is ProfessorRosenberg’s elegant and gripping chronicle of his youth in Nazi-occupiedEurope, when he risked everything to stand against evil.

In 1937, after witnessing aviolent Nazi mob in his hometown of Danzig, a majority German city on theBaltic Sea, sixteen-year-old Justus Rosenberg was sent by his Jewish parents toParis to finish his education in safety. Three years later, the Nazis cameagain, as France fell to the Germans. Alone and in danger, Justus fled Paris,heading south. A chance meeting led him to Varian Fry, an American journalistin Marseille who led a clandestine network helping thousands of men andwomen—including many legendary artists and intellectuals, among them HannahArendt, Marc Chagall, Andre Breton, and Max Ernst—escape the Nazis. With his intimateunderstanding of French and German culture, and fluency in several languages,including English, Justus became an invaluable member of Fry’s operation as aspy and scout.

Afterthe Vichy government expelled Fry from France, Justus worked in Grenoble,recruiting young men and women for the Underground Army. For the next fouryears, he would be an essential component of the Resistance, relying on hiswits and skills to survive several close calls with death. Once, he foundhimself in a Nazi internment camp, with his next stop Auschwitz—and yet Justusfound an ingenious way to escape. He two years during the war gatheringintelligence, surveying German installations and troop movements on theMediterranean. Then, after the allied invasion at Normandy in 1944, Justus becamea guerrilla fighter, participating in and leading commando raids to disrupt theGerman retreat across France.

At the end of the Second World War, Justus emigrated toAmerica, and built a new life. For the past fifty years, he has taughtliterature at Bard College, shaping the inner lives of generations of students.Now he adds his own story to the library of great coming-of-age memoirs: The Art of Resistance is a powerful sagaof bravery and defiance, a true-life spy thriller touched throughout by aprofessor’s wisdom. 

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