Tita

These oral histories give voice to both American veterans who chose to reside in France after World War II and to French women who married GIs and subsequently emigrated to the United States. They bring to life the realities of World War II in France, North Africa, England, Belgium, Holland, Italy and Germany.

We meet a secret agent launching kayaks in cold Algerian waters, an imposing sergeant wading ashore at Utah Beach, an American medic treating a German soldier in a Norman church and a commander crawling over to a burning tank to save one of his "boys"….And we learn to understand the French war brides through their childhood and wartime memories, their encounters with their GI husbands and their marriages, with the attendant joys and difficulties involved in adapting to life in America in the 1940s.

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"We owe our World War II veterans a huge debt – a debt of honor …Hilary Kaiser had the wisdom to record their individual memories. Because of her, these veterans’ stories will survive… Their courage and perseverance in the face of war will be an inspiration for us and our children…"

-James S. Dickey, Brigadier General, U.S. Army (Retired)

"a welcome new perspective on the Franco-American relationship…"

- Jeffrey H. Jackson, Associate Professor of History, Rhodes College, USA

"Hilary has real empathy for the people she interviews. She has provided us with a crop of memories that come vibrantly alive...."

- Jean Heffer, EHESS, Paris, France

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Hilary Kaiser, Ph.D, is American by birth and French by marriage. The daughter of a GI who fought in Japan during World War II, she is an oral historian and an Associate Professor Emerita of the University of Paris.