Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation

The American community in Paris has an illustrious history, marked by a great love for the city and residual gratitude for the French soldiers who fought for American independence with Lafayette after 1776. By the 1920s, many deep-rooted American institutions flourished there, among them the American Hospital of Paris, the American Church, the American Library of Paris, and Shakespeare and Company bookstore—a beacon for American and European writers, artists, and other intellectuals. Sylvia Beach, the bookstore's Baltimore-born owner, very likely saved the career of James Joyce by publishing Ulysses (mainstream U.S. and British publishers had rejected it on grounds of obscenity). … Back to Article