Résistance : A Woman’s Journal of Struggle and Defiance in Occupied France by Agnès Humbert, translated by Barbara Mellor

“On 13 April [1941] my diary ends”. Thrust into life in the Prison du Cherche-Midi, Agnès imagines her death “Here lies Agnès Humbert, died 15 April 1941.” In 1945, months after shedding her identity as a political prisoner and becoming a Nazi Hunter in Germany, Agnès’ war ends.

In 1940 as the Nazi’s tightened their grip around Paris and the rest of France, a group of colleagues at the Musée de l’Homme in Paris decided to form a network that would become a key member of the Resistance. Among them was respected art historian Agnès Humbert. The group published and disseminated a newsletter called “Résistance” which no doubt gave its name to the movement. In 1941 prominent members of the group were arrested, imprisoned, and later tried and executed or deported to German labor camps.

Agnès’ diary is unique among resistance narratives. Her journal was first published in 1946, soon after the end of the war. Part of the diary was written as events unfolded (the first nine months or so of her account), but large parts of it were written after the war’s end from memory. Julien Blanc explains that Résistance features two types of writing—spontaneous diary entries and considered recollections from memory. Unifying these types of writing is Agnes’ vivid, passionate tone.