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Boston Globe
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Marthe Cohn, a Jewish spy in Nazi Germany, dies at 105
Her spying earned her France's Croix de Guerre and was credited with saving the lives of Allied troops pressing in on the Reich. And more than 50 years later, after French officials took a fresh look at her military record, she was awarded another prestigious award, the Médaille Militaire, and was named a knight in the Legion of Honor, the country's highest order of merit. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up By then, Ms. Cohn had only just begun to discuss her brief career as a spy. Her husband, an American, had learned about her espionage exploits only after they were married. For years, even her children had no idea that Ms. Cohn — a petite but energetic woman who stood no more than 4-foot-11 — once crawled across the border on her hands and knees, hiding from German sentries while bringing intelligence back to the French. Advertisement 'I just thought nobody would believe me,' she told the Los Angeles Times in 2005, explaining her years of silence. 'Spies are usually tall and good-looking. I am a very unlikely spy.' Ms. Cohn, who died May 20 at the age of 105, spent the past quarter-century sharing her story at schools and community centers across Europe and the United States, where she worked as a nurse after the war. In her final years, she served as a memory keeper for the Holocaust and the French resistance, sharing her story in a well-received 2002 memoir, 'Behind Enemy Lines: The True Story of a Jewish Spy in Nazi Germany,' and in a 2019 documentary, 'Chichinette: The Accidental Spy.' 'I will bear witness,' she often told audiences, 'until my last breath.' The fourth of seven children, she was born Marthe Hoffnung in Metz on April 13, 1920. Her family was Orthodox — her maternal grandfather was a rabbi — and her parents ran a small business framing and enlarging photos. As a teenager, Ms. Cohn occasionally got into fistfights at school, brawling with Catholic classmates who made antisemitic comments about Prime Minister Léon Blum, who was Jewish. She said she inherited some of her scrappiness from her father, who once removed his belt and went after teenagers who were throwing stones at the family as they left the local synagogue. Advertisement After Kristallnacht, the Nazis' 1938 pogrom against Jews, Ms. Cohn's parents began taking in Jewish refugees from Germany, looking after penniless families that needed a place to stay for a few days as they sought a new home in France or elsewhere. Ms. Cohn recalled in her memoir that while she was horrified by the pogrom, 'never for one moment did I think that the same thing would happen to us. Not in France. … I believed in human nature. I still had confidence that good would prevail.' When World War II broke out in 1939, the family moved across the country to Poitiers, far from the German border. They remained there during the 1940 invasion and subsequent occupation, living for a time under few restrictions. Ms. Cohn said that she even worked at city hall with German officials who, admiring her accent and skill with the language, invited her to move to Germany for work, not realizing she was Jewish. Gradually, the situation deteriorated. Nazi leaders closed Jewish businesses and mandated that residents wear a yellow star in public. Ms. Cohn was approached on the street one day by one of her colleagues from city hall, who offered to provide her and her family with identity papers that were not stamped with the word 'Jew.' The documents would let them travel freely to unoccupied France. 'When I asked him how much it would cost, he started crying and he said, 'I do not want to be paid. I do this to save you,'' she recalled in an interview with the Jewish Ledger, a Connecticut newspaper. 'He gave me all the identity cards.' Ms. Cohn's sister Stéphanie was arrested before the family could leave. But Ms. Cohn, her parents and several of her siblings were able to flee and survive, with help at times from one of Ms. Cohn's brothers who worked in the resistance. She spent part of the war in Marseille, studying to become a nurse, and enlisted in the French army in 1944 after the liberation of Paris. Advertisement 'At first,' she recalled, 'they looked at my size and said, 'Little girl, go back to your mother. You don't belong in the army.'' Ms. Cohn proved persistent — 'I'm going to stay,' she said she told the officers — and was allowed to enlist as an aid worker, tasked with visiting soldiers near the front and asking what they needed. At one point, she was assigned to answer calls for a colonel who needed to step out for lunch. He apologized, telling Ms. Cohn that she would have nothing to read to pass the time, as he only had German-language books in his office. 'I said, 'That's OK, I can read German,'' she told the Los Angeles Times in 2000. 