Disclaimer: The following blog post is not a reflection of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s opinion on the below topics.
France’s contributions to the Second World War exist in competing memory. Remembered as both resistors and collaborators, their relationship with Nazi German occupiers from 1940 to 1944 defined the country’s historical narrative. Nonetheless, France’s Resistance movement was a striking force that consisted of both violent and nonviolent practices. Notably, French women played a remarkable and often unrecognized role in nonviolent resistance during World War ॥.
After France was defeated by German forces in 1940, many military-aged French men were taken as prisoners of war. Therefore, it was left to women and older men to establish the initial resistance groups in occupied France.[1] Celebrated French Resistance member Lucie Aubrac asserted that the Resistance movement was, in all likelihood, primarily female.[2] Nevertheless, women’s contributions to the Resistance are often overlooked, partially because their involvement was predominantly nonviolent. Professor Robert Gildea asserts that “after the war, only military activity was properly recognised as resistance.”[3] Women, however, contributed to the Resistance by using their gender to advance their cause, exploiting gender stereotypes and their femininity to undermine the Nazi regime.
In fact, women were able to play such a valuable role in the French Resistance because of their gender. Since they were viewed as “harmless and non-threatening,” women had leeway to move freely throughout France.[4] Their inconspicuous demeanor made them appear innocent in the presence of officers and soldiers. When having to pass through railway stations, “young women often had an advantage. In a world where it was assumed that resistance fighters were men, women were less suspect.”[5] Moreover, Aubrac claimed that women knew “how to stay charming and feminine.”[6] This rendered them the perfect candidates to carry out a resistance movement.
Female resistors leveraged this illusion in their disobedience. They utilized purses, baskets, and baby carriages to transport goods that served the Resistance.[7] On one occasion, a female school teacher put a radio transmitter in a baby stroller and unassumingly pushed it past armed German soldiers.[8] Women acted as liaison agents, as well as “messengers and couriers; they carried everything from arms and ammunition to intelligence and Resistance propaganda…”[9] They also took on occupational roles garnered towards women to gather military intelligence. For instance, Marguerite Blot strategically worked as a beautician in the Hotel Scribe, where her clientele consisted of girlfriends of officers from the Wehrmacht, the German military force.[10] This position allowed her to gain intel about German commanders, illustrating the importance of women’s innocuous role in the Resistance. Aubrac correctly asserted that “women are playing more or less the same part as men [in the Resistance]; when it comes to deceiving the Germans theirs is an even greater part.”[11]
French women also rescued airmen who were shot down by German forces and utilized underground routes to guide American and British soldiers to safety.[12] Furthermore, they hid and sheltered those on the run and aided in transporting vulnerable individuals.[13] For example, Nicole Spangenberg helped wounded French Resistance fighters get to their rendezvous point and brought injured resistors all the way up the Col d’Allos mountains.[14]
Additionally, female resistors nonviolently rebelled against the Nazi regime through various demonstrations. Protests were specifically held at railway stations when French men were deported to carry out forced labor in Germany. The most notable demonstration occurred in 1943 when 5,000 women assembled at the Montluçon train station. They laid across the railway tracks to prevent trains carrying French men from departing for Germany. Similar protests were soon replicated across France.[15]
French women also helped at hospitals and established committees “that offered aid to hardpressed families and whipped up popular support to pressurise the authorities to negotiate the release of POWs and increase food supplies.”[16] Danielle Casanova led this activity in Paris and founded the Union des Jeunes Filles de France. Women also participated in the Mouvements Unis de la Résistance, an organization that visited the families of imprisoned, deported, and executed resistors. They brought supplies and money, as well as placed displaced children with host families.[17]
Women further contributed to the Resistance in an effort to rescue their loved ones. When young French men were sent for forced labor in Germany, many mothers mobilized in order to save their sons.[18] When Madame Lamouille’s son was ordered for German work in 1942, “she hid him and eight of his comrades in farms belonging to friends around Annecy.”[19] After this, Lamouille became formally involved in the Resistance. Within her work, she sought out young French men avoiding the labor service and subsequently sent them to join guerilla resistance forces.[20]
Lucie Aubrac acted similarly to save her husband, Raymond Aubrac. When Raymond was captured and imprisoned by the Germans in 1940, his wife, Lucie, visited him in the POW camp. She gave him pills that produced a high fever. After ingesting the pills, he was transferred to a hospital where Lucie distracted the guard so he could escape[22]. After this feat, Lucie Aubrac’s “specialty became organizing and conducting escapes from prison.”[23] In 1943, she made use of the same pills to give imprisoned male resistors fevers. Her Resistance unit then posed as police and went to the hospital to free these men.[24]
Fearless, brave, and bold, French women are a remarkable symbol of nonviolent resistance. For four years, they worked tirelessly against the German-occupied government to fight for freedom and justice. Despite attempts to disregard their achievements, these women proved that their contributions were crucial to the magnitude of the Resistance.
