Marthe Cohn

I had the great pleasure of listening to a beautiful and fascinating lady speak about her life as a spy during World War II. 

What!  Hold the phone!  Did you hear me?  A SPY!!!   

This tiny blond, blue eyed French woman, 95 years young, had the most amazing and hair raising adventures you can imagine.  She is only 4’11” and time has shrunk and hunched over her small frame, but she was and is a powerful woman. She speaks with a heavy French accent but her voice is strong and precise.  Her husband sat beside her, helping her when she couldn’t think of the right word in English and translating questions for her.  

This event was held at the Chabad Jewish Center Oceanside/Vista this past June.  The mayors of Oceanside and Vista were there to honor her at this sold out event.  Her book, Behind Enemy Lines, describes a beautiful life before the war, transformations they all went through and her courageous efforts to help the Allies win the war.  I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in World War II and in stories of facing devastating hardships with pride and dignity.  It's fascinating to read what she went through during and even after the war.

It's also important to hear these survivors speak while they are still around.  Hearing the emotion in their voices as they remember what happened so long ago is an experience you will never forget.

Her story radiates family pride, strength and indignation at being treated so brutally by Hitler’s followers.  She came from a close knit family who were all entrepreneurs in their own ways.  After being forced to flee from their lovely home in Metz, France, they  started over in a new city, found a place to live and opened a new shop.  Just when they were feeling comfortable again, the new city was occupied and they were forced to escape again, risking their lives.  They were all involved with the Resistance, and sadly, her fiancé was caught, tortured and murdered, and her sister was dragged from their home in the middle of the night, never to be seen again.  She died in a concentration camp.  

Always a fighter, Marthe was determined to become a nurse but the school said absolutely no Jews allowed. When the head of the school heard of this injustice, she forced them to take her, but they treated her badly, refusing to reveal the homework assignments, and talking rudely to her, just because she was Jewish.  Nevertheless, she kept a smile on her face, worked harder than anyone else and soon became the patients’ favorite nurse.  

She was persistent and would not take no for an answer when the French army refused to let her join.  Then when the Intelligence Service discovered she could speak fluent German, they asked her to operate as a spy in Germany and send information back to the Allies.  She accepted right away, then wondered what in the world she had gotten herself into.  

It took her 13 attempts before she made it across the border into Germany.  One time, she was trying to sneak across on a brutally cold, snowy night, and fell into a canal, submerged in freezing cold water.  She tried vainly to climb out, but everything was frozen and her fingers couldn’t get a grip on the icy bank.  She recounted this incident during her speech and said she is not sure how she finally clawed her way up that bank.  Her clothing was heavy and kept pulling her back under water but she made it, and somehow survived, even though she was soaked to the bone in icy water on a bitterly cold winter's night.  

She told us another harrowing story of sneaking past two German soldiers patrolling a field, waiting for the exact right moment to crawl through the tall grass and hide in a bush.  At one point she was so terrified she couldn’t move, paralyzed by fear.  She lay there for an hour and the only reason she was able to keep going was because she was more afraid of being called a coward than of dying.

She was able to pose as a German and gather and send information to the Allies.  Her courageous efforts helped defeat the Nazis.  She was even a fierce interrogator of German POWs!

Marthe spoke candidly about having the same human emotions of fear and depression as anyone else.  She doesn't think of herself as courageous.  She just did what needed to be done at the time.  Her own children were unaware of her dangerous and heroic missions until, at the age of eighty, she was awarded France’s highest military honor, the Medaille Militaire.  

Her stories are inspiring for anyone.  She had so many cruelties and hardships heaped upon her, yet she never quit fighting, and always held her head high in the face of those who tried to treat her as an inferior being.  

At the end of her book she says she and her family can look back at their lives with pride.  “Despite all that we went through, the years of daily terrors, none of us ever really lost hope.”

Her numerous medals from France and other countries, were on display for us to see and her husband generously answered questions while she was busy autographing copies of her book and taking pictures with admirers (me included). 

I felt honored to meet such an amazing lady and will never forget her courage and will to survive in the face of human cruelty.