Ninette's War

A Jewish Story of Survival in 1940s France

John Jay

The moving, poignant true story of a young Jewish girl coming of age in France during World War II, as the Holocaust approaches.

This is the heart-wrenching true story of a young Jewish girl coming of age in France during World War II.

Ninette Dreyfus belonged to one of the most influential Jewish families in Paris—second only to the Rothschilds—her parents’ social circle ranging from Einstein to Colette. But all that privilege counted for nothing when the Nazis arrived; the family was high up on the list of Philippe Petain’s targets.

Composed through diary entries and conversations the author had with Ninette before she died, Ninette's War narrates the family's fall from grace alongside the creeping understanding of the Vichy government’s collaboration with the Nazis. Through Ninette’s eyes we witness how it all unfolded: from the anti-Semitism in the playground—sometimes from her own teachers—to Ninette’s first crush under a false identity.

Woven into the political backdrop of a nation turning inward on itself, this is the tale of a life once filled with riches becoming rootless, where friends were left behind and politicians legislated their own people out of existence—and to their deaths—culminating in what we now know as the Holocaust.

John Jay is a former managing editor at the London Sunday Times and the author of one previous book published in Britain, Facing Fearful Odds: My Father’s Story of Captivity, Escape and Resistance 1940-1945. Ninette's War is his second book. John lives in England.

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Endorsements & Reviews

Early praise for Ninette’s War:

“A coming-of-age story that unravels France's dark years of Nazi occupation with the paradox of who resisted, who betrayed and who collaborated. Compelling testimony to what it means to be forced to flee your home and yet emerge with optimism and plenty of life still to be lived.” Anne Sebba, New York Times bestselling author of Les Parisiennes

“The ripples of stories about the courage and tragic fate of Jews in Nazi occupied Europe still reach us. John Jay's reclaiming of the wartime odyssey in France of Ninette Dreyfus—aka Lady Swaythling in a later life in Britain—is spellbinding. A worthy recalling of the past in the dark times of the present.” Colin Shindler, emeritus professor and author of The Rise of the Israeli Right and Israel and the European Left

“John Jay's riveting account of the life of Ninette Dreyfus, daughter of one branch of the illustrious Jewish family, skillfully unfurls a fascinating, textured account of France's betrayal of the Jews during the Second World War. Cleaving to the details of her life and that of those around her, Jay provides a gripping and fresh narrative of ever-more astonishing, pacey and ultimately world-changing events. At a time when the Holocaust and the taboo against anti-Semitism moves further away in time, Ninette's War provides urgent context and details we must not forget, alongside a compassionate, elegant tribute to one brave woman's life.” Zoe Strimple, historian and author of Seeking Love in Modern Britain