Tea, tarts and tears: My trip to France to honour a secret

It took one brave family and the silence of an entire town to protect this writer’s mother during the German occupation. This is what happened when she went to meet them.

Rose-Anne MannsContributor

Jun 17, 2024 – 5.00am

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I would not exist today, nor would dozens of my cousins, if it weren’t for villagers in a French hamlet who hid my Jewish grandmother and seven of her children during World War II. “The whole town protected the seven dwarfs,” my mother once told me.

On the eve of the 80th anniversary of D-Day, I had the opportunity to thank some of their descendants in person.