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Tag: World War II
  • Corrie ten Boom and her family helped 800 people fleeing the Nazis by hiding them in their home.

    In the midst of the Nazi occupation of Holland, an unassuming woman — the country's first female watchmaker — had a secret: a hidden room where Jewish refugees could stay as they fled the dangerous regime. Corrie ten Boom and her family worked with the Dutch Resistance, and their home became known as "De Schuilplaats" or "The Hiding Place," where hundreds of people found shelter in 1943 and 1944. Today, it's estimated that ten Boom, her family, and other members of the 'BeJe group' saved the lives of 800 Jews and other refugees. Ten Boom's father and sister both died while imprisoned by the Nazis, but despite it all, she never regretted what her family had done: "The measure of a life, after all, is not its duration," she asserted, "but its donation." Continue reading Continue reading

  • Virginia Hall was one of the greatest spies of World War II but her incredible story is largely unknown today.

    The Nazis considered Virginia Hall the "most dangerous of all Allied spies," yet the story of the "Limping Lady" is largely unknown today. Hall spent nearly the entire war in France, first as a spy for Britain's newly formed Special Operations Executive (SOE) and later for the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Special Operations Branch. Even her cumbersome wooden prosthetic leg, which she nicknamed Cuthbert, proved no obstacle to Hall's courage and determination to defeat the Nazis. While undercover in France, she proved exceptionally adept at eluding the Gestapo as she organized resistance groups, masterminded jailbreaks for captured agents, mapped drop zones, reported on German troop movements, set up safe houses, and rescued escaped POWs and downed Allied pilots. Even years after the war, however, she rarely talked about her extraordinary career; a reticence she likely developed during her years as a spy since, as she once observed, "Many of my friends were killed for talking too much." Continue reading Continue reading

  • Irena Sendler led a secret operation to successfully smuggle Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto, saving them from almost certain death

    One of the great heroes of WWII led a secret operation to successfully smuggle 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto, saving them from almost certain death — yet until recently, few people had heard Irena Sendler's incredible story. This Polish Catholic nurse and social worker defied the Nazis at great personal risk, and nearly paid the ultimate price for her courageous actions. And even when she was tortured by the Gestapo, she never told them the names or locations of the children she had rescued. Her story is one of tremendous moral fortitude and the determination to fight evil, no matter the cost. Continue reading Continue reading

  • 16 Trailblazing Female Wartime Heroes Who Belong in the History Books

    women-in-wartime-blog-websiteOften, the popular image of women in wartime is worried wives, girlfriends, sisters, and daughters, pining at home for the men they love who are risking their lives on the battlefield. The reality, though, is much different! Women have always made significant contributions to war efforts — both on the homefront and on the front lines. While women's contributions at home, especially during WWII, have become more widely known, the stories of their heroism on the battlefield are rarely told. In every war there have been women who dared to spy across enemy lines; treat wounded soldiers in the midst of the fighting; report from the front as journalists, and fight shoulder to shoulder with their male peers. And although we don't hear of them often, women also fought for an equally important cause: peace. Continue reading Continue reading

  • The Nazis had a 5 million-franc bounty on the head of the spy known as the "White Mouse."

    In 1943, Nazi authorities were on the hunt for a spy they had nicknamed the "White Mouse" because of her ability to evade their capture, no matter what trap they set. The Gestapo had declared her their most wanted person, and placed a 5 million-franc bounty on her head. Their quarry was Nancy Wake, one of Britain's Special Operations Executive's most capable secret agents. Famous for her fearlessness, Wake would continue to evade her pursuers for the rest of the war, at one point even hurling herself from a train window to escape capture, and eventually become one of the Allies' most decorated servicewomen of World War II. Continue reading Continue reading

  • Once a 'Rosie the Riveter' during WWII, today 94-year-old Mae Krier is making Rosie-themed face masks to help fight the pandemic.

    When Mae Krier was 17 years old, she took a job at a Boeing factory in Seattle in the midst of World War II, joining millions of other American women filling critical labor shortages at factories and shipyards after the male workers left to fight overseas. Today, at 94, she's stepped up to help the country overcome another crisis by making fabric face masks to help prevent the spread of coronavirus — and, to pay tribute to the heroic women of WWII, her masks are in the polka dot fabric of Rosie the Riveter's iconic bandana! "This virus is actually like another war, and we’ve gotta pull together if we’re gonna conquer it," Krier asserts. "We did it, and we can do it." Continue reading Continue reading

  • "If these children need me in days of sunshine, how much more do they need me in days of darkness?" -- Jane Haining

    When Jane Haining was given the opportunity to escape the Nazi invasion of Budapest, she refused to abandon the Jewish girls in her care, ultimately giving her life to protect her young charges. Haining, who worked as a matron at a school run by the Church of Scotland, also helped many Jewish Hungarians and refugees emigrate to Britain during the war. She remains one of few Scottish people honored as one of the Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem for her aid to Jewish people during the Holocaust, and is believed to be the only Scottish person to die in one of the Nazis' concentration camps. This year, Hungary dedicated its annual torchlight March of the Living — held on April 14 as a tribute to the estimated 565,000 Hungarian Jews killed during the Holocaust — to Haining's memory, honoring her for her devotion to the girls she sought to protect. "If these children need me in days of sunshine," she wrote in 1944, "how much more do they need me in days of darkness?" Continue reading Continue reading

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