Small Acts of Resistance by Anita Frank

English airman Henry Farrier’s plane crashes behind enemy lines in the spring of 1915. Trapped in a small wooded area in the occupied territory of Northern France, he is found by a young girl, Elodie. She guides him to her small farmhouse, where grandmother Claudette, and older sister Marie, share in the task of keeping him hidden from the Germans.

Claudette hides him behind a hidden wall panel, used years ago by smugglers. But keeping him hidden proves a lot more difficult when two German officers are billeted with them. Henry is in grave danger, but so are the women risking their lives to shelter him.

As the pressure mounts, villagers react in different ways to the Germans. The villagers try to go about their everyday lives, reluctantly cooperating with German demands while some collaborate, reporting on their neighbours, and some, like Marie’s best friend, find romance with German officers. Many, like the Vaux family, resist the occupation in small ways, like not handing over all their hens’ eggs to the Germans, and a few risk their lives by hiding Englishmen.

Marie is at the centre of the story, and has grown up in the village, albeit under the shadow of her illegitimacy and is engaged to a villager, absent in a prisoner-of-war camp. As a beautiful young woman, she attracts attention from other men, all the while preoccupied with protecting her family, her friends and the airman.

Dramatic tension is spiked by the romantic intentions of these men, and it is a credit to the author that much uncertainty surrounds how it will play out. Events unfold with plenty of twists and turns until a quite sudden and very dramatic climax, and then there is a longer view as the postwar outcomes for all the characters are tied up.

The threat of discovery and betrayal, the difficult decisions to be made under pressure and the dynamics of occupation are confronted by other well-drawn characters. Her feisty, forthright grandmother Claudette, her easily swayed friend Rosine, the arrogant German officer Arick, the polite German doctor Meier, the elderly Pauline who hides another airman, and Henry all have choices: to be loyal or to betray, to be cowardly or brave, callous or caring, obedient or defiant.  The characters interact in believable, very human ways, bringing to life the atmosphere of uncertainty and fear.

The experiences of the people in northern France, trapped behind the German lines in the First World War, were mirrored across France in the Second World War, and this story brings to life the acts of survival and suffering, resistance and courage in both wars.  There is much to learn from this story of ordinary people under occupation by an enemy force: the repression, which included requisitioning food that hungry villagers needed for themselves, curfews and rules of all kinds, including fines for barking dogs! But this entertaining and powerfully engaging historical fiction is also a story of love, of courage and kindness in the face of war and occupation.

Reviewer: Clare Lyon

HarperCollins