The Wiener Holocaust Library is delighted to launch Paper Bullets: Two Artists who Risked Their Lives to Defy the Nazis by Professor Jeffrey Jackson.

Rhodes College History Professor Jeffrey H. Jackson will discuss and read selections from his new book Paper Bullets, the first to tell the true story of an audacious anti-Nazi campaign undertaken by an unlikely pair. Two French women, Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe, used their skills as Parisian avant-garde artists to devise their own PSYOPS campaign to demoralize German troops occupying their adopted home on the British Channel Island of Jersey. They wrote and distributed “paper bullets”—wicked insults against Hitler, calls to rebel, and subversive fictional dialogues—slipping them into soldier’s pockets and tucking them inside magazines. Hunted by the secret field police, Lucy and Suzanne were imprisoned in 1944, tried in a court martial, and sentenced to death for their actions. Even in jail, they continued to reach out to other prisoners and spread a message of hope. Better remembered today by their artist names, Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, the couple’s actions were even more courageous because of who they were: lesbian partners known for cross-dressing and creating the kind of gender-bending work that the Nazis called “degenerate art.” In addition, Lucy’s father’s family was Jewish, and the women had communist affiliations in Paris. Paper Bullets is a compelling Second World War story that has not been told before about the galvanizing power of art and of resistance.

Order a signed copy of Paper Bullets here. Also available at Waterstones.

Praise for Paper Bullets:

“Riveting. Breaks new ground in our understanding of collaboration and resistance in Nazi-occupied Europe and the impact of women in wartime. A must-read for anyone interested in World War II, resistance, women's history, or the defense of democratic ideals during times of tyranny and oppression.”

—Michael D. Bess, Vanderbilt University Professor and author of Choices Under Fire

“A gripping story. The lesbian couple Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe deployed their intellectual capacities and peacetime experience in dissembling their identities to challenge the German occupiers with artistic 'paper bullets.' The contest between the baffled Nazis and the crafty traitors animates this historical thriller.”

—Bonnie G. Smith, author of Women In World History

About the speakers:

Jeffrey H. Jackson is Professor of History at Rhodes College. He is the author of Paris Under Water: How the City of Light Survived the Great Flood of 1910 and Making Jazz French: Music and Modern Life in Interwar Paris, both of which have been received with high acclaim. In addition, he has co-edited The Thinking Space: The Cafe as a Cultural Institution in Paris, Vienna, and Italy, as well as Music and History: Bridging the Disciplines, and The Underground Reader: Sources in the Transatlantic Counterculture.

About the event:

1. The Library will send you a Zoom link and joining instructions via email prior to the event.

2. Please try and join 5 minutes before the event start time (17.55) and we will let you into the room (do try and bear with us if this takes a few minutes).

3. If you would like to ask a question during the event, please type your question into the chat function, and we will endeavour to answer as many questions as possible during the Q&A. Your webcam will not be seen during this event.

4. If you have any trouble joining, please email lsebirehawkins@wienerlibrary.co.uk and they will try and help you.

5. The event will be recorded for the Library’s YouTube channel and will be shared at a later date.