Through the examination of diaries written by four women students
in occupied Paris, this article aims to show how each of them
struggled through adversity with great courage and resilience to
pursue their scholarly ambitions. In placing their stories within the
broader social and political context of the Occupation, supposedly
inimical to the women’s pursuit of self-fulfilment, the article
echoes more recent histories of women’s lives during the period
which show that women were not necessarily cowed by reactionary
legislation and ideology. These young women, raised and educated
in the inter-war period when first-wave feminism was at its height,
were resourceful and creative and they were determined to carry on
with their studies in the face of considerable practical and material
difficulties