Welcome to the Free Zone (Hesperus Classics) Paperback – 26 July 2013

The background of Welcome to the Free Zone is interesting and it is based on the experiences of the authors during the war. There are, however, far too many characters. Each could be fascinating in their own right but with so many it was sometimes difficult to recognise them again when they reappeared in the plot. There are often variations in the style of writing that jar. Perhaps this is because it was written by two people initially. A bit of a struggle but some humorous gems and insights within it.

I was sent this book as a gift, although it is not the kind of book I normally read. I was initially amused, soon engaged and ultimately hooked on this many-layered story of the experiences of Jews - and, perhaps more significantly, non-Jews - in wartime rural France. There are indeed many characters, but each is distinctively drawn and lifelike, and all contribute to the multi-faceted fabric of the tale. It is unconventional and absorbing, and one is rarely aware that it is a translation, so fluently does it read. It took a long time to appear in English, but Bill Reed and Hesperus have done the book proud. If you like your novels to be revealing of human nature and behaviour, whatever the period and setting, do read this one.

Welcome to the Free Zoneby Nathalie and Ladislas Garatranslated by Bill ReedThis book is special, in my view, and its translation into English is so welcome as this important account of second world war life for the Jews in Vichy France will reach more people. If I were you, I would read it...this year preferably.The most interesting thing about the book is that it was published in French as early as 1946 and therefore it is a simple witness account by the authors who are telling a story as it unfolds and without knowing where this story will end. Thus, the way in which history closes in on its victims, the Jews, towards the end of the book is more real to us and more affecting than many a novel written post-war when the cruel facts became universally known. We get a sense of what events may have felt like to those people inside them. But we, who are fully aware of the outcomes, cannot be observers of this experience in the same objective and grounded way.The characters in the book, placed half-way perhaps between fact and fiction in the imaginary village of Saint Boniface, go about their daily lives buying, selling, drinking, playing chess, gossiping and slighting each other. They are ordinary people and are in no way sentimentalised. The book is full of humour. Basic commodities such as potatoes feature strongly. The animals in the village have their own stories. Into the lives of these characters come other ordinary people, three Jewish families, who, with other Jews, are trying to live a safe life in Free France. They participate in agriculture, politics and the communal ways of the village.In various parts of the book, there is discussion of the Jewish community and its contribution to France; such mixed comments come from the mouths of the ordinary people of Saint Boniface and I think it is possible to take them as authentic. Again, the book bears important witness to the mentalities of the communities in Vichy France.The authors make no moral judgments. No-one is perfectly innocent in Saint Boniface as many are on the make in the face of bureaucracy about such matters as rations, weights and measures and identity papers. But no-one is guilty either. The postman and the very punctilious but dim gendarme stand for the spies and the fascists but they are still members of the community. The German/French collaborating authorities do not themselves appear.The other thing we learn from this special book is that the authorities were not always as accurate in their work of the victimisation of the Jews as is sometimes portrayed. Mistakes are made. People are left off lists. In the end, arbitrary fate perhaps had a strong hand in saving individual Jews while the fascist machine was bent on destroying the many.JG, February 2015

Set in 1942, in the isolated countryside village of Saint-Boniface, in the Ardeche, Nathalie and Ladislas Gara's novel 'Welcome to the Free Zone' is based on the couple's own experiences when, as Eastern European Jews, they sought refuge in Saint-Boniface during the years 1942-1945. In June 1940, parts of France were annexed, and the rest was divided into the Occupied and the Free Zones, the Free Zone coming under the control of Marechal Petain and his Vichy government - and this novel, as commented by the translator Bill Reed, in his introduction, was written mainly as a satire of the Vichy Regime. So, the story begins and we read how several Jewish families arrive in Saint-Boniface, either with the aim of beginning a new life for themselves, or looking for a refuge whilst waiting for visas to enable them to escape to America. Once there, our Jewish families are subject to mixed reactions from the village community, ranging from simple curiosity and the hopes of being able to make some money out of them, to downright anti-Semitism. "There's something slimy, something clammy about the Jew, which personally I find repulsive" states one of the more objectionable characters "It's that feeling of repugnance and irritation which tells me they're Jews". However, this novel does not focus heavily on anti-semitism or the dreadful plight of the Jewish people (although, of course, this is ever-present, bubbling away under the surface), but concentrates instead on the multifarious machinations of the villagers, who are fighting against the privations of rationing and battling against the bureaucracy of Vichy France.In this story we meet farmers trying to manipulate the systems imposed upon them and becoming involved with black market dealings; we meet guest house owners trying to make extra money on the side - where even the local schoolmaster and priest are not above a few under-the-counter negotiations; there is the local chemist who concocts his own version of 'Pernod'; and then there is the thoroughly unpleasant local gendarme with a huge chip on his shoulder and a grudge against everyone. In fact, if it were not for the knowledge that the present-day reader has, which enables us to see the insidious effects of prejudice against the Jewish people, this novel almost reads as a witty village diary - interestingly after publication in 1946, this book was submitted for the Grand Prix de l'Humour - not a category one would normally expect for a book about Jewish refugees during the Occupation. Most probably the authors were restricted by what they could get published immediately after the war and therefore decided to focus, or preferred to focus on satire rather than a more emotive account of the plight of Jews, and this rather unique novel does make for an interesting, informative and, at times, amusing read. However, when I learnt that the authors narrowly escaped being arrested and deported by the Nazis, and were, for a time, hidden in the country, where Ladislas joined the resistance movement (which was particularly active in the Ardeche), I can't help feeling there was an even better and more important story just waiting to be told. Interestingly, the authors had planned a sequel entitled: 'L'Apocalypse a Saint-Boniface' but sadly the manuscript has been lost, so we can only imagine what this second novel might have revealed.4 Stars.