From the Archives: In which I Finally Read A Woman of No Importance
Earlier this month, I was called to jury duty. I must admit, I thought about trying to get out of it on the grounds that I am under deadline on this book.* But I just couldn’t do it. I believe in the importance of the jury system. And I have spent the last few years thinking about the destruction of of the rule of law in Nazi Germany. So, I grumbled about the loss of a day. I prayed that I wouldn’t end up on a jury and lose more than a day. And I thanked the powers that regulate civic duty that I was assigned to a downtown court instead of one in the distant suburbs.
All of which is a long lead-in to the fact that I decided Sonia Purnell’s A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II was the perfect thing to read in the jurors’ waiting room. The subject was adjacent to what I’m working on, but not so close that I needed to take notes. And by all accounts, it was a gripping read.
I am, as is so often the case, late to the game. Many of you may have already read Purnell’s bestselling account of Virgina Hall,** the American woman who talked her way into Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE) and was the first Allied woman deployed behind enemy lines—prosthetic leg and all.
A Woman of No Importance is a fascinating biography, with the tone of a thriller. Purnell starts with Hall as, in fact, a woman of no importance who had opted out of the life of a Baltimore socialite and been repeatedly frustrated in her attempts to join the diplomatic corps as more than a secretary. She traces Hall's unlikely acceptance by SOE—in large part because the newly formed agency was desperate—and her invisible rise as a covert operator working with the French resistance in spite of repeated bumbling and failures on the part of SOE.
Because these days I read narrative non-fiction from a writer’s viewpoint,*** I was struck by the skill with which she weaves the larger story of World War II into Hall’s story. She consistently gives readers the information they need, without dumping a chunk of information that disrupts the story line. It is harder to do than you might think.
If you’re interested in World War II, spies, spies in World War II, or forgotten women who did amazing things, this one’s for you.
*Probably not a valid excuse, now that I think about it.
**After all, lots of people reading (or at least buying) a book is what makes a book a best-seller.
***A habit I hope to ditch after I recover from writing the current book. It may require serious rehab involving sitting on the rear deck with a pitcher of ice tea, a stack of really well-written books, and no way to make notes in the margins.
From the Archives-Shin-Kickers From History: Gaston Madru Secretly Films Occupied Paris
I have more new (or more acurately, old) stories to tell you, but I also have four book events over the next eight days--all different in format. So for the moment, allow me to share a few old posts dealing with occupation, resistance, and journalists at the front.
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Today I stumbled across an unexpected story--or at least a part of a story. Talking to a reporter about her experiences as a war correspondent Sigrid Schultz mentioned "our French colleague Gaston Madru" who had been killed by German soldiers when they caught him alone in his car near Leipzig on April 19, 1945. Because I am trying to look at events from the perspective of as many foreign and war correspondents as possible, I immediately looked up Madru and discovered that he was a newsreel cameraman. Before the war, he worked as a stringer for MGM's News of the Day. During the occupation of Paris,from 1942 to 1944, he surreptitiously filmed the city and its Nazi captors. The images he captured were aired on September 18, 1944, after the liberation of Paris, on this newsreel:
It's worth watching the whole thing: Madru got some amazing footage. (Reminder: If you subscribe to the blog and are reading this in your email, you need to shift over to your browser to see the video. Just double click on the post title.)
Madru's bravery was not limited to photography, though that could have gotten him killed if he had been discovered. He also was a member of a Resistance "escape line" that helped downed Allied pilots to escape to safety.
After the liberation of Paris, Madru served as a war correspondent, again working for News of the Day. He was one of 314 civilian reporters who received campaign ribbons at the end of the war "for outstanding and conspicuous service with the armed forces under difficult and hazardous combat conditions." He was one of eight newsmen to receive the award posthumously, along with Ernie Pyle.
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Heads up Chicago-area friends! I'm thrilled to tell you that BookTV is going to film my book event at the Seminary Coop Bookstore on September 20. (Details here.) I'd love to see you there. (Bring lots of good questions!)
Women in the Norwegian Resistance
My one complaint with the Resistance Museum in Oslo was that it did not include the role played by Norwegian women.* This is not surprising: we have only begun to hear stories about women in the resistance in various countries in Europe in the last few years.
A dive down the research rabbit hole made it clear that Norwegian women were in fact active in the resistance, just like their counterparts throughout Europe. Just like their counterparts, much of what they did was later dismissed as “passive resistance”** by scholars. And some of them were just plain “dissed” by their countrymen after the war.
Here are a few examples:
Eva Kløvstad began her resistance work in 1943 as an accountant at the Transport Office in Hamar, where she embezzled petrol marks and gave them to resistance workers who were moving refugees through Sweden. Later, under the code name Jakob, she was the defacto leader of 1,200 resistance fighters in the unit known as Milorg D-25 after its original leader was shot by the Gestapo. After the war, she was not allowed to march along the male members of her unit in the victory celebration.
Norwegian-born film star Sonja Wigert used her acting talents for the Norwegian resistance, as a double agent against the Germans for Sweden, and later for the OSS. Her code name was Bill. The Reichskommissar of occupied Norway had a weakness for beautiful actresses that Wigert effectively manipulated. She secured the release of a number of prisoners from Nazi internment, including her father. She provided information about Nazi agents in Sweden and was instrumental in getting a number of them expelled from the country. But she paid a high price for her work. After the war ended, she was shunned as a Nazi collaborator. In 1945, she sought to clear her name by giving interviews about her anti-German activities. The full extent of her contribution to the war efforts was only revealed 25 years after her death, when the Swedish secret service released the information.
On a happier note, Anne Margrethe Bang took part in the Battle of Hegra Fortress as a nurse. She was the only woman in the small group of Norwegians who held off the Germans for 25 days and were the last forces in southern Norway to capitulate to the invaders. She joined the volunteer unit when she learned that the forces at Hegra lacked medical supplies. After the fortress surrendered on May 5 1940, she was held as a POW. Once released, she joined the resistance movement again. After the war, she received numerous decorations for her war efforts, including the Norwegian War Medal.
To put this in context: 1433 members of the Norwegian resistance were killed during the German occupation; 255 of them were women
*In all fairness, the bookstore carried several books about women in the resistance. I did not buy any of them because they were in Norwegian. And working through documents in Sigrid Schultz’s archives taught me that Norwegian is not close enough to German to allow me to force my way through for more than a few paragraphs.
**A large percentage of the women involved in resistance movements in World War II did not actively carry guns or engage in sabotage, though their jobs were as dangerous as those of their armed counterparts. Because women could move more freely, they carried out critical activities that allowed the armed resistance movement to function. They acted as couriers, collected intelligence and arranged for food, supplies and shelter for armed insurgents. They transported weapons and ammunition and distributed illegal printed materials, sometimes using the trappings of pregnancy and motherhood to help them smuggle contraband under the eyes of German soldiers. Not passive actions by any reasonable definition of the term.