Wishful thinking: Leaving, by Roxana Robinson, reviewed
Two former college sweethearts meet by chance in their sixties and fall in love again. But the trouble it causes makes a happy ending impossible
The misery of the Kindertransport children
Wrenched from their parents and familiar surroundings, the young refugees found safety in Britain, but were tolerated rather than cherished, says Andrea Hammel
The forgotten world of female espionage
Many thousands of women acted as messengers, radio operators and double agents behind enemy lines in both world wars. Here, these resilient and resolute pioneers are retrieved from the mists of history
The unimaginable horrors confronting the Allies in 1945
No one had prepared the Allied soldiers, as they began their invasion of the Reich early in 1945, for what…
Has the role of resistance in the second world war been exaggerated?
When in 1941 Winston Churchill famously declared that the newly formed Special Operations Executive, set up to encourage resistance movements,…
How the net finally closed on the Nazi henchman Andrei Sawoniuk
Fedor Zan was 18, working on the river closing sluices, when, on a winter afternoon in 1942, he saw his…
It’s still impossible for Horst Wächter to recognise his father as a Nazi war criminal
In 1926, while putting in place the repressive laws and decrees that would define his dictatorship, Mussolini appointed a new…
The tragic story of Witold Pilecki, whose reports from Auschwitz fell on deaf ears
On 14 October 1942, the 23 Swiss members of the International Committee of the Red Cross met in Geneva to…
Picasso’s dealer
When she was four, Anne Sinclair had her portrait painted by Marie Laurencin. It is a charming picture, a little…
Monsieur le Commandant, by Romain Slocombe - review
There can be few characters in modern fiction more unpleasant than Paul-Jean Husson, the narrator in Romain Slocombe’s Monsieur le…