A quick google search I was hooked on what I read about her. I borrowed her book from the library and was mesmerized.
Unfortunately the day of her talk it was snowing and the drive was at least an hour away. I made the decision to not hear her speak, knowing it was likely the last opportunity I would have. She was 96-years old and living in California. It was only by chance I heard about her presentation.
Fast forward to 2020 and I heard through the magic of Facebook that she was returning to New Jersey to give a talk at Princeton University. No snow in the forecast. No other plans that day. The only decision I had left was do I buy her autographed book, or simply attend her lecture. I splurged. I do not buy a lot of books, instead I support our local library, or friends why write books.
The timing of her talk coincided with the 75th anniversary of Auschwitz being liberated. The student who introduced her said his grandparent (or maybe it was great-grandparent survived the Holocaust). I later overheard events such as this one are only open to Princeton University students, faculty, and staff. I was fortunate that it was opened to the public, and that I heard about it.
 |
| The room was everything you dream an ivy school lecture hall being -- wooden desks with built in arm rest. The room across the hall had floor to ceiling blackboards. |
Marthe Cohn is a 99-year old French woman who grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family just over the border with Germany. She was able to slip behind enemy lines as a spy as an ordinary woman in extraordinary experience. She became the hero that was needed.
In 2004 someone interviewed her for five hours and created a video about her life. After watching the 10-minute video she spent the next 20-minutes (or so) clearing up the misconceptions in the video. I wondered why she didn't have a new video made, but maybe she realizes the impact of explaining her story through the mistakes.
The first mistake is she grew up near Metz, not Alsace-Loraine. The difference being in Metz they learned true Germany. In Alsace-Loraine the locals speak a dialect.
The other is that her sister Stephanie was taken by SOPI, not the Gestapo. SOPI was formed in March 1942. Stephanie was arrested on June 17, 1942. There was a farmer with a farm on both sides of the border who helped people cross from Occupied France into Unoccupied France. He saved allied pilots who were shot down, and saved many Jews. Stephanie made a fatal mistake when she returned some cigarettes someone left behind and signed her name to the letter. Her real name.
Back to her history. She was born in Metz, France in 1920 and kept her past a secret for 50 years. She was one of seven children. The Prussian Army of Kaiser Wilhelm I occupied Paris from 1870-November 11, 1918. During that time it was illegal to speak French. Though she was born two years after the occupation, she spoke German at home and learn it from her parents.
In September 1939 the family moved to Poitiers, a safer part of France. It was not safe for long. In the meantime, they went about their daily business, she became engaged, they hid Jews without papers, her fiance was with the Resistance and was arrested. Her sister was arrested. Then her father was arrested as a way to make her sister talk. Her father was released. Though they had plans to help her sister escape, they were never carried out. The sister knew she was being useful in prison as she took care of the medical needs of the children. More importantly she knew if she escaped, they would come after her family and friends. Her family was allowed to visit her (something that seems so unbelievable, though I have read about this in other books about the same time period). On September 21, 1942 (Yom Kippur) she was deported to an unknown destination, later they learned it was Auschwitz, and they lost contact with her.
An interesting fact I learned recently was that 75% of the Jews in France survived because French citizens risked their lives to take care of them. More than in almost any other European country at the time. Only Denmark had a higher percentage. Many families hid at least one Jew.
Marthe was a nursing student in Marsielles. She traveled with false papers. Her fiance was arrested with his brother and friends. They were tried and executed. She moved to Paris and lived with one of her sisters. With her false papers she could go into public spaces, including the train station and food store. Jews with the Jewish stamp could only shop in the last hour. In those days there were no super markets, you had to go from store to store to store to buy everything, and presumably stand in lines at each one, a task that would take more than an hour. Some shop keepers would bundle up the groceries in advance to speed them along. They did this at great personal risk.
Marthe went to nursing school. At her school her friends hid her whenever the Gestapo came, risking their lives. She started her studies in Montpelier, but the director wouldn't let her work. She went to Marseilles where she heard that director was very sympathetic. After a bit of back and forth between the director and someone else, she was accepted. She graduated in 1943 and returned to Paris to live with her older sister. She used her forged ID card to get a job with an agency.
