Bijou's War

Bijou’s War is a true WWII story of one French teenager’s reckless resistance to her despised occupiers. Born in Cherbourg in 1926, Claire-Marie LeVeel, or Bijou to her family was sent to the relative safety of the Normandy countryside with her mother, sister, grandmothers, and great aunt. Her beloved Papa stayed behind in his job as the harbormaster/chief engineer of Cherbourg harbor, using his favored status to help downed Allied pilots return to England. The story’s conversational tone belies the life-threatening forces bearing down on the LeVeel family. Bijou persists in cutting telegraph wires, breaking into barracks, and defying orders even as tensions mount in the events leading up to D-Day. When the hoped-for Allied landing finally happens, Bijou’s Papa is cut off from all communication, trapped at the port whose recapture is a prime objective of the Allies. Not knowing what the Germans will do when all is lost, the family comes to fear what they long for most – their liberation.