The Forgotten Names

This historical fiction book is based on true stories of the Jewish children who were given up to save their lives during World War II. An excellent book and highly recommended. Brilliant audio as well. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC/Audiobook.

Thoroughly engrossing historical novel of the worst and the best in Lyon during the occupation by the Nazis. The story of the children and the sacrifices of the parents are both heartbreaking and heartwarming. An excellent recounting of something to which most people are unaware. Narrator is easy to listen to.

I loved listening to this book, because of all of the words in French.

I cannot believe that this is based on a true story. I couldn’t imagine being a parent, and sending my children away, knowing I was going to die, and hoping that I was keeping my children safe. The author did a great job of capturing the voices and emotions of both the children and the parents. This is a WWII story that is new and fresh, and should be read by everyone!

It’s hard to say I enjoyed this audiobook, but I am glad I listened through to the end. The narration was excellent, and the story was heartbreaking, difficult, but ultimately redemptive. Highly recommended.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

During August of 1942, French parents had to make life altering decisions….watch their children possibly die, or abandon them forever. Although a woman fifty years later decides she is going to make it her life missions to match the names of those abandoned to who they belong to.

Valerie Portheret researched the 108 children who disappeared in her doctoral that escaped deportation and death in the German concentration camps. She was so intrigued with all of the people involved in saving the most innocent victims at this time.

The men and woman who helped with these children are named Righteous Among The Nations. They helped them remember their forgotten names.

This book has pulled on all of the heartstrings, and just played such a big part of history! What a marvelous book! Very well done. Looking forward to finishing this and hearing the beautiful ending. A great audiobook for those who enjoy history. 💛 Thank you @harpercollinsfocus @netgalley @marioescabar

In 1942, during WWII, mothers were forced to make the most impossible decision, to give up their children in a hope for their survival. 108 children were smuggled from France by the sheer determination and will power of a select few who wanted to save as many lives as they could from the Nazi regime.
In 1992, Valérie Portheret, a law student working on her thesis, stumbled across the 108+ names written in a documentation at Chateau de Peyrins. This event leads Portheret on a 25 year adventure to find all 108 children to right the wrongs that many would like to forget from the Holocaust.
Overall rating 5/5
The dual timeline is an exquisite way to give voices to the victims of such atrocities. This book is a reminder of how a few who fight for what is right can lead to a lasting impact that can span for decades. Thank you to writers like Escobar who remind us of these historical events and the suh brave individuals.

*Thank you Mario Escobar, Netgalley and HarperCollins Focus | Harper Muse for the ARC copy. I am freely leaving my honest review.

Thank you Harper Collins for the #gifted copy to read and review.

For me, if I can’t escape to a fantasy world, I want to read about the hero’s from WW2. This time period always resonates with me, especially if you take me to France.

The Forgotten Names is an incredible, based-on-true-events story of how 108 children were rescued from a concentration camp in 1942.

This story is both heart-warming and devastating. There are so many characters and perspectives. From the clergy to the nazi, the children to the rescuers. Everyone has a story and I was immediately drawn into this book.

The narrator, Saskia Maarleveld, did an incredible job.

Ultimate Sacrifice

Mario Escobar is an excellent author of WWII historical fiction. This is one of those stories he writes. They are all so sad, but they reflect the history as it happened with true events and times as can be in fiction writings. True historical fiction always has some real people and events intertwined with fictional characters and happenings.

This story is of an event which is not so well known but was horrific in its entirety. As the Nazi’s rounded up the foreign Jewish population in France, a town called Lyon resisted. A group of resistance and some catholic priests risked their lives to save 108 Jewish children from certain death.

At the time the Nazi’s were allowing any unattended child to be exempt from the transport to the German Concentration camps. The resistance workers worked well into the night to find all the parents and children in the Venissieux transfer camp. The then had to talk the parents into signing over their parental rights so they could save their children. This was the ultimate sacrifice for these parents. Lose their children forever to save their lives.

Fifty years later a university student Valerie Portheret decides to do her thesis on the life and death of Klaus Barbie “The Butcher of Lyon”. As she is researching and talking to survivors of the war during the holocaust she hears the story of these children which were saved and decides to find every one of these lost children.

It is a sad story, but one which needs to be told. We hear of the horrible deeds of the Nazi’s but not as much of the courageous people who risked their lives to save some of the Jewish population. Many turned their eyes away and some helped the Nazi’s, but there were those few brave souls that knew what was right, moral and saved those they could.

