Villa Air-Bel : World War II, escape, and a house in Marseille

In Paris 1940, Andre Breton, Max Ernst, Marc Chagall, Consuelo de Saint-Exupery, and scores of other cultural elite are denounced as enemies of the conquering Third Reich and live in daily fear of arrest, deportation, and death. Their only salvation is the Villa Air-Bel, a chateau outside Marseille where a group of young people, financed by The Emergency Rescue Committee, a private American relief organization, will go to extraordinary lengths to keep them alive. This book sheds light on this suspenseful, dramatic, and intriguing story, introducing the brave men and women who use every means possible to stave off the Nazis and the Vichy officials, and goes inside the chateau's walls to uncover the private worlds and the web of relationships its remarkable inhabitants developed.