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A riveting and stylish story set in Paris during World War II, THE ART SPY uncovers how an unlikely heroine infiltrated the Nazi leadership to save the cultural legacy of the West. On August 25, 1944, Rose Valland, a 45-year-old woman of quiet daring, found herself in a truly terrifying position. Frontline French tanks had rolled down the Paris streets and surrounded where she stood. The Nazi leadership was hiding in her beloved Jeu de Paume museum behind her.
Bullets flew over the Seine. Nazi soldiers were flooding onto the streets in surrender. Would the museum curator, peering through her glasses, be killed before she could tell her story, a story that would mean saving humanity's cultural inheritance?Based on troves of previously undiscovered documents, THE ART SPY tells the story of Valland, the only Resistance spy in the heart of the Nazi's art looting headquarters in Paris.
A veritable female Monuments Man, who until now was written out of history, she bore witness to the largest art theft in history. While Hitler was amassing stolen art for his future Führermuseum, Rose was his undercover adversary. During every stage of World War II, she was front and center in the action. She came face to face with Göring, she passed crucial information secretly to the Resistance network, put herself deliberately in harm's way to protect the museum and her staff during the Battle of Paris, and had a gun put to her back during the last hours of Liberation Day as a mob broke into the museum she was protecting.
She also singlehandedly provided the information to stop the last train of looted artworks to leave France, including works by Picasso, Monet, Cezanne, Gauguin, Braque, Degas, Modigliani and Toulouse-Lautrec. This incredible story takes us through pre-War Paris, when the geniuses of our modern times--Picasso, Josephine Baker, Coco Chanel, Le Corbusier--socialized in glittering cafes. It places us in the tensions of conflict building in the glorious cities of Europe and through the harrowing years when brave people, such as Rose, had to risk everything to fight for what they believed in.
This is a must read for those who loved the film Monument Men or the book, The Rape of Europa. In the spirit of Hidden Figures, Rose is a unique female hero who has not been yet celebrated as she should.