CROWN, SEPTEMBER 2013Zoologists and playwrights hardly seem like dangerous men. But in the spring of 1944, the Nazi Gestapo in Paris would have loved to get their hands on one zoologist and one writer in particular.
You see, both men were members of the French Resistance, living double lives—plying their crafts under their real identities for part of the day, and plotting sabotage or inciting resistance under aliases in their off-hours.
The Gestapo captured a lot of their comrades, and almost caught the two of them. It’s a good thing they didn’t, because the worlds of science and literature would be poorer without the pair. The zoologist was Jacques Monod, who would go on to become one of the founders of molecular biology. The writer was Albert Camus, who wielded one of the most influential pens of his time. After the war, the two men became good friends, and each won a Nobel Prize in his field.
Of course, had the ...
