I left France to go to America, to join my husband, an American soldier named Larson Hall. We fell in love when his regiment was stationed in Cherbourg; we were married in the Church of La Trinité on December 21, 1945. Larson’s home was in Kingsport, Tennessee, a small town surrounded by green hills, far from the ocean I was used to. There was no opera there, nor anyplace for a classically trained singer. So I didn’t remain one. I never found out whether my voice would have fully healed. After Rigoletto I never performed again.
I sang to my children when they were small. We had a son first, and many years later a daughter. Now we have four grandchildren.
For many years I tried to forget the things that happened to me in the war, but now I find I want to remember. I want the children to know that their grandmother was once saluted by de Gaulle. I want them to know who de Gaulle was and why he mattered. I want them to understand why all of us who were part of the French Resistance risked our lives.
We did it to fight Hitler, of course, and all the evil that he spread. We did it to save innocents; we did it because there were people we could not save. We did it for France, for the way our lives had been before the war. But mostly we did it for ourselves, so that we would never have to look back and admit that we had not acted against the horrors that swirled around us.
We did it for freedom. Our own.
About the Author
KIMBERLY BRUBAKER BRADLEY was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana. After earning her bachelor’s degree from Smith College, she worked as a research chemist, then became a freelance writer. Her first novel, Ruthie’s Gift, won her a Publishers Weekly “Flying Start” honor. Her most recent novel was Halfway to the Sky. Kimberly Brubaker Bradley and her husband, Bart, have two young children, Matthew and Katie. They live on a farm in eastern Tennessee, in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.
ALSO BY KIMBERLY BRUBAKER BRADLEY
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One-of-a-Kind Mallie
Weaver’s Daughter
Halfway to the Sky
Published by
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Copyright © 2003 by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bradley, Kimberly Brubaker.
For freedom: the story of a French spy / Kimberly Brubaker Bradley.
p. cm.
Summary: Despite the horrors of World War II, a French teenager pursues her dream of
becoming an opera singer, which takes her to places where she gains information about
what the Nazis are doing—information that the French Resistance needs.
1. World War, 1939–1945—France—Juvenile fiction. 2. France—History—German
occupation, 1940–1945—Juvenile fiction. [1. World War, 1939–1945—France—Fiction.
2. World War, 1939–1945—Underground movements—France—Fiction. 3. Singing—
Fiction. 4. Spies—Fiction. 5. France—History—German occupation, 1940–1945—
Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.B7247 Fo 2003
[Fic]—dc21 2002013057
www.randomhouse.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-43338-1
v3.0
Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, For Freedom: The Story of a French Spy
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