The bravery and ingenuity shown by the nuns of Notre Dame de Namur during the Second World War is almost too faithfully retold in this fascinating account of religious life in Nazi-occupied Belgium. Taking inspiration from a caché of letters found, by chance, some 70 years after they were written, author Dennis Turner has created a fictional American nun to be the teller of all the tales in Sisters of the Resistance, written by the Catholic Sisters during a time which now, through our far-removed post-millennial lens, seems really quite mad.
With Namur being batted back and forth between American and German control, the Sisters took it upon themselves to defy Hitler and the Nazi regime. Hiding American troops in the basement and teaching Jewish girls the Order Of Mass so they could be concealed in the convent was dangerous, almost brazen behaviour.
But by Turner choosing to recreate the diary-like style of the detailed original letters, something of the immediacy of the drama and the danger of the situation is diluted in Sisters of the Resistance. What is left is a very detailed description of the bizarre nature of wartime life that, somehow, becomes part of the day-to-day. An incredible story made very believable – and, though perhaps this was the intention, the tension is somehow lost.
Sisters Of The Resistance, Dennis Turner (Ad Lib)
Price: £8.99. Info: here
words JOHN-PAUL DAVIES
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