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Oct. 2nd, 2012 03:50 pmEither ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
meganbmoore or Elizabeth Wein is to blame for all the French Resistance lady-spy memoirs I have been reading recently. Maybe both! I'm comfortable blaming both.
The one I liked better was Outwitting the Gestapo, by Lucie Aubrac.
During the time period this memoir covers, Lucie Aubrac was a.) a teacher, b.) parenting a toddler, c.) pregnant, d.) an active Resistance member, and e.) married to another Resistance member, who was Jewish. This makes me feel guilty every time I complain about my busy schedule.
Anyway, life was going as normally as possible under these circumstances when Lucie's husband was arrested. Lucie promptly shipped her son off to preschool in the mountains and launched a campaign to rescue him, as you do. The whole story is fascinating, but three things in particular stood out to me:
1. The combination of being a teacher and a Resistance member! I mean, Lucie sounds like a great teacher anyway, but I found her descriptions of stealthily undermining Vichy classroom propaganda often even more fascinating than exciting Resistance missions. And then there's a part where a few of her students graduate and are like "OKAY MA'AM WE'RE OLD ENOUGH, WE CAN JOIN THE RESISTANCE NOW! :D" and she doesn't spend much time on it, but, I mean, . . . how weird would that be? Okay, kids, I graded your pre-Baccalaureate exams and now you're ready to risk your lives daily, get to it!
2. So there's a part towards the end of the book where Lucie's hiding out with a farm family, and the women get sent off to do the dishes.
LUCIE: Um. . . .
FARMER: Oh, not you! You're a hero, you're like basically a man, you're cool. :D
LUCIE: Okay, let us be clear on this: given that a large part of my heroic plan hinged on making strategic use of being pregnant, I am NOT basically a man. I in fact am a lady who did something NONE OF YOU DUDES COULD DO. Okay?
3. ( Spoiler . . . for history? )
I also read Behind Enemy Lines: The True Story of a French Jewish Spy in Nazi Germany.
These are the memoirs of Marthe Cohn, a nice Jewish girl who spent most of the Occupation staying undercover, taking nurse training courses, about her huge extended family -- until the end, when she signed up with the army as a nurse and someone realized that she was fluent in German.
CUE TRANSFORMATION into a TINY SUPER PROPAGANDA SPY who cycled all around Germany shouting "THE ALLIES ARE COMING, THE ALLIES ARE COMING!" and spreading terror and misinformation wherever she went. It is again a fascinating story, although some warnings for racism; whatever her personal feelings, Marthe seems to have seen nothing wrong with shouting "THE ALLIES ARE COMING AND THEY'RE BRINGING SCARY AFRICAN REGIMENTS, FLEE TO SAVE YOUR WOMEN!" on her propaganda fear-mongering cycling trips.
meganbmoore or Elizabeth Wein is to blame for all the French Resistance lady-spy memoirs I have been reading recently. Maybe both! I'm comfortable blaming both.The one I liked better was Outwitting the Gestapo, by Lucie Aubrac.
During the time period this memoir covers, Lucie Aubrac was a.) a teacher, b.) parenting a toddler, c.) pregnant, d.) an active Resistance member, and e.) married to another Resistance member, who was Jewish. This makes me feel guilty every time I complain about my busy schedule.
Anyway, life was going as normally as possible under these circumstances when Lucie's husband was arrested. Lucie promptly shipped her son off to preschool in the mountains and launched a campaign to rescue him, as you do. The whole story is fascinating, but three things in particular stood out to me:
1. The combination of being a teacher and a Resistance member! I mean, Lucie sounds like a great teacher anyway, but I found her descriptions of stealthily undermining Vichy classroom propaganda often even more fascinating than exciting Resistance missions. And then there's a part where a few of her students graduate and are like "OKAY MA'AM WE'RE OLD ENOUGH, WE CAN JOIN THE RESISTANCE NOW! :D" and she doesn't spend much time on it, but, I mean, . . . how weird would that be? Okay, kids, I graded your pre-Baccalaureate exams and now you're ready to risk your lives daily, get to it!
2. So there's a part towards the end of the book where Lucie's hiding out with a farm family, and the women get sent off to do the dishes.
LUCIE: Um. . . .
FARMER: Oh, not you! You're a hero, you're like basically a man, you're cool. :D
LUCIE: Okay, let us be clear on this: given that a large part of my heroic plan hinged on making strategic use of being pregnant, I am NOT basically a man. I in fact am a lady who did something NONE OF YOU DUDES COULD DO. Okay?
3. ( Spoiler . . . for history? )
I also read Behind Enemy Lines: The True Story of a French Jewish Spy in Nazi Germany.
These are the memoirs of Marthe Cohn, a nice Jewish girl who spent most of the Occupation staying undercover, taking nurse training courses, about her huge extended family -- until the end, when she signed up with the army as a nurse and someone realized that she was fluent in German.
CUE TRANSFORMATION into a TINY SUPER PROPAGANDA SPY who cycled all around Germany shouting "THE ALLIES ARE COMING, THE ALLIES ARE COMING!" and spreading terror and misinformation wherever she went. It is again a fascinating story, although some warnings for racism; whatever her personal feelings, Marthe seems to have seen nothing wrong with shouting "THE ALLIES ARE COMING AND THEY'RE BRINGING SCARY AFRICAN REGIMENTS, FLEE TO SAVE YOUR WOMEN!" on her propaganda fear-mongering cycling trips.
