The General’s Niece
Over the last year I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and reading about women involved in resistance movements in World War II.
The extent of women's particicpation in the armed resistance units known as the maquis is a matter of dispute. But no one doubts that many women performed critical activities that allowed the maquis to function. Because women could move more freely, they acted as couriers and collected intelligence, and arranged for food, supplies, and shelter for armed insurgents and downed Allied pilots. 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. Their work was as dangerous as that performed by any armed maquisard. Without them, the armed groups could not have carried out their actions, yet historians often describe their work as “passive resistance.” As Paige Bowers demonstrates in The General’s Niece: The Little-Known De Gaulle Who Fought to Free Occupied France, they were not passive by any reasonable definition of the term.
Genevieve De Gaulle was a teenager when the war began. Inspired by the example of her uncle, Charles De Gaulle, she became a fervent member of the French resistance, and an inspiration to others in her own right. Bowers tells her story in a classic three-act structure: the development of a young girl into an important member of the resistance, her arrest by the Nazis and imprisonment in the infamous Ravensbruck concentration camp, and her post-war activism, first on behalf of other women who suffered in the camps and later on behalf of the poor and displaced. At each step, Bowers sets De Gaulle’s story within its larger context, using the story of one extraordinary woman to illuminate the story of those around her.
Personally, I found the post-war part of the story the most fascinating in some ways because it was all new to me. It had never occurred to me that women who escaped the camps would have troubled re-integrating into society after the war. A serious lack of imagination on my part. It’s easy to forget that war leaves a long tail of destruction.
The General’s Niece is by turns gripping, heart-breaking, horrifying, and inspirational. If you’re interested in World War II, women’s history, or stories of resistance, put it on your list.
(Mark your calendars. Paige Bowers is going to be part of a special project celebrating Women History Month here on the Margins.)
The Great Silence
Whether you know it as Armistice Day, Poppy Day, Remembrance Day or Veterans' Day, November 11 is a time to honor those who died in war and thank those who served.
The day of remembrance has its roots in the end of World War I. The war ended on November 11, 1918. When the word reached England that the the armistice had been signed, the country broke out into a spontaneous party. (The Savoy Hotel alone lost 2700 smashed glasses to the celebration.) No stiff upper lip allowed.
When the first anniversary of the Armistice drew near, dancing in the streets of a post-war world no longer seemed appropriate . Neither did letting the day go unnoticed. Some assumed that special church services were the proper response. Australian soldier and journalist Edward George Honey wrote a letter to the London Evening News suggesting a moment of silence "on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month". He asked for "Five silent minutes of national remembrance...Church services too, if you will, but in the street, the home, the theatre, anywhere, indeed, where Englishmen and their women chance to be, surely in this five minutes of bitter-sweet silence there will be service enough."
Honey asked for five minutes; he got two. King George V called for all Britons to stop their normal activities "so that in perfect stillness, the thoughts of every one may be concentrated on reverent remembrance of the glorious dead."
If you can, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month--pause for a moment. If you can't? Thank a veteran. Buy a poppy, if you can find one. Pray for peace.
The Thrill of the Vote
This post first ran on election day in 2008. My feelings on the subject haven't changed:
It's election day in Chicago. I just walked home from voting for a new mayor and a new alderman--and I miss my old neighborhood.
For ten years I lived in South Shore: a white graduate student/small business owner/writer in a neighborhood dominated by the African-American middle class. My neighbors were police officers, schoolteachers, fire fighters, electricians, and social workers. We didn't have much in common most of the year--except on election day.
As far as I'm concerned, voting is thrilling. My South Shore neighbors agreed. Voting in South Shore felt like a small town Fourth of July picnic. Like Mardi Gras. Like Christmas Eve when you're five-years-old and still believe in Santa Claus. No matter what time of day I went to vote, my polling place was packed. Voters and election judges greeted each other--and me--with hugs, high fives, and "good to see you here, honey". First time voters proudly announced themselves. Elderly voters told stories about their first election. People made sure they got their election receipts; some pinned them to their coats like a badge of honor. An older gentleman sat next to the door and said "Thank you for exercising your right to vote" as each voter left. The correct response was "It's a privilege."
Except for occasional confusion when the machine that takes the ballots jams, my current polling place is low key. Election judges are friendly and polite, but hugs are not issued with your ballot. When the young woman manning the machine handed me my receipt, she told me to have a good day. I said "It's always a good day when you get to vote." In South Shore, that would have gotten me an "Amen." In politically active, politically correct Hyde Park, it got me an eye-blinking look of surprise and a hesitant smile.
I started home, thinking maybe I was the only one in the neighborhood whose pulse beat faster on election day. A block from the polls I ran into a young man walking with a small boy, no more than six years old. The little boy stopped me, with a grin so big that he looked like a smile wearing a woolly hat.
"Did you vote yet?" he asked. "My dad is taking me to teach me how to vote."
"It's a privilege," I said.
He gave me the highest five he could manage.
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So tell me, did you exercise your right to vote today?