Half-timbered houses, storks, wine, sauerkraut, headdresses, accents: these images and clichés of Alsace occupy the imagination of almost all French people. Few other regions can boast such a friendly and popular heritage. But behind this apparent prosperity and the love of a job well done, a more painful story reveals itself. Ravaged by three wars in less than a century, Alsace saw its inhabitants forced to change their nationality four times in the course of a human lifetime. A tormented destiny, unusual, and little known to the rest of the country.