From School Library Journal
YAGaston's War illustrates well the fact that the European Resistance could not have existed without the support of common people, men and women, young and old. Through a diary, readers follow Gaston Vandermeersche from the age of 19 to 23, during which time he became a successful Resistance organizer, forming a network of 1500 agents covering several European countries. By the time he was 23, he had suffered two years of interrogation, torture, beatings, and solitary confinement at the hands of the Germans. Mayer illuminates a facet of World War II that is not usually covered extensively. He also drives home the point that even a young person can participate in and make a contribution to the great events of an era. Gwen Salama, Hastings High School, Alief, Tex.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Belgian-born Resistance leader Gaston Vandermeerssche began his unlikely career just short of his 20th birthday after the invasion of Belgium when a friend recruited him to carry information across the border into Spain. Soon he was organizing spy rings in France. When the Dutch resistance movement was compromised, he was chosen to build a new organization. Back in France his luck ran out, and he spent a grim two years in captivity. Mayer has assembled, from recollections and brief diary entries by Vandermeerssche, a first-person reminiscence in diary form with suspense, humor, a voice first of innocence and then experience, and authentic historical insights. Recommended. Mel D. Lane, Sacramento, Cal.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
