A Tale of Two Countries:

About the Book

A TALE OF TWO COUNTRIES is the story of a young French girl who lived during the dramatic days of World War II in France.  To those who lived through the Nazi takeover of Germany, it was clear that Europe, as long as the Germans dominated it, would be doomed to tremendous uncertainty and might be sentenced to a mindless barbarism.

As she has looked at the events of World War II, as the stories have been told in books and newspapers and films, she asked herself: How did people get through that?  How did they survive?  She suddenly realized that she had been there and therefore knew something about how they endured, survived, and lived to tell about it.

The occupation had ended (where she lived) in September 1944.  In the spring of 1945, the war was over.  In this brief interval, her outlook on life had improved immensely.  There was still a numbness that she felt from the past.  She needed to overcome this and find meaning in a new life.  

At the time there was a depression among the French people and little desire to get on with clean up and rebuilding.  Twenty years prior to this time had seen an even greater disaster, for the French, and they feared that an unending cycle was in place.

Her story opens with the early days of her quiet, peaceful, gentle life in France, when there were only hints of the trouble to come.  It unfolds during the lead up to World War II and relates the dramatic events of the Nazi occupation and the terror that followed.  It includes her relationship with a Jewish, French person, who became her mentor and the victim of the worst atrocities.

Her experiences as a refugee and her brothers escape from a German prison are also told.  The final chapters continue her story with the decision to leave France in 1947 to follow her future husband to the US.  The trial and tribulation of a new life in America are an interesting and unique counterpoint to the drama of the war years.

BOOK SUMMARY

For the book cover

A TALE OF TWO COUNTRIES is the autobiography of a young French girl, Raymonde Kenyon.  In this story she describes in riveting detail what it was like to live through the atrocities and unbearable suspense of occupied France during World War II.  She contrast this with the soft gentle days that was her life prior to the war.

Her experiences as a refugee and her brothers suspenseful escape from a German prison are also told.

The two countries of this tale are France and the United States, where she moved to marry a US. Army officer and where she has lived an eventful second life.  The trials and tribulations of a new life  in America are an interesting counterpoint to the drama of the war years.

About the Author

The author, Raymonde Kenyon, was born in 1925 in Lormes in central France. She is a first time author with this autobiography. She lived in France for twenty-one years and came to the United States after World War II. How she resolved her life makes for a most interesting autobiography.