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The Art of Resistance Audiobook Summary

An unforgettable World War II memoir set in Nazi-occupied France and filled with romance and adventure: a former Eastern European Jew remembers his flight from the Holocaust and his extraordinary four years in the French underground. Justus Rosenberg, now 98, has taught literature at Bard College for the past fifty years.

In 1937, as the Nazis gained control and anti-Semitism spread in the Free City of Danzig, a majority German city on the Baltic Sea, sixteen-year-old Justus Rosenberg was sent to Paris to finish his education in safety. Three years later, France fell to the Germans. Alone and in danger, penniless and cut off from contact with his family in Poland, Justus fled south. A chance meeting led him to Varian Fry, an American journalist in Marseille who was helping thousands of men and women escape the Nazis, among them artists and intellectuals Hannah Arendt, Marc Chagall, Andre Breton, and Max Ernst.

With his German background, understanding of French cultural, and fluency in several languages, including English, Justus became an invaluable member of Fry’s refugee network as a spy and scout. The spry blond who looked even younger than his age flourished in the underground, handling counterfeit documents, secret passwords, and black market currency, surveying escape routes, and dealing with avaricious gangsters. When Fry was eventually forced to leave France, his trusted colleague Justus–Gussie, as he was affectionately known–could not get out. For the next four years, Justus relied on his wits and skills to escape captivity, survive several close calls with death, and continue his fight against the Nazis, working with the French Resistance and eventually the United States Army. At the war’s end, Justus emigrated to America and built a new life.

Justus’ story is a powerful saga of bravery, daring, adventure, and survival with the soul of a spy thriller. Reflecting on his past, Justus sees his life as a confluence of circumstances. As he writes, “I survived the war through a rare combination of good fortune, resourcefulness, optimism, and, most important, the kindness of many good people.”

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The Art of Resistance Audiobook Narrator

Rob Shapiro is the narrator of The Art of Resistance audiobook that was written by Justus Rosenberg

JUSTUS ROSENBERG (1921-2021) was born in Danzig (present-day Gdansk, Poland), in 1921. Graduating from the Sorbonne, in Paris, he worked with the French underground for four years and then served in the United States Army. For his wartime service, Rosenberg received a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. For seventy years, he taught at American universities; most recently as professor emeritus of languages and literature at Bard College, where he was on faculty for fifty years. He is the cofounder of the Justus & Karin Rosenberg Foundation, which works to combat anti-Semitism. In 2017 the French ambassador to the United States personally made Rosenberg a Commandeur in the Legion d’Honneur, among France’s highest decorations, for his heroism during World War II.

About the Author(s) of The Art of Resistance

Justus Rosenberg is the author of The Art of Resistance

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The Art of Resistance Full Details

Narrator Rob Shapiro
Length 7 hours 36 minutes
Author Justus Rosenberg
Category
Publisher HarperAudio
Release date January 28, 2020
ISBN 9780062849243

Subjects

The publisher of the The Art of Resistance is HarperAudio. includes the following subjects: The BISAC Subject Code is History, Military, World War II

Additional info

The publisher of the The Art of Resistance is HarperAudio. The imprint is HarperAudio. It is supplied by HarperAudio. The ISBN-13 is 9780062849243.

Global Availability

This book is only available in the United States.

Goodreads Reviews

Donald

December 02, 2021

Having read the New York Times obituary of Justus Rosenberg on November 17, 2021, I felt compelled to read his memoir. Born in Danzig (now in Poland) in 1921, he was a teen-ager when the Nazis started really coming into power in the 1930s. Everyone hoped that things would settle down, but it was not the case. In an effort to protect Justus, his parents sent him to Paris to study and to be safer. No doubt, it is what saved him, not that he didn't have to dodge bullets (literally) and many obstacles. He joined the Resistance in southern France after the Nazis invaded the north. His adventures are recounted here in a very easy to read prose. There is also an Epilogue which details what happened to the many people that he crossed paths with. I shed a tear as I finished, thinking of all the horrific things that happened during that awful period. Recommended.

Dana

July 19, 2020

The Art Of Resistance was a stunning autobiography by Justus Rosenberg, a man who stumbled into the French Resistance during World War II. After reading A Woman Of No Importance, I’ve been really interested in reading more stories about the people who helped with the resistance because I find their bravery to be very inspiring.The book read like a spy thriller and told of his amazing life! Here, as a young man, Justus was in Paris when Hitler’s occupation changed the direction of life for French citizens. When he met some friends who recommend him to the resistance, he embarked on a challenging job that proved very rewarding. Justus had a boyish face and blond features, and so he was often ignored by German officials, which proved to be an asset he used to gather information about the Nazi’s movements. He risked his life a number of times, and even had to undergo an unnecessary appendectomy to save his life! I was so impressed by everything he did and how he was able to help so many people.His interactions with the notable artists and intellects of the time was clearly a source of pride for him. That took up a bit of the book, and wasn’t necessarily my favorite part, but after he helped them escape occupied France, I could see the impact this made on his life.Every part of this was interesting, especially his part as a Guerrilla fighter in the French countryside. He wrote this book when he was 98, after receiving a Purple Heart, among many other honors. This was a great book that was very interesting to read. He ended it with this poignant words: We need to champion the notion that all human beings are equal and deserve to be treated as such

