Short Synopsis
A story of courage in the face of evil. The tense drama of Suzanne Spaak who risked and gave her life to save hundreds of Jewish children from deportation from Nazi Paris to Auschwitz. This is one of the untold stories of the Holocaust.

Full Synopsis
A story of courage in the face of evil. The tense drama of Suzanne Spaak who risked and gave her life to save hundreds of Jewish children from deportation from Nazi Paris to Auschwitz. This is one of the untold stories of the Holocaust.

Suzanne Spaak was born into the Belgian Catholic elite and married into the country's leading political family. Her brother-in-law was the Foreign Minister and her husband Claude was a playwright and patron of the painter Renée Magritte. In Paris in the late 1930s her friendship with a Polish Jewish refugee led her to her life's purpose. When France fell and the Nazis occupied Paris, she joined the Resistance. She used her fortune and social status to enlist allies among wealthy Parisians and church groups.

Under the eyes of the Gestapo, Suzanne and women from the Jewish and Christian resistance groups "kidnapped" hundreds of Jewish children to save them from the gas chambers.

In the final year of the Occupation Suzanne was caught in the Gestapo dragnet that was pursuing a Soviet agent she had aided. She was executed shortly before the liberation of Paris. Suzanne Spaak is honored in Israel as one of the Righteous Among Nations.

“A riveting book about a truly heroic woman in a Paris of resignation and shame. A must read !” ---Diane von Furstenberg, New York Times bestselling author

"Impressively researched , Suzanne's Children is vivid proof that much more might have been done had others followed Spaak's mantra in the face of evil, 'it faut faire quelque chose.'" ---Kati Marton, New York Times bestselling author

"Anne Nelson has written an extraordinary book that finally does justice to Spaak's story of heroism and sacrifice.” ---Andrew Nagorski, author of The Nazi Hunters

“Nelson is superb at showing the upheavals in Europe since WWI through vivid, illuminating details . . . Nelson also masterfully describes the incremental changes in the Jews’ plight under the Occupation . . . an important history about a heroine of the Holocaust.” ---Booklist