The Keeper of Happy Endings

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses antisemitism.

Portions of The Keeper of Happy Endings take place in Paris in the 1940s against the backdrop of World War II. In May 1940, the German army attacked France, and by mid-June 1940, the Germans occupied the city of Paris. The French government left Paris for Vichy, and millions of Parisians, mostly those with the means to do so, fled to the countryside and south of France. Those who remained in Paris were subject to food and goods rationing, with clothes and materials like fuel and tobacco scarce in the city. French goods were funneled to Germany first to support their war efforts, with the French getting whatever was left over. The Germans imposed a strict curfew, flew swastikas on the city’s buildings, and used French radio and press for propaganda. Jewish people in the city were subject to the harshest treatment, with restrictions on their travel, professional life, and access to public places. Starting in 1942, any Jewish person over the age of six was made to wear the yellow Star of David badge. When the roundups of Jewish people began, many in Paris were sent to Auschwitz to be exterminated. By the time Paris was liberated, it is estimated that the Nazis had deported and murdered at least 50,000 Jewish people from Paris and the area surrounding the city (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Paris.” Holocaust Encyclopedia).

There were cultural impacts of the German invasion as well: In anticipation of the occupation in 1940, art curators packed works from the Louvre into crates and covertly relocated them to a chateau in a province in the unoccupied zone. While the art from the Louvre was safe, that was not the case for other collections in Paris, especially those owned by Jewish families. The Nazis were responsible for grand-scale looting of art collections throughout Paris, and while much of the art was recovered after the war, many pieces were lost.

Parisians had a mixed approach in how they reacted to the German occupation: “Some people collaborated; others resisted; and most ended up between the two extremes” (Christofferson, Thomas and Michael. France During World War II: From Defeat to Liberation. Fordham University Press, 2006). Government officials were given the choice to cooperate with the Germans or to lose their jobs. Factory workers and small shopkeepers faced a similar dilemma: serve the Germans or be unemployed. Parisian men were either fighting with Allied troops or forced to work under the service du travail obligatoire (STO) in support of the German war effort. Resistance groups were part of an underground movement during World War II to resist the German occupation in European countries. In France, Resistance workers used various methods to interrupt Germany’s efforts: They were involved in tapping telephones, serving as spies within collaborator groups like the police, hiding downed pilots, transporting weaponry, and publishing underground newspapers, to name a few. Until early 1943, the Resistance movement in France was fragmented, with many factions and organizations throughout all of France. Under the leadership of Charles de Gaulle, the National Council of the Resistance brought together every party, organization, and trade union to create one national Resistance group. The occupation lasted four years, until Paris was liberated after Allied troops landed at Normandy on June 6, 1944, and two months later advanced into Paris.