Life under Occupation: Ginette Eboué, Colonial POWs & the Second World War

Join Dr. Sarah Frank to explore the experiences of the men and women living in occupied France during the Second World War. She will focus Ginette Eboué (daughter of resistance leader Felix Eboué)

Ginette was a student when the Germans invaded Paris. She left a detailed report of her experiences, and her dramatic escape across divided France, over the Pyrenees to Spain. In Spain she met her two brothers, who had been prisoners of war.

Germany imprisoned 85,000 captured colonial soldiers in occupied France. Meanwhile white prisoners were moved to Germany.

We will explore their experiences of captivity and occupation and unpick how to recreate stories of people who were often deliberately left out of the historical record.

Dr. Sarah Frank is a Lecturer in the History of the Francophone World at the University of Sheffield, and author of Hostages of Empire: Colonial Prisoners of War and Vichy France and ‘Occupying Her Time: Ginette Eboué, France, 1940–42’.

Surrey Street
Sheffield
S1 1XZ