This is the story of the 108 children that were saved in one night from certain death , the people that saved them and the student that was brave enough to tell their story.

I read the book and I listened to the audio book while reading the book. The narrator did a great job, the tempo was right and the voice was easy and pleasant to listen to.

Thanks to Mario Escobar for writing another great story, to Harper Muse for publishing it and to NetGalley for providing me with a copy to read and review.

As thousands of French Jews began to be deported to Germany in August of 1942, social workers attempted to document exemptions for as many as they could. The Germans decided not to accept exemptions for any adults, so the social workers offered the parents a heartbreaking way to keep their children alive and in France. They must be declared unaccompanied. This required parents to sign away their parental rights with the knowledge that they would probably not ever see them again. A harder decision could not be asked of them, yet they realized it was the only way to keep their children alive. These Jewish children were collectively smuggled away to other families through a joint heroic effort by civilians, clergy, French Resistance and social service organizations.

In 1992, a law student, Valérie Portheret, began her doctoral research into the 108 children who disappeared from Vénissieux and escaped deportation. Her research brought her to stowed and forgotten lists of names she began to identify as these same children. She ended up  making this her life’s work to pair these names with the survivors they belonged to. This was no easy task. Her heroic efforts are celebrated in this beautiful story based upon true events.

The audiobook narrated by Saskia Maarleveld is as exceptional as the story itself. Her accent, inflections and portrayal of characters proves to capture the passion that Mario Escobar pens in his stories and bring it to life.

My only misgiving regarding this book is that it contains around five cuss words that, in my opinion, were unnecessary and depicts a closed door scene of an unmarried couple. I received this audiobook from the author/publisher free of charge, with no expectation of a positive review.

Wow. Just wow. This was a fantastic listen and I think all fans of historical nonfiction and fiction should listen to this. I of course always recommend to actually read books, but because this takes place in France and also includes some German names it would probably be best to listen to this to hear the proper pronunciations.

This kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time as I couldn’t stop listening, I needed to listen to more. The nature of the time period alone is intense, but the way the author wrote this added to the intensity and suspense in the best way possible. I also appreciated and enjoyed that this is based on real people and their stories and experiences.

I cannot express how much I recommend this to other readers

The Forgotten Names is another incredible masterpiece by Mario Escobar about atrocities committed during the Holocaust and WWII. This book is set in 1942 depicting the French resistance and the Butcher of Lyon, Klaus Barbie. Klaus was determined to rid the entire area of any Jew, regardless of age, sex, or disability. Barbie was a ruthless German officer of the Gestapo that was in charge of Vichy, France from 1942-1944, and reading through the thorough historical descriptions depicted by Escobar in this novel, it makes you cringe with disgust to hear that people of such negative character existed to end an entire population of people. The story bounces between two time frames, 1942 and 1992, where a third year law student Valerie Potheret sets out to write her research thesis on Klaus Barbie, but in doing so, identifies there were 108 lost Jewish children of Lyon, and she changes gears to find out what happened to them. Valerie worked for 25 years to find each and every lost and forgotten child on the list of 108 children. She traveled throughout Europe and the Americas and was able to not only find all 108, but also was able to give them back their birth names, for those who could not even remember where they came from before. Such an amazing story of resilience and determination and based on true historical facts! I love these kinds of novels! I learn so much about history and find so much inspiration from reading about the heroes and heroines of the time of WWII. Thank you to Harper Muse for allowing me to listen to the audiobook of The Forgotten Names by Mario Escobar through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

"The Forgotten Names" by Mario Escobar is a historical fiction novel. The book tells the true story of Jewish children in Lyon who were abandoned during World War II. The book breaks your heart, it talks about parents who prepare themselves to go to death and abandon their children in the hope that they will stay alive.
An excellent book and audiobook that I will surely recommend. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC/Audiobook!

An Unforgettable Journey through History - A Must-Read!

Mario Escobar’s Forgotten Names is a masterpiece that truly stands out in historical fiction. From the very first page, I was transported into the world he meticulously crafted. The narrator’s skillful storytelling made me feel like I was right there with the characters, experiencing their joys, sorrows, and triumphs.

The depth of research and attention to historical detail is evident throughout the book. Escobar has a unique talent for bringing history to life, making complex events and emotions accessible and engaging. The characters are richly developed and their stories are woven together in a way that keeps you hooked until the very end.

What sets this book apart is the narrator’s ability to immerse the reader in the story. Every scene is vividly described, every emotion is palpable, and every moment feels real. It’s as if you’re not just reading about the past, but living it alongside the characters.

