Mireille Marokvia; French writer of stirring memoirs: 99

Mireille Marokvia, who described her childhood in a French village and her wartime ordeals in Nazi Germany in two stirring memoirs published when she was in her 80s and 90s, died Oct. 19 in Las Cruces, N.M., where she had lived for the past 30 years. She was 99. Her death was confirmed by John Minor, a friend and neighbor. In “Immortelles: Memoir of a Will o' the Wisp” (1996) and “Sins of the Innocent” (2006), Mrs. Marokvia evoked the vanished world of rural France during and after World War I and the bizarre, chaotic turn of events that kept her trapped in Germany throughout World War II. Writing in precise, stylish English, she described the fears and shadows of her childhood in a sunny French village, as well as the often-comic moments that flashed through the totalitarian nightmare she experienced in Germany. Hired to... [read full story]