'It's as simple as that, how your life can change.' The army was looking for German-language speakers who could work as spies. Ms. Cohn underwent a brief training — she was so inquisitive, she said, that her colleagues nicknamed her Chichinette, French for 'little pain in the neck' — and was sent to Switzerland, where she tried more than a dozen times to cross the border into Germany. She eventually succeeded, crossing a field without being spotted, carrying only a small suitcase and a picture of a German prisoner of war whom she claimed was her fiancé. Advertisement Ms. Cohn used the photo to win the trust of German soldiers, asking whether they had seen her lover on the battlefield. During one encounter, she claimed to be terrified about the prospect of an Allied invasion. 'They told me not to worry,' she said in the Times interview. 'And then they told me in precisely which section of the Black Forest the German army was waiting for the Allies.' Ms. Cohn hurried back to the border to share her discovery with the French. She also revealed that German troops near Freiburg were withdrawing from the Siegfried Line, a long-fortified defensive position. After the war ended, she served as an army nurse in Vietnam, then part of French Indochina. She also continued her nursing studies in Geneva, where she met Major L. Cohn, an American medical student who had served on a Navy minesweeper during World War II. They married in 1958, moved to the United States and later worked together in Los Angeles, her husband as an anesthesiologist and Ms. Cohn as a nurse. Her husband, who survives her, said Ms. Cohn died at home in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. He did not cite a specific cause. Survivors also include their two sons, Stephan and Remi Cohn, and a granddaughter. In her public appearances, Ms. Cohn sought to draw lessons from the Holocaust, urging audiences to have sympathy for migrants who — like many Europeans Jews in the 1930s and '40s — struggle to find refuge in the United States and other countries. Asked in the documentary what message she had for people today, she replied, 'Be engaged. And don't accept any order that your conscience could not approve.' Advertisement
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Complete surprise!‘: WWII vet, Canton native turning 100 overwhelmed by birthday cards across world
Strangers from across New England and the globe are penning their birthday wishes to Howard Hanson, a lifetime Canton resident and World War II veteran who turns 100 this weekend. Hanson's centennial celebrations kicked off two weeks ago when he was surprised by generations of his family at the Brookmeadow Country Club. In 1943, at the age of 18, he was sworn into the Navy as a third-class petty officer coxswain. During his service at the height of World War II, he landed on Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, after the storm on D-Day. His family says he spent the next three nights in a foxhole on the island. In the years following his service, he received many awards for his heroism, including the Presidential Unit Citation (Army) for Extraordinary Heroism, the Croix de Guerre, and more. After the war, he studied the saxophone and clarinet at Schillinger House, which is currently known as Berklee College of Music. You can find Hanson on his Walpole Street home nowadays. His letter carrier, Jayne Murphy, stops by almost every day. Over the last two weeks, ahead of his birthday, Murphy's been delivering dozens of birthday letters for Howard across New England and the globe. Murphy told Boston 25 she's been spreading Howard's story on social media and asking community members and strangers to wish her friend a happy birthday before turning 100 on Sunday. Hanson added, 'Unbelievable! Complete surprise.' The two read one letter he received out loud, 'Thank you for your service, and god bless. You're an amazing veteran and a wonderful man... Keep having fun!' Murphy finished, 'It's so simple. Everybody says mail doesn't matter ... It does matter because I get to see this clown every day!' Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
Yahoo
13-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
WWII veteran, Canton native surprised for his 100th birthday celebration
A Canton legend and World War II veteran celebrated his birthday Saturday with a surprise party organized by generations of family and friends. Howard Hanson, 100, walked into Brookmeadow Country Club Saturday night to a cheering crowd. His Canton American Legion Band also played him in. 'Oh boy, am I surprised,' Hanson told Boston 25. 'Unbelievable!' Hanson was born in Canton in 1925 as the youngest of eight siblings. In 1943, at the age of 18, he was sworn into the Navy as a third-class petty officer coxswain. During his service at the height of World War II, he landed on Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, after the storm on D-Day. His family says he spent the next three nights in a foxhole on the island. In the years following his service, he received many awards for his heroism, including the Presidential Unit Citation (Army) for Extraordinary Heroism, the Croix de Guerre, and more. After the war, he studied the saxophone and clarinet at Schillinger House, which is currently known as Berklee College of Music. Cindy Gillis and Eric Hanson, two of Howard's children, were waiting for him at Brookmeadow Country Club in Canton while his son led him inside. Gillis explained, 'He will do anything for anybody.' Eric Hanson added, 'I often question, 'Is he the longest consecutive citizen in the town?'' To this day, the 100-year-old still lives in Canton and is an active member of the local American Legion band, where he rehearses six times a week. His conductor, Gary Good, told Boston 25, 'It's incredible ... He has a lot of energy when he comes to band. He shakes hands with all of us, says hello, jokes around, and really plays and plays well.' In 2020, during the pandemic, family and friends could only drive by the veteran's house to celebrate his 95th birthday. Today, they celebrated his 100th in style, and in-person. Howard Hanson finished, 'Wonderful!' Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Pennsylvania Treasurer returns lost WWI medal to veteran's family
