In December 1988, while researching documents dating back to the Occupation, Patrick Modiano chanced upon an old notice in the New Year's Eve edition of Paris Soir, 1941, placed there by the parents of a young Jewish girl who had escaped from the convent that was hiding her during this period. Fascinated by what happened to the young girl who chose to run away on a bitterly cold winter's night at the height of German reprisals, Patrick Modiano set off on a quest to find out all he could about her. But besides a mention of her name in the list of Jews deported to Auschwitz, the details of her existence remain an impenetrable unknown. What little he discovers in official documents and through remaining family members, becomes a meditation on the immense losses of the period—lost people, lost stories, and lost history. Through this young girl, Modiano delivers an account of the ten-year investigation that took him back to the sights and sounds of Paris under the Occupation and the paranoia of the Petain regime as he tries to find connections to her.
