My father, Harry Bingham (Hiram Bingham IV), was one of the people who spirited Feuchtwanger away from a concentration camp disguised as a woman and hid him at his Villa in Marseille until he could be smuggled out of the country with the help of Varian Fry (an American Journalist) and others.

My Dad’s story is written up (with some relatively minor inaccuraciea) in this month’s “Smithsonian Magazine”

I have been working on a film script based in part on Feuchtwanger’s model of historical novels and fiction to tell these stories.

One of my favorite pieces by Feuchtwanger is the excellent “Simone” about the Nazi advance through France and a Jean D’Arc dream inspirred adolescent girl who resorts to sabotage to fight the Nazis (the daughter of a hero/martyr Frenchman who fought againts the terrors of colonialistic oppression in the Belgian Congo.

Thanks for the tip about mural.

I too have copies of many of Feuchtwanger’s books (he was also a screenwriter) inscribed to my father with gratitude — but the account of much of his harrowing imprisonment and escape in Vicht France is in his book “The Devil in France” and in Germany that is published with the diaries he kept while hiding with my father (all great material for a feature film re-creation.

Glad someone even remembers Feuchtwanger. He was one of Hitler’s most hated foes and a public enemy number 1 of the Fascists. His stories resonate incredibly well today.

http://davidderrick.wordpress.com/2008/06/05/historical-novels-norway/