It might sound like fiction, but it’s a true story.
It is the story of Idiss, Robert Badinter’s grandmother, born in 1863 in Bessarabia, in modern-day Russia. Fleeing poverty and persecution, she ended up in Paris with her family at the start of the 20th century. Through the tale of his beloved Jewish grandmother, the lawyer and politician who abolished the death penalty in France plunges readers into the Yiddishland of his grandparents. Without drifting into pathos, he takes us into the heart of this world, giving us a glimpse into the minds of emigrants who have become upstanding citizens so proud to be French.