The Room on Rue Amélie

The French Resistance refers to a network of various secret cells dedicated to undermining the Nazi occupation in France. In The Room on Rue Amélie, Thomas refers to a “network” of people managing his escape line. In reality, there were several such networks, in addition to other groups acting in small ways, such as distributing flyers denouncing the ruling government. There were also individuals taking steps to thwart German rule independently, which Harmel illustrates several times in the novel: Herr Hartmann, Nadia, and the old woman who helps the young fleeing soldier are a few examples.

As Kristin Harmel states in her Author’s Note, the protagonist Ruby Benoit was loosely based on a real-life figure: Virginia d’Albert-Lake, an American woman who became French by marriage and aided an escape line known as “The Comet Line” before being arrested and imprisoned like Ruby. Unlike Ruby, however, she survived to tell her story. Many of the details in the novel come from Virginia d’Albert-Lake’s diary, which was published by Fordham University Press in 2006 as An American Heroine in the French Resistance: The Diary and Memoir of Virginia d'Albert-Lake.

These escape lines helped thousands of soldiers and pilots return to the battlefield, which made an enormous impact on the direction of the war and the eventual erosion of Nazi occupation. Unlike the majority of soldiers lost in the war, most of these resistance figures were never named; they were invisible heroes selflessly risking their lives for the greater good.