Suite Francaise

France entered the Second World War on September 3, 1939, alongside the United Kingdom, in response to the German leader Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, and the Allies’ recognition that he had an imperialist mission. Hitler’s side, the Axis powers, initially had the upper hand in the war. The Battle of France, fought between May 10 and June 22, 1940, marked the beginning of the German occupation of Northern and Western France, which lasted officially until December 1944. The Vichy republic of the Southern and Eastern areas of France remained nominally under French rule until November 11, 1942, when the Axis powers invaded it.

The first two books of Némirovsky’s Suite address the immediate aftermath of the Nazi invasion and occupation. In Storm in June, she portrays the confusion surrounding the news of the German invasion, as her Parisian characters flee the capital in search of rural safety. After weeks on the road, facing the shortages of food and fuel that occur when a country is at war, they realize that the German invasion of France has advanced more than they anticipated. The characters’ eventual return to Paris signals an attempt to return to normal and a reestablishment of some sort of status quo, as they embark on a new normality as occupied citizens.