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Author Vagliano-Eloy, Sonia, author.

Title Lieutenant Sonia Vagliano : a memoir of the World War II refugee crisis / Sonia Vagliano Eloy ; edited and translated by Martha Noel Evans
Published Lexington, Kentucky : The University Press of Kentucky, [2022]

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Description 1 online resource
Summary "Hundreds of World War II memoirs have been written, but the stories about the bravery and valor of the women who also served are rarely told. In Lieutenant Sonia Vagliano: A Memoir of the World War II Refugee Crisis, Vagliano provides a gripping and compelling account of how she and her team of four French women were attached to an American First Army unit that arrived in Normandy two weeks after D Day. From 1943 to 1945, Vagliano followed her unit from Normandy to Paris, through Belgium, and finally into Germany where they cared for 20,000 displaced persons and prisoners of war each day. Rich in detail, Vagliano not only describes her experiences-from caring for thousands of refugees in the worst possible conditions, to defusing landmines, being kidnapped, shot at, torpedoed, and bombed-she also recounts the major events of the war in Europe including the liberation of Paris, the Battle of the Bulge, and, finally, the concentration camps. Spending five weeks at Buchenwald repatriating the 21,000 prisoners still there, she provides a unique witness to the transition period between the liberation of the camp and its turnover to the Russians in July 1945, and saw first-hand "to what extremes the human imagination can go in its search for the most cruel methods of torture." Striking a balance between daredevil-level escapades and the sobering reality of a war-time account, this book won the 1982 Saint Simon award for best memoir of the year under its original title Les Demoiselles de Gualle. Now translator and editor Martha Noel Evans brings the young French lieutenant's memoirs to English-speaking audiences for the first time"-- Provided by publisher
Notes "Originally published in French as Les Demoiselles de Gaulle, 1943-1945. Paris: Plon, 1982."
Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on January 24, 2022)
Subject Vagliano-Eloy, Sonia.
SUBJECT Vagliano-Eloy, Sonia
Vagliano-Eloy, Sonia fast
Subject France combattante. Mission militaire de liaison administrative.
France combattante -- Biography
SUBJECT France combattante fast
Subject World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, French
Women soldiers -- France -- Biography
World War, 1939-1945 -- Refugees.
Women soldiers
Refugees
France
Genre/Form Personal narratives
Personal narratives
Biographies
Personal narratives.
Biographies.
Récits personnels.
Biographies.
Form Electronic book
Author Evans, Martha Noel, 1939- editor, translator.
ISBN 9780813182513
0813182514
9780813182506
0813182506
Other Titles Demoiselles De Gaulle, 1943-1945. English