The Spiral Shell
A French Village Reveals Its Secrets of Jewish Resistance in World War II: A Memoir
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The Spiral Shell
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Narrated by:
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Erin Bennett
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By:
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Sandell Morse
About this listen
In this haunting memoir that reflects on the Holocaust and its legacy, award-winning author Sandell Morse discovers stories of bravery and resistance enacted during WWII in Southern France. In the course of six years at a writing residency in France, during which she met with survivors and historians, she painstakingly pieces together the puzzle that had been beguiling her over the years: What was the real story of the French Jews under the Vichy government during The Second World War?
Driven by her dogged curiosity and determination to uncover the truth, and with a fossilized shell she’d found in the wall of the Jewish quarter in Paris as a talisman, she seeks deeper meaning and understanding of her own Jewish heritage.
By gradually gaining the trust of those she interviewed, Sandell reconstructs incidents of the civilians' extraordinary courage in resisting the Vichy regime and Nazi occupation. From the survivors’ harrowing tales of escape, ingenious subterfuge, and just plain luck, she learns of a nunnery that was a safe house for refugees; a rabbi who gave his life to save hundreds of Jewish children; the local gendarme who, endangering his own life, tipped the Resistance off to the upcoming Nazi roundups.
In this year that marks the 80th anniversary of the deportation of thousands of French Jews to Auschwitz, this memoir reflects on a crucial time in our world’s history that still reverberates today, and provides a moving tribute to those who resisted oppression and fascism.
©2020, 2022 Sandell Morse (P)2022 Sandell MorseListeners also enjoyed...
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 60
Bart van Es left Holland for England many years ago, but one story from his Dutch childhood never left him. It was a mystery of sorts: A young Jewish girl named Lientje had been taken in during the war by relatives and hidden from the Nazis, handed over by her parents. The girl had been raised by her foster family as one of their own, but then, well after the war, they were no longer in touch. What was the girl's side of the story, Bart wondered? What really happened during the war and after? So began an investigation that would consume Bart van Es's life and change it.
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5 out of 5 stars
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a powerful & unique work on the Holocaust
- By D. Littman on 03-06-19
By: Bart van Es
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House of Stone
- A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East
- By: Anthony Shadid
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 90
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 80
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Story4 out of 5 stars 78
When Anthony Shadid—one of four New York Times reporters captured in Libya as the region erupted—was freed, he went home, not to Boston, Beirut, or Oklahoma, where he was raised by his Lebanese American family, but to an ancient estate built by his great-grandfather, a place filled with memories of a lost era when the Middle East was a world of grace, grandeur, and unexpected departures.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Bit depressing
- By Astrid Dahl on 03-17-12
By: Anthony Shadid
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The Women in the Castle
- By: Jessica Shattuck
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 4,102
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,697
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Story4 out of 5 stars 3,691
Set at the end of World War II, in a crumbling Bavarian castle that once played host to all of German high society, a powerful and propulsive story of three widows whose lives and fates become intertwined - an affecting, shocking, and ultimately redemptive novel from the author of the New York Times notable book The Hazards of Good Breeding.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Skating On The Thin Ice Of Life
- By Sara on 04-29-17
By: Jessica Shattuck
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The Girl in the Blue Beret
- A Novel
- By: Bobbie Ann Mason
- Narrated by: Fred Sullivan
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 531
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 478
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Story4 out of 5 stars 470
Inspired by a true story, the best-selling author of In Country offers a gorgeous, haunting novel about an airline pilot coming to terms with his past, and searching for the people who saved him during World War II. After Marshall Stone's B-17 bomber was shot down in occupied Europe in 1944, people in the French Resistance helped him escape to safety.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Needs a woman narrator for female characters
- By Patricia A Gallagher on 02-23-21
By: Bobbie Ann Mason
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A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True
- By: Brigid Pasulka
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 697
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 602
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Story4 out of 5 stars 592
The novel opens on the eve of World War II. In the mountain village of Half-Village, a young man nicknamed the Pigeon, under the approving eyes of the entire village, courts the beautiful Anielica Hetmanska. But the war's arrival wreaks havoc in all their lives and delays their marriage for six long years.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Old & New Worlds Converge & Transcend Time
- By Sara on 11-22-16
By: Brigid Pasulka
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Mosaic
- By: Diane Armstrong
- Narrated by: Deidre Rubenstein
- Length: 19 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 208
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 167
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 171
>i>Mosaic is compelling storytelling at its best - from the fascinating details of Polish-Jewish culture and the rivalries and dramas of family life, to its moving account of lives torn apart by war and persecution, this an extraordinary true story of a family, and of one woman's journey to reclaim her heritage.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Absolutely excellent!
