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by Sébastien Goethals (Illustrator)
In the dead of night, eighty-three-year-old Marcel Grob is sequestered by an investigating judge who questions him about his past. Particularly beginning on June 28, 1944, the day when "Marzell," like ten thousand of his German-speaking peers from the French borderland province of Alsace, became a member of the Nazis' infamous Waffen SS.
But did the teenager volunteer, or was he conscripted by the Nazis? Was he a "Malgré-nous," one of those forced to comply, or was he a war criminal? To establish the truth of his troubled past, Marcel Grob will have to revisit painful memories as an adolescent forced to fight in Italy with the sinister Reichsführer division.
Determined to prove his innocence, Marcel begins the story of a long journey into night.
Author Biography
Philippe Collin holds a master's degree in contemporary history devoted to the purging of collaborators during the Liberation. Since 1999, he has been a producer and author of programs for television and radio, including the now-cult Panique au Mangin Palace on France Inter, and Personne ne bouge broadcast by ARTE. Today, his weekly program on France Inter, L'oeil du tigre, combines sport and history. Cartoonist and author of comics, Sébastien Goethals is known for his work in adapting detective stories and genre stories, including Le Temps des sauvages, based on Thomas Gunzig's novel, Manuel de survie à l'usage des incapables. He published, in collaboration with Philippe Collin, Le Voyage de Marcel Grob, which was awarded the Prix Historia 2019 and the Prix Découverte 2020 at the Angoulême International Festival.
