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A review by sjklass
Behind Enemy Lines: The True Story of a French Jewish Spy in Nazi Germany by Wendy Holden, Marthe Cohn
3.0
A brave woman. An interesting memoir. After losing her beloved fiancé and her sister and having her family torn apart and scattered across Europe during WWII, young French Jew Marthe accepts the offer to to assist the French Resistance. Blonde, blue eyed and fluent in German, she boldly went behind enemy lines and posed as a German civilian searching for her fictional German-soldier fiancé. She was able to witness and gain critical information on the movement of German troops towards France. She put herself in harms way, in life and death situations time after time.
Writing this memoir sixty years after events, her recollections are told matter of factly. There are a lot of dates, places and names. Her occasional dip into introspection includes " War taught me many things, among them that, like anyone, I could be a coward one minute and brave the next, depending entirely on circumstance. They say that war brings out the best and the worst in people, and I certainly saw both sides. When I think of the dozens of people who risked their lives for us, it almost helps compensate for all the sad and bitter memories of those who were so cruel".
As WWII falls further into history, it's valuable to read these type of first person accounts.
Writing this memoir sixty years after events, her recollections are told matter of factly. There are a lot of dates, places and names. Her occasional dip into introspection includes " War taught me many things, among them that, like anyone, I could be a coward one minute and brave the next, depending entirely on circumstance. They say that war brings out the best and the worst in people, and I certainly saw both sides. When I think of the dozens of people who risked their lives for us, it almost helps compensate for all the sad and bitter memories of those who were so cruel".
As WWII falls further into history, it's valuable to read these type of first person accounts.