Tag Archives: Jews

CHATEAU OF SECRETS by Melanie Dobson – Book Review

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Imagine a beautiful June in 1940 and you’re living in a chateau in Normandy, France with your nobleman father. You awake one morning to learn you are ruled by Hitler and at the mercy of Nazi soldiers because some government officials in Paris decided to surrender. In World War II, life was upended like that. And life-altering, split-second decisions had to be made.

COVER - Chateau of Secrets - Mel Dobson

Chateau of Secrets by Melanie Dobson is a rich, intriguing book that draws the reader into this astonishing place, exploring a labyrinth of emotions. Dobson weaves present and WWII stories into an intricate, well-balanced tapestry. Gisèle Duchant navigates those precarious WWII days fraught with danger, betrayal, and the ironies of courage, secrets, and choices made for survival. The depth of the struggle is exemplified as young Gisèle ponders how to continue:

German soldiers, Paris, June 14, 1940


German soldiers, Paris, June 14, 1940

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
The Germans had killed … and now they were destroying her country. How was she supposed to care for the men who had killed him? And even more, how was she supposed to love them—love evil? She despised everything they were doing.”  [p 191]

Years later her granddaughter Chloe Sauver tries to unravel the stories into truth and piece together facts, hidden for decades, as she assists a documentary filmmaker.

I often find split-time novels slightly disappointing when the story or people of one era are not as interesting as the other, or following storylines is confusing. Chateau never falls into those but is always clear, crisp, and compelling.

I’m drawn to stories set during the 1940’s, have read many, and seen movies of even more. Yet Chateau introduced me to startling and new things I’d never learned about WWII. In telling this story, the “Sophie’s Choice” type decisions people faced are so real, I ached for them.

* photo credit: Bundesarchiv, on Wikipedia

Blind? Blinded?

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Anyone else need some help?Hello, friends. I haven’t meant to be a stranger. But with computer crashes, loaners, hibernating data, my library of blog posts and notes has been unavailable. That’s OK though because, really, outside of work, I’ve been so distracted by “the state of the world” [euphemism for barbaric murders abounding], nothing has seemed appropriate.

Have you ever experienced the temporary blindness when you step inside from walking through a snowy field on a sunny day? The momentary blindness after a camera flash goes off right in front of you?

Or the opposite, when you walk out of a pitch black cave into intense sunlight? Our eyes can’t catch up with the transitions immediately, and we’re unable to see clearly or keep our eyes open against the brilliance. That off-balance state is what I’ve been experiencing lately as I try to comprehend the state of our world. How about you?

In the 1930’s and early 1940’s, many people claimed they did not see the impact of Hitler’s advances through Europe. They did not see the systematic slaughter of millions of Jews and others deemed undesirable, “racially inferior” or enemies of the state.

What would I have done? What would you have done?

ISIS and other Islamic extremist groups are marching through the middle-east slaughtering thousands of “undesirables” such as Christians, Jews, opposing factions. The atrocities reported, even shown via video, is too awful to describe for me.

And too awful to ignore. Therein is the dilemma. I cannot go and fight. And who would I search out if I could? I can speak, write, … and others are doing that admirably. I cannot ignore it, wish it away. I cry, I rage. I turn down the volume. I work and read and distract.

Yet, what can I do to make an impact? To stop this evil, bloody tide? What could you do?

If it were next door to me, perhaps I could intervene. Protect. Help. Call attention. But the horror is thousands of miles away. (Yet as near as the next room! I can hear it on the news. Oh, I hate to hear it.) If I were a soldier, I could enter the fray. I am no soldier.

But I am a prayer warrior. So I pray. Though groaning and uttering words seem so paltry an effort.

 

One of my morning devotional books* continually urges me to:

Keep my eyes on God.

Rest in His Presence.

Hold His hand and follow Him step by step.

Immerse myself in His Presence.

Be still in His Presence.

So, as my word for this year ~ CHOOSE ~ calls me to do, I choose to obey. I continually pray and come back to His Presence, and trust that in obeying God’s guidance to me through His Word and His speaking to my heart, I am doing what I can.

I must say though, that turning from the brilliance of His Presence to attending to this world’s business, sometimes leaves me flash blind, and I am unable to see anything at all. Perhaps that is why faith is described in Hebrews 11:1 as “the substance of things HOPED for, the evidence of THINGS NOT SEEN.”

*JESUS CALLING, by Sarah Young, 2004