- By Roberta on 09-22-11
By: Diane Armstrong
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Remember Us
- My Journey from the Shtetl Through the Holocaust
- By: Vic Shayne, Martin Small
- Narrated by: Peter Altschuler
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 367
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 333
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Story5 out of 5 stars 331
Remember Us is a look back at the lost world of the shtetl: a wise Zayde offering prophetic and profound words to his grandson, the rich experience of Shabbos, and the treasure of a loving family. All this is torn apart with the arrival of the Holocaust, beginning a crucible fraught with twists and turns so unpredictable and surprising that they defy any attempt to find reason within them. Through the eyes of 91-year-old Holocaust survivor Martin Small, we learn that these priceless memories that are too painful to remember are also too painful to forget.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Tragic and Rich Life, With Lessons For All
- By still reading on 03-17-16
By: Vic Shayne, and others
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Street Without a Name
- Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria
- By: Kapka Kassabova
- Narrated by: Emily Gray
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4 out of 5 stars 53
Kassabova was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, and grew up under the drab, muddy, gray mantle of one of communism’s most mindlessly authoritarian regimes. Escaping with her family as soon as possible after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, she lived in Britain, New Zealand, and Argentina, and several other places. But when Bulgaria was formally inducted to the European Union she decided it was time to return to the home she had spent most of her life trying to escape. What she found was a country languishing under the strain of transition. This two-part memoir of Kapka’s childhood and return explains life on the other side of the Iron Curtain.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Good start, but ended up not liking the author
- By Giselle on 11-02-21
By: Kapka Kassabova
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A Tale of Love and Darkness
- By: Amos Oz
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 23 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 343
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 302
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 302
It is the story of a boy growing up in the war-torn Jerusalem of the 40s and 50s in a small apartment crowded with books in 12 languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. His mother and father, both wonderful people, were ill-suited to each other. When Oz was 12 and a half years old, his mother committed suicide - a tragedy that was to change his life. He leaves the constraints of the family and the community of dreamers, scholars, and failed businessmen to join a kibbutz.
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1 out of 5 stars
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His life was interesting, but not his memoir
- By DR Harle on 01-27-19
By: Amos Oz
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The Lost Carousel of Provence
- By: Juliet Blackwell
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 338
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 296
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 296
Long, lonely years have passed for the crumbling Château Clement, nestled well beyond the rolling lavender fields and popular tourist attractions of Provence. Once a bustling and dignified ancestral estate, now all that remains is the château's gruff, elderly owner and the softly whispered secrets of generations buried and forgotten. But time has a way of exposing history's dark stains, and when American photographer Cady Drake finds herself drawn to the château and its antique carousel, she longs to explore the relic's shadowy origins.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Loved It!
- By T Heskett on 09-23-18
By: Juliet Blackwell
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On Hitler's Mountain
- Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood
- By: Irmgard A. Hunt
- Narrated by: Christa Lewis
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 54
Growing up in the beautiful mountains of Berchtesgaden - just steps from Adolf Hitler's alpine retreat - Irmgard Hunt had a seemingly happy, simple childhood. In her powerful, illuminating, and sometimes frightening memoir, Hunt recounts a youth lived under an evil but persuasive leader. As she grew older, the harsh reality of war - and a few brave adults who opposed the Nazi regime - aroused in her skepticism of National Socialist ideology and the Nazi propaganda she was taught to believe in.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A rare and very much appreciated perspective.
