The Painter of Hidden Children

by Uri Dushy Book 3 in the Art of Resistance series.

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Paris, 1938. Claire Weinberg arrives to study art at the École des Beaux-Arts and forms an intense friendship with the fearless Valérie. By 1943, Claire is living under a false identity in her family’s crumbling Beaujolais manor, where she shelters Jewish children whose parents have been arrested. Painting, music and carefully maintained routines give the children moments of ordinary life while German and Vichy persecution closes around the house.

An SS officer’s scrutiny and a teenage boy’s secret observations place the refuge at risk. In 1998, art restorer Madeleine inherits the manor and discovers portraits of children whose names were almost erased from history. Her investigation reveals why Claire was branded a traitor within her own family and connects wartime rescue to the secrecy, guilt and contested loyalties carried into later generations.