Description
Though wars and their excesses flare up and die down, evil is always with us, promising a god-like dominion over others that seduces those who are weakest. This book is a reminder of that.
Though unexceptional in every way, Klaus Barbie, a mid-level Gestapo chief, ruled Lyon, France, like a medieval tyrant from 1942-44. Crowds parted to let him pass; a table was permanently reserved for him at Le Lapin Blanc, Lyon’ s raciest nightclub; and pretty young women slipped him notes inscribed with their phone numbers. But his glory days represented only a thin slice of his life. What prepared him for his role as the so-called Butcher of Lyon, and what became of him after the war ended? In an attempt to answer these and other questions, this collection of nine wide-ranging and skillfully written stories presents Barbie in a variety of guises, from that of a vulnerable young boy, to a preening young man on the make, to an enfeebled old man forced to confront his crimes forty years after the fact.
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