(WHTM)– Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity returned a lost WWI medal to a veteran's family on Wednesday. The medal belonged to Schuylkill County native Joseph William Morrison, a Private First Class in the Army who was killed in action during the First World War, according to the Treasury. The Treasurer's office said the WWI Gold Star Mothers and Widows Pilgrimage Medal was given to them as unclaimed property and was stored in a safe deposit box owned by the Joseph's family. Christine Morrison of Brooklyn, New York, traveled to Schuylkill County for a ceremony on Wednesday to receive the medal. The Treasury said multiple other family members were in attendance. 'I'm so honored to be returning this medal to Joseph Morrison's family on behalf of a grateful Commonwealth. It is so important we remember the sacrifices of those who gave their lives serving our country, as PFC Morrison did when he died representing the Allies in France,' Garrity said. 'As a fellow Veteran, there is no higher honor for me than to return these medals to our military families and shine a light on the heroism of our men and women in uniform.' Morrison was a member of the 554th Army Ambulance service during WWI. The Treasury said he was killed in action on Nov. 1, 1918. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre and VFW Post 2198 in Orwigsburg is named after him. 'When I was growing up in Auburn, I heard many stories about our great Uncle Joe. However, I was not aware of the Gold Star Medal which was presented to our great-grandmother after World War I. That is what makes the return of the medal to our family a very momentous occasion. It is quite remarkable, and only through the diligent efforts of the Pennsylvania Treasury staff, that the return is possible. More importantly, the medal reminds us of the sacrifice made by him and others – and their families – in defense of humanity,' Christine Morrison said. Garrity has returned 477 military decoartions since taking office, according to the Treasury. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Pioneering female doctor honoured in home town
The first female professor of medicine in Britain and Ireland, from County Antrim, has been recognised with an Ulster History Circle blue plaque. The pioneering Dame Louise McIlroy was the first woman to graduate in medicine from Glasgow University in 1898. After being told "battlefields are no place for a woman", Dame Louise defied officials and joined the newly formed Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service in 1914, with her first posting to France. Anne Louise McIlroy was born at Lavin House on 11 November 1874 in the townland of Knockahollet, Loughguile, and her father James was the local GP. She was one of four girls, and one of her sisters Jane also studied medicine and Glasgow and became an eye doctor. The family relocated from Loughguile to Ballycastle where her father became the district's medical officer. At the start of the World War One, Dame Louise served as a chief medical officer at a camp hospital in France. She was later sent to Serbia and then Salonika in Greece. Dame Louise was faced with overcrowding, extreme weather, remoteness and disease as she cared for hundreds of patients in the tented hospitals. After the war, she served as an assistant surgeon in Constantinople, now Istanbul, with the British Army Medical Corps. In 1920 she was awarded the OBE for her war service. She was also awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French government. In 1921, Dame Louise was appointed professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the London School of Medicine for Women, now the Royal Free Hospital Medical School. Her salary, £2,000, was the highest paid to a woman for university work. In 1929, her work was recognised and she was made a Dame for midwifery services. Two years later Queen's University Belfast awarded her an honorary degree. After retiring in 1934, Dame Louise came back to work at the start of World War Two to organise maternity services in Buckinghamshire. After the war she returned to her retirement, living with her sister Jane in Ayrshire. Dame Louise McIlroy died in 1968 and was buried in her family's grave at Ballycastle Presbyterian Church, where the plaque has been unveiled. Chris Spurr, chairman of the Ulster History Circle, said Dame Louise McIlroy was a pioneering doctor from County Antrim who devoted her career to advancing the areas of obstetrics, gynaecology and child welfare. Radar and microwave pioneer commemorated with blue plaque Plaque for 'forgotten woman' of science
