THE FORBIDDEN ZONE 1940

This second volume of Angelo’s two-book memoir covers her return to France and participation in the French Resistance during World War II.

The author was visiting her parents in Scotland when, on Sept. 3, 1939, U.K. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announced that England had declared war on Germany. She immediately packed her bags and set out to return to the boutique hotel she was running in Lille, France. She arrived to find empty streets, no taxis, and only two “old faithfuls”—housekeeper Marie-Louise, and handyman Jacques—still working at the hotel. Before long, British and French troops began moving into Lille. With no paying guests, Angelo agreed to allow the use of vacant rooms by military men. Her restlessness led her to volunteer as an ambulance driver, and her first mission nearly took her life. She’d arrived nine minutes early at a scheduled rendezvous with another ambulance returning from the front and decided to step out of her vehicle to stretch her legs. Then a plane, flying low, strafed the road and destroyed her ambulance. Shortly after surviving this episode, she was in an automobile accident that resulted in her meeting a mysterious British officer named Gerald; he wouldn’t give her his full name, but he would become the love of her life. In clear prose that ably reflects period terminology, Angelo’s memoir presents a riveting picture of life under the German occupation of Lille and the surrounding “Forbidden Zone.” Only when recounting her encounters with Gerald does her work slip into a melodramatic tone: “Somehow I don’t feel that you’re a stranger, Anne. I seem to have known you for years….” However, the pages overflow with hair-raising wartime drama, as when Angelo tells of hiding rescued British flyboys in a secret compartment of her house or of a life-threatening betrayal by a close friend. Still, the complete two-book memoir would likely have been stronger as a single volume. (A few uncredited black-and-white photos, mostly of locations mentioned in the text, are included.)

An occasionally overwrought but often gripping portrayal of resilience and courage during wartime.