By this point France was liberated, but the war was still happening. She tried to get a job with the government, but was told since the city where she was born was not liberated, she could not work for them. She tried to use her forged papers to get a job, but the hiring person recognized them as a forgery and turned her down.
Marthe reconnected with the mother of her fiance. When she realized she was all alone, Marthe and her sister invited her to live with them in Paris. They took care of her. They visited the cemetery at Ivry to see where her sons were buried.
Her fiance's mother met and befriended General Charles DeGaulle who asked what he could do for her. She asked for a role for her not-quite daughter-in-law. Marthe ended up in the 151st Regiment in Alsace. During a debriefing she was asked what she did during the war. She explained she tried to join the Resistance, but at 4'11, very thin with blond hair and blue eyes, she was rejected. No one trusted she was strong enough for the army.
She was told they didn't need any nurses, they need social workers. Not knowing what a social worker did, she accepted the challenge. The first uniform they gave her was much too big. No one gave her any directions, she she went to the front and asked the soldiers what they needed. They asked for blankets, food, and reading materials. She went back into town to get these items and returned with them.
Once an officer, Pierre Fabien, the first person to kill a German in 1943, realized she spoke both French and Germany, they hired this tiny, blond lady to interrogate prisoners. She underwent intensive training and was assigned to Africa.
Marthe became a spy. After 13 tries, she was able to get into Germany. She passed intelligence information to the Allies under the cover of being a German nurse looking for information about her Nazi officer. As she walked with people, including a German officer, she learned valuable information.
In February 1945 everything was frozen when Marthe landed in a canal. Turns out even military guides make mistakes, one gave her the wrong information. This guide failed to say there was a canal in her path. She was drenched from head to toe. It took a while to get out of the canal. She walked all night. Turned out she walked in a circle all night. She later learned if you walk without a compass at night, you will walk in a circle.
Marthe decided to go into Germany through neutral Switzerland. She was taken to the Swiss border. She went through the forest then through a field (many of her stories involve forests and fields) to where two heavily-armed German sentries were keeping guard 24-hours a day. She was with a middle aged man who made a strong pass at her, which she rejected. She was dressed as a German nurse without any French identification, all the labels torn out of her clothes, vouchers for everything she would need -- but no lesson on how or where to use the vouchers.
Marthe said the transportation was only at night, no military transport during the day, so Germans walked everywhere in groups. She found a group to join. The one high ranking German said to her (a Jew), "I can smell a Jew a mile away." As they walked, he told her about atrocities on the eastern front, which she had to smile through or else risk blowing her cover. She took care of him after he fainted, for which he was grateful and gave her his phone number. This came in handy later.
Three weeks later Marthe went to the Zigfried line and learned it was evacuated. She knew this was important information, but that it needed to be confirmed by three people before she could take it to her supervisor. She got the confirmations needed. The next challenge was to prove she was a friend since she had no documentation on her. She raised her right arm and made a V for victory as Winston Churchill had done recently. She recognizes she was extremely lucky they did not kill her on sight. They were skeptical, but eventually treated her as a VIP. When asked what they could do for her, she asked for a bicycle because she was tired of walking! She carried a letter in French past the Germans in the Black Forest. There was no time to get it coded. She put the letter in her left pocket with her hand on top of it to protect it. Following Col. Reinhard's advice, she got herself into Switzerland, told them she was a Swiss agent, and asked for help. She was safe.
In 1956 she came to the United States. She met her husband, Major, in Switzerland in 1953. The couple lives in California.
After the talk, Marthe answered questions while Major proudly showed off his wife's medals.
Time passed. She didn't talk about it. She figured no one would really believe her. In the mid-1990s she was back in France and asked for a copy of her military records from the French government.
Marthe Cohn was accompanied by her husband. Word has it he is a few years younger than her -- which still makes him in his upper-90s. He kept her on task during the talk. When she forgot a word or the story meandered, he brought her back. She speaks three language well.
No comments:
Post a Comment