About the Website

Professor Hanna Diamond set up this website in response to the large number of people who contacted her about her book Fleeing Hitler (OUP, 2007) indicating that they had family stories of their own that wished to share.

Her ambition is that this website should provide a  place for people to upload their own or their family stories of the period and make them available to other interested users. It should also provide a forum for discussion about these stories, about the process of collected and preserving these testimonies as well as other aspects of the history of the period.

Do leave us comments and visit us regularly as we will be adding new stories and blogs all the time.

About the Author

Professor Hanna Diamond

Hanna Diamond is professor of French in the School of Modern Languages at Cardiff University. She put this website together while she was lecturing at the University of Bath who provided the funding for it. She has always been passionate about this period of history and has published widely on the period.

As well as publishing two books, she has also been involved in a number of related media projects which deal with her research.

 

 

 

Related work:

With BBC Television – ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’

.November 2014: worked on the series with Jane Seymour and spoke about the escape of her aunt from Paris in June 1940. Screened in August 2015. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0670jy5

• April 2011: worked on the series with JK Rowling to discuss a relative who was in Paris during the Second World War. Click to watch the video

• October 2012: provided extensive background for episode featuring Patrick Stewart whose father was involved in the battles in Abbeville in May 1940 and who was traumatised by his experiences of seeing the suffering of civilians at this time.

With CNN

• April 2012: interviewed for comment on the death of Resistance hero Raymond Aubrac in April 2012. Click to read the article

With the BBC World Service

• The Why Factor: interviewed talking about the ‘femmes tondues’, the women whose heads were shaved during and after the Liberation of France because they were suspected of sleeping with German soldiers. Click to hear the programme

With Unity Productions formerly Gardner productions (Maryland, USA)

• Onscreen interview and consultancy for Enemy of the Reich: The Noor Inayat Khan Story.  See http://www.enemyofthereich.com/about-the-film/

With Gibson Group productions (New Zealand)

•  Nancy Wake, the White Mouse – an SOE agent who was dropped into occupied France. Diamond provided on-screen interview and expert insight into the situation for women in France at this time. http://www.gibson.co.nz/screen-projects/nancy-wake