The Lost Girls of Paris: A Novel

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes descriptions of torture and war-related violence.

The main events of The Lost Girls of Paris take place in 1944 in France and describe the Nazi occupation of the region. The political tension and danger of the resistance movements in Nazi-occupied Paris and northwest France are central to the plot of the novel.

In 1940, the French government signed an armistice with Nazi Germany. From that point, although the new French government—commonly known as the Vichy regime—was collaborating with the Nazis and was theoretically in charge of the country, the area occupied by the German military was essentially a Nazi dictatorship. The German occupation of France officially ended in December of 1944, just months after the main events of the novel take place.

In the years between 1940 and 1944, life became increasingly difficult for French civilians living under the Nazi occupation. Some civilians were inspired to form paramilitary groups that history has collectively labeled as the French Resistance. Resistance members gathered information for the Allies, sabotaged infrastructure, and provided safe harbor for Allied soldiers who found themselves behind enemy lines. SOE was founded to support and further the activities carried out by the French Resistance and other resistance efforts around Europe.

The resistance activities became damaging enough that the Vichy government started a militia group whose sole purpose was to combat such resistance efforts. Torture and executions were commonly used to punish resistance members. The Germans also made use of French infrastructure, such as Fresnes prison, another important setting in the novel. This prison, which is still the second-largest penitentiary in France today, was used to imprison members of the resistance and other “enemies of the Reich,” and many were interrogated here before being transferred to concentration and prison camps in Germany.