In this episode, Lisa speaks with James McAuley, former Paris correspondent and current Global Opinions contributing columnist at The Washington Post, and author of The House of Fragile Things: Jewish Art Collectors and the Fall of France. The House of Fragile Things is the collective biography of four prominent Jewish families in France between 1870 until the Second World War: the Camondos, the Rothschilds, the Ephrussis, and the Cahens d'Anvers. The families all gave bequests to the state of France in the form of a private house museum and/ or large collections of French art (mainly of French 18th Century Art) that they collected over many years. 

The fascinating and evocative book is an important work to commemorate these families and a part of Jewish history that shouldn't be forgotten. 

In his book, James brings to life the stories of some of Paris’s most prominent Jewish families before WWII so that we remember their lives and contributions to their country – despite their country’s failures to live up to the assertions of the famous French motto - Liberté, égalité, fraternité.