The plateau /

Anthropologist Paxson opens this masterful exploration of a rural region in France with a powerful and surprising observation, declaring that it is easier to study violence than peace. Determined to research something new and different, she was inspired by an unexpected personal connection that brought her to the Plateau, where hundreds of endangered children, most of them Jewish, were hidden during WWII. But what began as a historical inquiry shifted into a contemporary story when Paxson discovered that this same remote place is now home to a concerted effort to aid refugees from around the world. Driven by her passionate desire to move beyond data and into the hearts of those who choose the right yet difficult path, she follows the written record of a hero from the past while immersing herself in the blistering stories of the present. Across time, Paxson finds those of the Plateau answering not the trumpet blast that sounds through history but rather the smallest of human cries, the summons that is often too easily ignored. Inspiring, riveting, and brilliantly researched and written, this is a book for our time by an author who has found her calling and risen with literary grace to a powerful challenge.--Colleen Mondor Copyright 2019 Booklist

Anthropologist Paxson (Solovyovo) considers what it means to be good in this lyrical, complex, genre-melding exploration of the Plateau Vivarais-Lignon in Southern France, a region with a long tradition of offering refuge to those in need. She relates the parallel stories of her own contemporary experiences on the Plateau with the 17 months during WWII when idealistic teacher Daniel Trocmé helped displaced children until he was captured by the Nazis. On the plateau now is one of France's 300 centers where asylum seekers are housed while they wait for their cases to be considered. As Paxson becomes enmeshed in the community of the plateau, where asylum seekers come from Albania, Congo, Russia, and other countries, what begins as anthropological study evolves into something far more personal; she writes movingly about the refugees she meets, including fiercely protective yet affectionate mother Dzhamal, who showers children with kisses, and about Trocmé, whose trail she physically follows to the site of his death at the Majdanek concentration camp. History, memoir, profound soul-searching about peace, and meditations on the moral limitations of observation (rather than action) are woven together with dreamlike sequences imagining the lives of victims whose fates aren't on historical record. The beautifully written, often heartrending narrative is as unforgettable as the region and individuals it brings to life. (Aug.)

At considerable personal risk, many residents of the Vivarais-Lignon region of France sheltered refugees of all ages and faiths from deportation by the Nazis during World War II. Building upon her research as a U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Georgetown University fellow, anthropologist Paxson (Solovyovo) explores this particular region's history of altruism. The compelling story of Daniel Trocme, who cared for stateless and homeless children in Le Chambon until he was arrested in a raid, deported to Buchenwald, and sent to his death at Majdanek in 1944, is interspersed with the personal and professional journey that led Paxson to the area. Villagers in the plateau currently shelter refugees from war-ravaged areas of the world. VERDICT Paxson's work offers a counterpoint to titles such a Anna Bikont's The Crime and the Silence, which detailed how neighbors viciously turned on one another during World War II. Readers interested in World War II France, and anyone seeking reassurance that good exists in the world will appreciate this heartbreaking and hopeful text.--Laurie Unger Skinner, Highland Park P.L., IL

A multilayered, intimate look at what creates a "peace enclave" amid terrible violence.Pursuing her research into how "even powerless-seeming people can find ways to resist the will of a violent state," anthropologist and essayist Paxson (Solovyovo: The Story of Memory in a Russian Village, 2005) delved into Holocaust studies and ultimately focused on one peculiar region in France, Plateau Vivarais-Lignon. From the early centuries of religious war, when the region protected Protestants, to World War II, when there was a school of refugees sheltering hundreds of Jewish children, to today, when a thriving center for asylum-seekers houses innumerable refugees from places like Congo, Rwanda, and Chechnya, the cluster of villages possesses a remarkable history of "heroic altruism." In order to tell the story of this extraordinary community, the author immersed herself in the history of the small rural area, somewhat isolated at 3,000 feet, full of farmers and sheep herders. Specifically, she absorbed the tragic wartime fate of Daniel Trocm, who arrived to run a home for refugee children in the French backwoods in the fall of 1942. As he wrote to his parents, he wanted "to be part of the reconstruction of the world. Iwish not to be ashamed of myself." Paxson is meticulous in her attention to fieldwork detail: the way people live, their language, the choices people make in times of violence when communities tend to close doors and "act in such a way as to maximize the best outcomes for ourselves." Yet the opposite happened on the Plateau, where people sheltered the strangers as the Nazi occupiers made strangers enemies to be annihilated. The many layers in this engrossing, almost suspenseful work involve the author's evolving relationships with the current refugee families at the asylum center, the revealing letters Trocm sent to his family delineating his blooming personality and sense of purpose, and the author's own growing determination in her research. Throughout, Paxson keeps asking questions and probing, never settling for assumptions.An elegant, intensive study that grapples with an enormous idea: how to be good. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.