War and Betrayal From Manzanar to Dachau A Novel Jules F Bonjour 9780692424438 Books
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Shortly after Pearl Harbor, the military is clamoring to send all Japanese on the West Coast, citizens and non citizens, to concentration camps in the interior. The basis is military necessity but the true reason is racism and war hysteria. The legal system is tested and fails. The scene then shifts to France where the Jews are being persecuted by racist laws enacted by the Vichy government and enforced by both the French police and courts. The story is told through the experiences of a French born American lawyer who is witness to the failure of both judicial systems. He risks his career and reputation to defend a Japanese American who is going to be sent to a concentration camp, and then his life when he enlists and returns to France as a spy. It is a story of survival and ultimately hope but it is also a cautionary tale that warns when national security is threatened, the constitution is just a scrap of paper.
War and Betrayal From Manzanar to Dachau A Novel Jules F Bonjour 9780692424438 Books
Set against the background of the entry of the US into World War II, this story is a fast-paced novel about a California attorney who tries to defend his Japanese friend’s family from being placed in an internment camp. Jean-Claude Bonnay sets off on his David and Goliath struggle against the popular majority and the US government itself as he pursues a reasoned approach to the protections of the Constitution.He soon finds himself in an even murkier situation as he winds up as an underground agent in German-occupied France. The adventure continues throughout the war, with Jean-Claude’s language skills (French & German) aiding him in his work with the resistance. Eventually he winds up at the liberation of Dachau and is asked to use his legal skills to prepare for the trials of the men who ran the camp. He cannot help but note the parallels between Japanese-Americans held in US camps and Jews held in German camps.
The story is well told and the reader will enjoy the rapid flow of danger and adventure. If there is any blemish in the story it might be a tendency to resolve big problems or difficult issues too quickly or too easily. Smoother transitions might have been more logical, but might have slowed the flow of the story.
While this book refers to events that occurred more than seventy years ago, the book is very timely as current events are again forcing us to address the question of protecting the rights of minority groups who are viewed as a threat to the safety of the country as a whole. This reason alone makes this book a worthwhile investment of time.
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War and Betrayal From Manzanar to Dachau A Novel Jules F Bonjour 9780692424438 Books Reviews
There are historians, there are novelists and there are those talented writers who can weave fiction with history and create a suspenseful tale that rests solidly upon historical fact. Jules Bonjour has done just that in his novel, War and Betrayal. In Book One, Bonjour's protagonist, Jean-Claude, a young trial attorney, risks his career by challenging President Roosevelt's unconstitutional executive order, issued shortly after Pearl Harbor, that authorized the relocation and imprisonment of 110,000 innocent Japanese residents, including Japanese American citizens living in the West Coast states. Although the relocation occurred nearly 75 years ago and might be considered by some as ancient history, Book One so vividly exposes the injustice of the relocation that any reader with a sense of what is right and just will be outraged just as I was, exclaiming, "How did we let that happen? Bonjour explains how that happened, how racism and war hysteria overcame justice and law, and turned the Constitution into, as Bonjour puts it, "a scrap of paper."
Book Two follows Jean-Claude to the European theater of the war. This time it is not his career that is at risk, but his life. Again, Bonjour's thorough research creates a solid foundation for the action and danger that surround Jean-Claude.
When I finished the book and laid it aside, I felt that not only had I enjoyed an excellent read, but had learned a lot of history of those war years and was reminded just how vigilant we must be to protect our Constitution and human rights against encroachment in times of fear and hysteria. Unfortunately, these times are with us again--witness the abuses of the NSA's warrantless surveillance.
Bonjour gives us good crisp writing and an excellent and believable development of Jean-Claude's character. Bonjour leaves us with Jean-Claude back in America, and leaves the reader wanting to read more about him. Perhaps there will be a sequel. I hope so.
Kerry Gough
War and Betrayal, is a historical novel that tracks both the callous internment of Japanese-American citizens in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor as well as the resistance movement in Vichy France. It is a story of governmental betrayal of its citizenry as seen through the eyes of a criminal defense lawyer, Jean-Claude, whose quotidian work seems to prefigure this larger governmental abuse. He risks all to defend a friend and detainee.
With the outbreak of war, and his father’s departure to fight for his native France, Jean-Claude enlists in the military, where he hopes to be assigned to an underground unit charged with giving support to the French resistance—and where he might reunite with his father.
Major Longacre, in his welcoming address to the new underground recruits in London, warns that, “You will have to compromise the values you have cherished your entire life because the success of the mission is what is important above all.”
It is true. All ascend, but no one manages to hold high ground. The Major’s imperative turns out to be the blind rationale for the establishment of internment and concentration camps. Ultimately, everyone is a betrayer, the Vichy, Governor Warren and President Roosevelt, Jean-Claude’s new wife, Stephanie, her father, and finally, Jean-Claude himself.
The Resistance scenes are especially pleasurable, particularly those involving the underground fighter Chantel, who like Maria for Robert Jordon in For Whom the Bell Tolls, complicates the protagonist, Jean-Claude, in profound ways. The dialogue, too, bears the unmistakable, spare muscularity of Hemingway’s prose.
Jules Bonjour’s meticulously researched and deeply felt novel is a wonderful and necessary read.
I'm not bragging about my lack of reading skills or how slowly I read. I simply mean this story kept me turning page by page. The characters were interesting, the facts complete and made me think and the story dramatic enough to carry me to the end of the book but without embellishing critical details. I loved the short chapters! It's easier for me to read 3 pages and finish a chapter as a goal than 100+. Just my own personal preference but I did find it easier to make goals of finishing a chapter to just fly by. Great book written by an author with fine attention to detail and a keen legal mind. I'm still thinking about the questions raised in this book and how it might happen again in the upcoming years. You won't be disappointed to put this on your shelf.
Set against the background of the entry of the US into World War II, this story is a fast-paced novel about a California attorney who tries to defend his Japanese friend’s family from being placed in an internment camp. Jean-Claude Bonnay sets off on his David and Goliath struggle against the popular majority and the US government itself as he pursues a reasoned approach to the protections of the Constitution.
He soon finds himself in an even murkier situation as he winds up as an underground agent in German-occupied France. The adventure continues throughout the war, with Jean-Claude’s language skills (French & German) aiding him in his work with the resistance. Eventually he winds up at the liberation of Dachau and is asked to use his legal skills to prepare for the trials of the men who ran the camp. He cannot help but note the parallels between Japanese-Americans held in US camps and Jews held in German camps.
The story is well told and the reader will enjoy the rapid flow of danger and adventure. If there is any blemish in the story it might be a tendency to resolve big problems or difficult issues too quickly or too easily. Smoother transitions might have been more logical, but might have slowed the flow of the story.
While this book refers to events that occurred more than seventy years ago, the book is very timely as current events are again forcing us to address the question of protecting the rights of minority groups who are viewed as a threat to the safety of the country as a whole. This reason alone makes this book a worthwhile investment of time.
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