Join bestselling historian and author Lynne Olson for a conversation about her latest book, The Sisterhood of Ravensbrück: How an Intrepid Band of Frenchwomen Resisted the Nazis in Hitler’s All-Female Concentration Camp.
During World War II, more than 100,000 women from Nazi-occupied Europe, many of them members of their countries’ resistance movements, were sent to Ravensbrück, the only German concentration camp designed specifically for women. Among them was an extraordinary group of French women that included Germaine Tillion, a brilliant anthropologist; Jacqueline d’Alincourt, an elegant young countess; Anise Girard, an exuberant college student, and Genevieve de Gaulle, the quiet, reserved niece of Gen. Charles de Gaulle.
In the midst of the camp’s terror and brutality, these four, along with dozens of their countrywomen, refused to behave like victims. Instead, they formed a sisterhood, joining forces not only to keep each other alive but to continue their battle to resist the Nazis, this time by defying their orders to work in the German war effort. “It was our way of taunting our captors, to prove that we were not defeated,” one of them later said. Knowing full well they risked death if they were discovered, they went even further, creating a satirical musical revue making fun of their SS tormentors.
After the war, when many in France wanted nothing more than to focus on the future and forget about those who’d resisted the enemy, the surviving members of the sisterhood refused to allow their achievements, needs, and sacrifices to be erased. They banded together once more, first to support one another in healing their bodies and minds, and then to continue their crusade for freedom and justice—an effort that would have major repercussions for their country and the world into the twenty-first century.
Lynne Olson is a New York Times bestselling author of ten books of history, most of which focus on World War II. Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has called her “our era’s foremost chronicler of World War II politics and diplomacy.”
Her latest book, The Sisterhood of Ravensbrück: How an Intrepid Band of Frenchwomen Resisted the Nazis in Hitler’s All-Female Concentration Camp, will be published by Random House on June 3, 2025. It follows Empress of the Nile: The Daredevil Woman Archaeologist Who Saved Egypt’s Ancient Temples From Extinction, which came out in 2023.
Three of Lynne’s earlier books were immediate New York Times bestsellers, among them Madame Fourcade’s Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France’s Largest Spy Network Against the Nazis and Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour.
Born in Hawaii, Lynne graduated magna cum laude from the University of Arizona. Before becoming a full-time author, she worked as a journalist for ten years, first with the Associated Press as a national feature writer in New York, a foreign correspondent in AP’s Moscow bureau, and a political reporter in Washington. She left the AP to join the Washington bureau of the Baltimore Sun, where she covered national politics and eventually the White House.
Lynne lives in Washington, DC with her husband, Stanley Cloud, with whom she co-authored two books.
The Sisterhood of Ravensbrück is available now for purchase. The Robert H. Jackson Center, in partnership with Good Neighbor Bookstore will have a limited number of signed copies for sale.
The Al & Marge Brown WWII Lecture Series explores the people, events, and enduring lessons of the Second World War through conversations with historians, authors, and scholars.
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