Goodbye for Always: The Triumph of the Innocents - Hardcover

Cecile Kaufer; Joe Allen

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192 ratings by Goodreads

9781890975180: Goodbye for Always: The Triumph of the Innocents

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1890975184 ISBN 13: 9781890975180

Publisher: Hudson Cove Pub, 1997

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A slice of history during the Nazi occupation of France. The biography of two young girls and brave adults who risked their lives to save the children from the Nazi death camps that claimed the rest of their immediate family.

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From the Publisher:

This book is an exaltation of courage and human endurance, a page-turner that traces the steps of two children fleeing across northern France, during the early 1940s, in what truly can be described as the worst of times. As uplifting as the girl's tale of personal survival is the story of those who helped them, the story of a bond between people of different religious and ethnic backgrounds who shared the common ground of their humanity.

From the Author:

I began to write "Good-bye for Always, The Triumph of the Innocents" in 1993. After meeting Cecile Kaufer in the winter of 1990-91, I spent more than three years discussing the historical implications of her story and the reasons why it was an important one to tell. It had been almost 50 years since the events in and around Paris and she was still unable to share the story even with her children.

After endless hours of discussion, Cecile began to feel more comfortable with discussing her experiences with me. In time, she sat her children and grandchildren down and told them what had happened to her. With some basic training and coaching, she began to be comfortable with talking about it to groups. One group, in particular, was the temple her daughter's family belonged to. For the first time, this audience contained a member of her family -- her granddaughter -- named after the beloved mother she had lost.

While these sessions made Cecile more comfortable with speaking in front of groups, she now felt that she wanted it to be chronicled in book form. She had written notes, journals, diaries and poems but had no vehicle to give her family the immortality she felt they were owed. At that point, she and I started speaking in earnest about doing the book. I advised her of the difficult emotional task ahead of her as we sought to bring her family to life. Through the pages of the book, everyone would see her beloved mother, father, sister, grandparents and others in ways she had kept hidden for years. I knew it would stir a great deal of pain inside her and, to her credit, her mission of wanting this story told was strong enough to overcome the pain.

I decided to do the project for several reasons. One, it is an extremely compelling story. It is exciting, touching, dramatic, suspenseful -- and true. Second, as a Jew myself, I believe strongly in passing our knowledge and insight to the next generation. It is my responsibility as an adult to help convey to those who follow what has happened in my time. Third, I felt a strong responsibility to this woman, who had endured so much and who had entrusted me with her inner-most feelings. More than anything else in the world, she wanted to do this so that the story of her family would live forever. She gave me the information I needed to tell the story and my commitment to her was so strong that I agreed to be the storyteller.

When the book was published in the summer of 1997, it represented the single most important moment of my professional life. -- Joe Allen

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