- By tabounds on 12-28-17
By: Irmgard A. Hunt
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The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears
- By: Dinaw Mengestu
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 176
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 146
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Story4 out of 5 stars 146
Ethiopian émigré Dinaw Mengestu is a skilled observer of people who offers a colorful debut work of fiction. Insightful and swiftly paced, this novel evokes past and present in the course of its compelling narrative. It's the `70s, and one D.C. neighborhood is undergoing big changes. In the mix is Ethiopian grocery owner Sepha Stephanos - a man with a complex past who fled his homeland after seeing his father brutalized by themilitary. He hopes for new prospects in D.C.'s gentrification process.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great book, wonderful reader
- By Lisbeth on 11-22-11
By: Dinaw Mengestu
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The UnAmericans
- Stories
- By: Molly Antopol
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 124
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 111
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Story4 out of 5 stars 111
Again and again, Molly Antopol’s deeply sympathetic characters struggle for footing in an uncertain world, hounded by forces beyond their control. Their voices are intimate and powerful and they resonate with searing beauty. Antopol is a superb young talent, and The UnAmericans will long be remembered for its wit, humanity, and heart.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Sensational stories! Brilliant new author.
- By MidwestGeek on 05-04-14
By: Molly Antopol
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Letters from Paris
- By: Juliet Blackwell
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 450
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 409
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 410
After surviving the accident that took her mother's life, Claire Broussard worked hard to escape her small Louisiana hometown. But these days, she feels something lacking. Abruptly leaving her lucrative job in Chicago, Claire returns home to care for her ailing grandmother. There, she unearths a beautiful sculpture that her great-grandfather sent home from Paris after World War II. At her grandmother's urging, Claire travels to Paris to track down the centuries old mask-making atelier where the sculpture was created.
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5 out of 5 stars
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love story, a mystery, a historical novel, or all
- By Bonnie on 11-15-16
By: Juliet Blackwell
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All the Lives We Never Lived
- By: Anuradha Roy
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 41
From the Man Booker Prize-nominated author of Sleeping on Jupiter, The Folded Earth, and An Atlas of Impossible Longing, a poignant and sweeping novel set in India during World War II and the present day about a son’s quest to uncover the truth about his mother....
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5 out of 5 stars
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Beautiful book
- By Sonia S. on 12-13-19
By: Anuradha Roy
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Murder in Matera
- A True Story of Passion, Family, and Forgiveness in Southern Italy
- By: Helene Stapinski
- Narrated by: Helene Stapinski
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 95
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 83
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Story4 out of 5 stars 84
Since childhood Helene Stapinski heard lurid tales about her great-great-grandmother, Vita. In Southern Italy she was a loose woman who had murdered someone. Immigrating to America with three children, she lost one along the way. Helene's youthful obsession with Vita deepened as she grew up, eventually propelling the journalist to Italy, where, with her own children in tow, she pursued the story, determined to set the record straight.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Interesting story about unraveling the family lore
- By Denise Sproed on 08-04-17
By: Helene Stapinski
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The Great Spring
- Writing, Zen, and This ZigZag Life
- By: Natalie Goldberg
- Narrated by: Natalie Goldberg
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 30
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
What does it take to have a long writing life? Drawing on her years of writing, teaching, and practicing Zen, Natalie Goldberg shares the experiences that have opened her to new ways of being alive - experiences that point the way forward in our lives and our writing. The "great spring" of this book title refers to the great rush of energy that arrives when you think no life will ever come again - the early yellow flowering forsythia, for example.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An enjoyable insight
- By Leigh A on 05-22-23
By: Natalie Goldberg