From Moscow to Paris by way of Berlin, the tumultuous life of Sonia Steinsapir (1912-1980) gives readers a unique perspective on 20th-century European history.

Born in Russia during the Tsarist era, Sonia Steinsapir lived in Crimea, Berlin, and Moscow before emigrating to Paris in 1936. There, as a student at the École des Beaux-Arts, she prepared for a career as an artist. During World War II, she was deported to the French camps of Mérignac and Poitiers, but managed to escape and spent the remainder of the war in hiding in Paris, where she eventually resumed a normal life. Drawing on an improbable journey through numerous archives, the author reconstructs Sonia Steinsapir’s extraordinary life.