DEBORAH

October 30, 2019

Very well written. I didn't want to put it down.

melhara

February 28, 2020

I was initially going to give this book 3 stars but the epilogue ended on such a strong and powerful note, I felt compelled to boost the rating to 4 stars. Justus Rosenburg is one of the very few surviving WWII veteran and Holocaust survivors left. He wrote this book at the age of 98! (He's 99 right now) His ability to be able to recall the events of what happened nearly 80 years ago is really impressive.I would have preferred more personal accounts rather than chapters that were bogged down by historical details but, again, seeing as Justus wrote the memoir based on events that happened so long ago, I imagine it was difficult to recall certain events and easier to just toss in some historical facts to help jog the memory. I'll let it slide.Rosenburg's journey and involvement with the French resistance is a story full of impressive and heroic feats. tl;dr - This was a very interesting memoir about a young Jewish student working for the Resistance during WWII. I definitely learned a lot from this book.

John

March 08, 2020

" . . . [w]e need to champion the notion that all human beings are equal and deserve to be treated as such. "We need to be alert to the dangers and nip them in the bud." Justs Rosenberg, The Art of Resistance, page 273.So Justus Rosenberg, the blond-haired jewish boy who became an active member of the French Resistance, later an academic, ends his wonderful memoir, giving us the lesson his lifetime as someone fearful but unafraid, extroverted but made cautious by war, compassionate and sensitive in a way that makes his story almost poetic. He promises us more of his life in books to come. I hope he is true to his promise and live long enough to meet that goal. For our sakes.Many, if not most, memoirs are written, in my opinion, to reinforce an author's fame or to justify a well-known author's next career move. My experience has been, unfortunately, that within the first 50 pages, the brain loses focus, the eyelids become heavy, and thoughts of 'what's for dinner' appear. None of this applies to this gift of a memoir Rosenberg offers here.Rosenburg is hardly a household word, except to those knowledgeable about the Gaullist Resistance during the Second World War and he has never held political office or been a television news commentator. During his work life, he held professorships in English and foreign languages at Swarthmore and Bard, among other professional credits. In 2017, though, at age 95, Rosenburg was awarded the French Legion d'Honneur, the highest honor awarded by France, for his underground activities with the 636th tank destroyer battalion, an American unit which invaded France with the goal of seizing France and the world's beloved city of Paris back from the Nazis. But Rosenburg's skills and what he calls the confluence of circumstances permitted him to survive the War when everyone he knew (he was Jewish, living in Danzig) was threatened with extinction as would he have been had he not taken advantage of every opportunity presented him to engage in Resistance. Rosenberg asks what I believe is the most important question about Hitler's unresisted ability to implement the horrors of the Holocaust, a question I have been trying to find certainty about since my days as a college history student 50 years ago: "What was it about this man (Hitler) that could inspire such hatred?" (page 39). He does not, indeed he cannot, answer this question if my experiences are relevant, but he does show that Hitler, by his theatrics and cult-like appeal reversed German democracy and, unabated and unresisted, carried out atrocities against Jews and Roma that is unimaginable, all under the colour of the fiat laws Hitler imposed and judges Hitler appointed.The work is a beautiful work of prose and Rosenberg's fondness for people and life shines through. For example, he describes his first sexual experience with a friend of his mother, in a way I have never read before never once describing the sexual act itself, but as fond memory that seems to grow fonder as age advances. When I read this early in the book (pages 20-23), I recognized instantly that I was about to be treated to some very captivating writing and an extraordinary story. This assumption was reinforced when he wrote about the "flanerie" of Paris, that "attitude of curiosity and open-mindedness--not taking anything for granted. . . . [F]lanerie was not at all about detached observation, for when I lost touch with my own feelings" (page 62). Rosenberg's statements about flanerie describe him, too, I believe. It was his extroversion and his openness to observations that gave him the tools to do his work in the Resistance.I recommend this book to anyone. People who want to experience or learn what good writing is should study this book for its style, clarity, and purposefulness. Rosenberg, at 98, promises 3 more work. Hurry up, Gussie, I'll be first in line to read them.