Forgotten Names is not just a book; it’s an experience. It’s a poignant reminder of the resilience of the human spirit and the importance of remembering our history. I can’t recommend it highly enough. This is a book that will stay with you long after you’ve turned the last page. Ten stars!

Mario Escobar writing is so beautiful. It’s a story about true life events and the ultimate sacrifices that Jewish families made to save their children and the people who saved them. The story is told in dual timelines 25 years apart, when graduate student Valerie makes it her mission to tell the story of the 108 children. The story is heartbreaking and heartwarming. The narration by Saskia Maarleveld is done so well.

Thank you #NetGalley, #HarperMusePublishing, #MarioEscobar, #SaskiaMaarleveld and #TheForgottenNames for the advance audio version for my honest review.

Narrated by Saskia Maarleveld


<B> “Human beings aren’t naturally good, but neither are we irrationally evil. It’s just that our hearts house evil and selfishness. I’ve heard some say that the Nazis are cruel because they aren’t human. But turning them into wild animals or beasts doesn’t help undo the horror they cause. That’s what the Nazis have done against the Jews: attributed to one nation the ills of the entire world. The truth is that all of us are prisoners of egocentrism and all of us are capable of horrible wickedness.”</B>


The Forgotten Names is the story of a heroic act without precedent in Nazi-occupied Europe. A network of institutions and people of different ideologies and beliefs came together to carry out one of the largest rescue operations organized during World War II.

In Mario Escobar's own words —Writing a historical novel implies describing a part of the world that no longer exists, a part that has disappeared little by little and given way to something else. Someday the impetuous winds of time will buffet us until we, too, are history. The images engraved on our pupils, the sum of emotions and experiences that we all represent, will disappear forever. That futility of life makes us simultaneously giants and pygmies, believing the only way to prolong our existence is to perch atop the shoulders of the next generation and whisper a few phrases into their ears.

Today, some four thousand French men and women are recognized by the international community as Righteous Among the Nations. Thanks to these Righteous, three-fourths of the Jews in occupied France did not die. The majority of these were children.

At the peak of world war II , Germany had ordered France to hand over all the Jews which counted to about 60000 people including kids in that group too. When it didn't feel right, a group of people came together to rescue these kids, because rescuing others was not an option but they had found an exemption that could help them save these kids.

<B> The danger was constant, death was around every corner, and it was enough to know that the primary interest of the other was survival. Yet no one could pull it off without other people’s help. The individualism from before the war—that sense that a person’s life mattered to only the one who lived it—was a daydream from the past. The only way to survive in the world they now lived in was, simply, to trust others.</B>

At the age of twenty-three, Valérie began her riveting research into the rescue of the children of Vénissieux. After discovering a box with the children’s files, her research became a twenty-five-year journey to find those lost children and give them back their true identities.

The story of the forgotten names alternates between the main story of how a group of people saved 108 children from the clutches of death and Valerie's journey of finding out how did it happen and who these children were.

<B> The hundreds of exemption requests on the table were much more than paper forms for him. They were people’s lives, families who would disappear forever if they crossed the Rhine and reached Germany.</B>

What Hitler did to jews is unfathomable... No matter how many books I have read about holocaust, every time I read a new one I experience the horrors again. <I> Jews were like rats. They could outlast almost anything. So they had to be treated like the infectious animals that they were. There could be no mercy or compassion. Though the Nazis’ victims at times could look like innocent women, children, and older people, in actuality they were a dangerous plague that corrupted entire nations.</I>

<b> Genocidal tyrants like Adolf Hitler had always existed, but they only triumphed when an entire people became willing accomplices to their crimes. The world I grew up in was kinder than this one. We fought in the Great War and faced crises and plagues, but human beings still had souls. I’ve seen so much, madame. I wish I could drive it all out of my mind and heart. These people don’t know the hell they’re about to be taken to. The Nazis are devils with no souls.”</B>

The forgotten names had my attention from the first page and it didn't let it waver till the end. The narration is too good, enjoyed every bit of it.

Thank you Harper Muse| HarperCollins and Netgalley for this wonderful Audiobook which I highly recommend to everyone.

This book is sure gonna stay with me for a very long time.

Audiobook rating : 5 stars
Book rating : 4.5 stars

It's an intense, yet uplifting tale of hope, courage, and the resilience of the human spirit. Valérie's journey is a reminder of the power one person has to honor the past, even in the face of denial and opposition. This book is a powerful tribute to those who refused to let history bury these children's names.