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Book Review - The Old Fellow's War
By: Edmond Nyst (580.3/35721)
Publisher: New Holland ISBN: 978-1-74110-582-7
In 1943, at the age of sixteen, Edmond Nyst joint the Marquis, the fighting force of the French Resistance. He fought in several battle against the Germans, witnessed many atrocities and was in Oradour-sur-Glane only days after the Germans had executed every man, woman and child in the town and set fire to the place.
Edmond's father was Dutch and worked for the Dutch consulate in Marseilles, France, where Edmond was born. He helped his father hide Jewish refugees in the mountains around Marseilles. Denounced for anti-Nazi activities, his father sent him and his brothers to the centre of France for security, where Edmond joined the Marquis.
In The Old Fellow's War, Edmond Nyst vividly recounts these stories as well as his later war efforts in New Guinea, Borneo and Timor and his officer training in Australia, where he finally settled to become a barrister of the Supreme Court of Queensland and the High Court of Australia.
He was persuaded to write this book by his son. His initial reaction was to say, 'No-one wants to hear about the old fellow's war.' But this story is about much more than the Second World War. It is a true story of courage and survival.
October 2007
