Alex Kershaw, Avenue of Spies: A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and One American Family’s Heroic Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Paris 

Bestselling author and acclaimed World War II historian Alex Kershaw returns to the Pritzker Military Museum & Library to share his new book, recounting the remarkable true story of the Jackson family’s heroic efforts to defeat the evil in their midst.

At the dawn of the 1940s, few could boast a more exclusive address than on Paris’s renowned Avenue Foch. Home to dignitaries, socialites, and some of Europe’s wealthiest citizens, in June of 1940 it would gain a new reputation as the Nazis marched into the City of Light, marking the beginning of more than four years of German occupation.

Paris was the jewel in Hitler’s crown, and from the confiscated mansions of Avenue Foch, the Gestapo would hold the city in its sinister grip. What the Nazis did not know, however, was that just down the street at number 11, a stronghold of French resistance had taken root.

Phillip Jackson was only 12 when the Nazis became his neighbors in Paris, the Gestapo setting up their base of operations at 72 Avenue Foch. Phillip’s father, Sumner, was an esteemed American doctor at the nearby American Hospital in Paris, who would help Allied soldiers brought to him for treatment escape the Nazis, smuggling them out of France with new names and forged documents. Meanwhile, Phillip's mother, Toquette, would let members of the French resistance movement use the Jackson home as a key meeting place and drop site for relaying crucial information to the Allies.

But then, on May 25, 1944, just weeks before the liberation of France, there came a knock on the Jacksons’ door. Discovered at last by the Nazis, the Jacksons would suffer the fate of those whom they had spent years trying to save—a journey into the hell of Hitler’s making.

Today, nearing 90, Phillip Jackson has shared the story of his family’s remarkable efforts with Kershaw in a series of interviews from his home in Paris. Combining these conversations with other first-hand accounts, and painstaking research into military, hospital, and intelligence archives in both Europe and the U.S., Kershaw has crafted an astounding work of history that reads like the best of spy novels. Avenue of Spiesaffords us an unforgettable window into the life of an ordinary family whose extraordinary efforts and sacrifice helped change the course of history.

ALEX KERSHAW is the New York Times bestselling author of several books on World War II, includingThe Bedford Boys, The Longest Winter, and The Liberator. He lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

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