“Aryan women of honor” by Damien Roger

Aryan women of honorby Damien Roger was published by Privat editions.

We open the ball with Shostakovich’s Waltz No. 2, chosen by the author to illustrate this story which begins at the beginning of the 20th century.

We follow the incredible destiny of two sisters and their cousins, born into a family of wealthy bankers, the Sterns. By marrying wealthy Catholic aristocrats, each of them renounces Judaism and decides to be baptized. These alliances now allow Marie-Louise de Chasseloup-Laubat, Lucie de Langlade and Suzanne d’Aramon to access the highest spheres of Parisian life and its society life. Unfortunately, history will cruelly catch up with them.

“They are really at the top of the hierarchy and in 1940, with the German invasion, so overnight, they will find themselves thrown out of French identity, and even out of all humanity. And what was interesting to to see, it was finally what were the psychological springs and the questions that could have been theirs. I was fascinated. I wondered how one could make this Jewish identity cohabit with this fidelity to the ideas of the French State and to the ideas of Vichy.”

Damien Roger

at franceinfo

Finally, neither the family’s friendship with Marshal Pétain and his wife Annie, nor the dispensation for them not to wear the Jewish star, will prevent Marie-Louise, Lucie and Suzanne from being arrested.

The term Aryan women of honorthe title of the novel

In France, and unlike Nazi Germany, as the author explained to me, this term has no official existence. ”Aryan women of honor” was used in the press and in the French population, to designate people who enjoyed special protection from the Vichy government or the Germans.

There have been around twenty known cases in France, and Damien Roger therefore wanted to take a closer look at them, with a real historical approach. And it’s really exciting to discover, through this family saga, this new subject. It is also gripping by the romantic and psychological approach to the story. A very good historical novel to read… and maybe also to see adapted into a film one day, who knows!

Damien Roger

Damien Roger is a civil servant at the Ministry of Culture. Aryan women of honor is his first novel. The author will be signing on Sunday, March 19, in Neuilly-sur-Seine at the Neuilly Ancelle Book Fair; on Wednesday March 22 in Carcassonne, at the Breithaupt bookstore, and on Saturday March 25 in Toulouse, at the Privat bookstore.

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