Pause-Midi: Pyrénées History Detective

Little did Meg Ostrum imagine in 1983 that a chance encounter with the local priest in Mendive, a remote Basque mountain village in the French Pyrénées, would set her on an extended research odyssey to recover a nearly forgotten World War II Resistance story.  Or that her investigation would reveal the little-known, heroic wartime feats of Dr. Charles Schepens (1912–2006), a world-famous Belgian-born ophthalmologist who is recognized today as the father of modern retinal surgery.  

Ostrum’s book, The Surgeon and the Shepherd: Two Resistance Heroes in Vichy France (University of Nebraska Press, 2004) chronicles Schepens’s leadership of an audacious underground railroad scheme. Posing as French  lumberman Jacques Pérot, he used a large timber enterprise in Mendive to camouflage a top-secret information and evacuation service. Ostrum will discuss her decade-long adventure, conducting oral history interviews with Schepens (who emigrated to the United States after the war) and nearly three dozen people in the Basque Country, France, and Belgium.   

Meg Ostrum has over 40 years’ experience as a museum professional and arts administrator. Based in Vermont, she has directed numerous exhibit and educational programs and projects dealing with the state’s history, heritage, and contemporary culture. She has also worked as a planning consultant on arts and culture initiatives with artists, nonprofit organizations, and public agencies throughout the United States and in Europe. She has edited several oral history anthologies, photographic studies, and teaching guides. In 2004 she became a first-time author with the publication of The Surgeon and the Shepherd. 

Join our Pause-Midi to hear Ostrum tell her astonishing story!

This event will take place on Zoom.