'One enemy only - the invader' was published in october of 1942 and written by Paul Simon about life in Paris during the Occupation up until that time. Paul Simon was involved with many acts of resistance most notably as one of the editors of VALMY - one of the first clandestine papers in France during the Occupation.
The book was a snapshot of France at that time and he managed to get to England and write the book to show the outside world what Paris was like and was thinking while the Occupation was in its second year.
I am lucky to have a signed copy of the book with a lovely message in french to his professeur d'anglais dated 7th of december 1942.
Old copies of the book pop up from time to time and normally sell for around £8 to £10 and are well worth picking up. The book was re-published in 2006.
Here are a few photos and extracts from the book.
On the 14th July 1941, display of the national colours was forbidden. Parisians gathered at the Arc de Triomphe wearing cockades, brooches, and ribbons of tricolour. Anything which suggested the blue, white and red of France saw service. Parisian women showed great ingenuity, both in dressing and in decorating their clothes to suggest the forbidden colours. One could see young girls, three abreast, marching arm-in-arm in Alsatian fashion, one wearing a blue, one a white, and one a red dress. Men who had been unable to get the national colours bought boxes of matches bearing a tricolour cockade. They fixed these in their breast-pockets so that the colours showed.
On
this occasion the police intervened at the same time as German troops.
Everything symbolising France had to be taken off. Women in frocks
which, through the addition of flowers or some design, suggested the
national colours, had to remove them.
German
propaganda, which had made so many efforts to rally French people to
the support of the Vichy government, mad patriotism a crime for
Parisians.
Four thousand arrests were made.
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)