Chickpea

August 25, 2020

What a captivating true story of a Jewish born teenager/young adult, from Danzig, who is able to escape the horrors so many others faced and instead contribute so positively to the French Resistance using his bravery, quick wit, intelligence, charm, along with the luck of having blonde hair, blue eyes, and looking much younger than his true age. I was entranced from the beginning, where the author tells about his youth of growing up in Danzig during the turbulent times of Hitler's rise to power. I have never heard of a true story, such as this one, a story the author describes as "a small miracle," but I would say is absolutely miraculous, hiding in plain sight. The author tells his story in a way that is both fast paced and provides so much detail, especially considering these events took place 80 years ago! There is a casualness in his writing, as if his actions were not a big deal, when in fact, they took so much bravery, so much risk, and true heroism. I also really appreciate the author's honesty throughout the book about not believing in an afterlife, a God, or that he was in some way special or saved.Truly a book everyone should read and can gain a new point of view of a time period that is often written about, but always needs new voices of bravery and truth to remind us of what humanity is capable of, both in the positive and negative. Of the type of people we should strive to be and the type of people we should make sure never come to power again.

Sandie

December 23, 2021

❤ If i were rating this memoir with my head It would be 4 stars, but I am giving JR all 5 stars from my ♡.  My pantheon of heroes is full of the men and women who resisted Hitler. Most of those heroes from Jean Moulin and Blessed Franz Jägerstädder to Frumka Plotnicka and her sister Hantze did not survive the war, but Justus Rosenberg survived magnificently, as a courier, a spy, a guerilla fighter, and an adjunct member of the US army. Blessed by a God he does not believe in or just blessed by luck and intelligence, this young blond Jewish boy from Danzig ended the war with a degree from the Sorbonne, work with an American resettlement agency in Germany, and, finally, passage to the United States. His resistance work is thrilling, but his memories of his family and many the people he encountered are also vivid and heartfelt. His story would inspire Spielberg. Living to 100 years, Mr. Rosenberg left us on October 30 this year, but he will be remembered as a beloved literature professor, as well as a Holocaust resistance hero. May his memory be a blessing. Get Outlook for AndroidGet Outlook for Android

Ron

February 10, 2020

Justus Rosenberg recounts his amazing life experiences growing up in Danzig amidst the rise of Nazism. Once goes off to study at the Sorbonne war erupts and he scrambles to survive in Paris without his parents' support. He helps to "smuggle" French and German writers and artists to Spain before becoming involved in sabotaging German troop movement in France. After DDay the US tank division stumbled upon Justis and then "hired" him to be an interpreter, especially after learning he knew German, Yiddish, French, English, and Russian. Amazing! What a life!

Jade

November 30, 2019

This memoir is incredible! Brilliantly and beautifully written, a story of a few years that lasts a lifetime. I literally could not put it down, and it followed me in my dreams... (I also did end up reading parts of it in the middle of the night when one of my kids woke me up).Justus Rosenberg’s journey from Danzig to the US via France and Germany during and after just WW2 is quite simply amazing. He left Danzig to study in Paris (a great decision made by his parents at the time), and after the invasion of France in 1940 ended up in Marseille, then Grenoble, then various areas in the Drôme, before joining a US battalion and then the official refugee aid agency at the time (before it became the UNHCR). He spent time working to help refugees get out of France while being a refugee himself, escaped capture to then join the Résistance proper. I loved reading about his experiences making his way around France, living with Surrealists such as André Breton, working undercover in Grenoble (the city where I grew up), and his days as a flâneur in Paris. I really enjoyed the author’s descriptions of flânerie, descriptions that match my own personal way of discovering a new place I call home as well as old ones. I also loved how his memoir is peppered with his own personal thoughts and interpretations of events and possible future events, memories clear as day to both author and reader all these decades later.Justus Rosenberg knows his story of survival and resistance is incredible but also knows that it was very much a mix of circumstance, luck, place, time, his observation skills, his quick thinking, his education, and also due to how he looked (young for his age and blond with blue eyes). But to me Justus didn’t just survive, he made the most of his circumstances to help others as much as he could, even when his own situation was pretty dire. He is such as inspiration and I can’t wait to read about more of his life (those FBI files sound very interesting!).Justus Rosenberg will be 100 years old in 2021. His story is amazing, and in my opinion a must read, both in terms of how we need to remember the past, but also because his life philosophy is something that I think would bring hope to many, and maybe inspire many more to be like him. I am certainly inspired.Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read this amazing memoir in exchange for an honest review!

Nissa

February 07, 2020

This was such an incredible story! The book sucks you right in, every chapter having its own twist that makes you want to keep reading. I enjoyed this story and the determination and strength this young man had to survive throughout the war was in itself a great feat. He was able to make great things of his long life. What an accomplishment. A true hero.

Hinda

August 09, 2021

riveting, written in a way that compels the continual turning of pages and the inability to put it down. I find that I am drawn to the young DR Rosenberg in a way I haven't been to other memorists from this era.

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