Last Twilight in Paris

Although Last Twilight in Paris is a work of fiction, it depicts a very real historical period in which the fate of France, among other countries, was unknown due to Germany’s aggression and the collaboration of some French citizens with the German war effort and the attempted extermination of French Jews.

Helaine and Gabriel, for example, respond to the news that German forces have invaded France in May 1940. Within a month, the Germans defeated French forces and occupied Paris: “An armistice was signed ​on June 22, 1940 and […] France was divided into a German occupied zone in the North, a French governed zone in the South, also known as Vichy, which collaborated with the Germans and had certain authority also in the German-occupied zone, and a small demilitarized Italian occupied zone in the Southeast” (“The German Occupation of France.” Yad Vashem). Anti-Jewish measures were enacted, including minimizing Jewish participation in French society and creating strict rules as to who qualified as a Jew. Jews in the German Zone were made to wear the yellow star, as Helaine is forced to do. 

Jews were rounded up and sent to camps in the occupied zone, beginning with those of foreign nationality, which Helaine observes.