30 Jun 2025 Author of the Month: Vicki Olsen

By Susan L. Peterson

Vicki Olsen of North Little Rock has her own French connection.

In her newly released book, “The Duty of Memory,” Olsen carefully details the experiences of ordinary individuals who did extraordinary things to aid Allied airmen during World War II. It is an inspiring story of heroic men and women of the French Underground who risked death to aid others during the Nazi occupation.

Her father, Louis I. Watts, was one of those airmen. After his plane was shot down in northern France near Léglantiers, he was able to evade the Nazis through the help of the French Resistance.

Initially, she intended to write a book about her father. To get background information, she traveled to France in 2017 and met with those who were instrumental in saving his life and the lives of other airmen. She worked tirelessly and wrote a 600-page book. But the more she thought about it, the more she realized that the actions of the individuals she interviewed in France might make a better story.

Many stories have been written about downed military airmen, but little has been written about the unsung citizens who saved them. She questioned how someone could risk their own life to help a stranger and wondered what motivated people with different backgrounds and political viewpoints to work together so well and so surreptitiously. 

Their heroism amazed her.

She knew that would be the main story — the lives of this diverse group of unsung French heroes. Olsen spent six years researching her book, including five visits to France to interview eyewitnesses, scour archives to uncover documents, and visit important locales. She read dozens of historical accounts, tracing leads to individuals she included in her book. Unfortunately, more than half a century later, many of the participants were deceased or unable to be found, which made getting the story on paper even more imperative.

Her account includes stories about 20 individuals, including village mayors, a café owner, a tailor, a doctor, a secretary from the British Embassy, local teenagers, and even an enigmatic countess. Although her work is fictional, it is based on factual accounts. “This carefully written and researched book is clearly a labor of love,” wrote one book reviewer, who added how Olsen’s work shows gratitude for the members of the French Resistance who rescued her father.

She plans to make one more trip to France later this year. “The Duty of Memory” was nominated as a contender for the American Library in Paris Book Award, which honors a new publication containing intellectually significant ideas about France, the French people, or encounters with French culture. The book must be published originally in English. Although she said she does not expect to win, the nomination entitles her to attend a special award ceremony in Paris in November, which is quite an honor.

Another reason to return to France is to personally hand copies of her book to her French “connections,” but first, she needed to have the book translated. Finding a local translator was difficult, and the initial quotes astounded her — around ^$10,000. But she persevered and scoured fiverr.com, a site for freelance workers, where she found Sarah Laurent, a native of France, for a more affordable price.

Olsen can’t wait to hand copies of “Le Devoir de Memoire” to those who provided so much time and assistance, especially researcher Franck Signorile, and the families of deceased heroes Bruno Radziminski, the tailor, and Patrick Hovelacque, the French MI9 agent who created the Kummel escape line.

“Le Devoir de Memoire” is the literal translation for “The Duty of Memory.” But like other French phrases, it means so much more. It implies a moral obligation never to forget a tragic event and its victims so that it will never occur again.

Olsen is working on a sequel to her first book, “A Sparrow Falls,” published in 2018. Set in the South in the 1960s, it is about the power of forgiveness. Her books may be found on Amazon.