“We often do things that are both difficult and dangerous because we have no choice. The resistance was like that. You stepped in and there was no turning back.” – Colette Marin Catherine, former French resistance member[26]
[1]Robert Gildea, Fighters in the Shadows (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015), 30.
[2]Donald Reid, Germaine Tillion, Lucie Aubrac, and the Politics of Memories of the French Resistance (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009), 115, citing “Women of France. Brave Parts Played by Resisters,” The Times, March 24, 1944.
[3]Gildea, Fighters in the Shadows, 148.
[14]Donald Reid, Germaine Tillion, Lucie Aubrac, and the Politics of Memories of the French Resistance (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009), 115, citing “Women of France. Brave Parts Played by Resisters,” The Times, March 24, 1944.
[5]Gildea, Fighters in the Shadows, 145.
[6]Donald Reid, Germaine Tillion, Lucie Aubrac, and the Politics of Memories of the French Resistance (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009), 117, citing “French Women Today, 1945”.
[7]“Research Guides: France in WW II: The French Resistance: Women in the French Resistance,” Women in the French Resistance – France in WW II: The French Resistance – Research Guides at Library of Congress, Library of Congress, guides.loc.gov/french-resistance-world-war-two/women-in-the-french-resistance. Accessed February 28, 2025.
[8]Reid, Germaine Tillion, Lucie Aubrac, and the Politics of Memories of the French Resistance, 119.
[9]“Research Guides: France in WW II: The French Resistance: Women in the French Resistance,” Women in the French Resistance – France in WW II: The French Resistance – Research Guides at Library of Congress, Library of Congress, guides.loc.gov/french-resistance-world-war-two/women-in-the-french-resistance. Accessed February 28, 2025.
[10]Gildea, Fighters in the Shadows, 141.
[11]Donald Reid, Germaine Tillion, Lucie Aubrac, and the Politics of Memories of the French Resistance (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009), 115, citing “Women of France. Brave Parts Played by Resisters,” The Times, March 24, 1944.
[12]“Research Guides: France in WW II: The French Resistance: Women in the French Resistance,” Women in the French Resistance – France in WW II: The French Resistance – Research Guides at Library of Congress, Library of Congress, guides.loc.gov/french-resistance-world-war-two/women-in-the-french-resistance. Accessed February 28, 2025.
[13]Gildea, Fighters in the Shadows, 137.
[14]“Oral History,” The Digital Collections of the National WWII Museum: Oral Histories | Oral History, www.ww2online.org/view/nicole-spangenberg#joining-the-french-resistance-and-returning-home-to-paris. Accessed February 28, 2025.
[15]Gildea, Fighters in the Shadows, 139.
[16]Ibid.
[17]Ibid, 144.
[18]Ibid, 136.
[19]Ibid, 137.
[20]Ibid, 137.
[21]“The History Teacher Who Outwitted the Gestapo,” History.com, A&E Television Networks, www.history.com/news/lucie-aubrac-the-history-teacher-who-outwitted-the-gestapo. Accessed February 28, 2025.
[22]Reid, Germaine Tillion, Lucie Aubrac, and the Politics of Memories of the French Resistance, 112.
[23]Reid, Germaine Tillion, Lucie Aubrac, and the Politics of Memories of the French Resistance, 113.
[24]Reid, Germaine Tillion, Lucie Aubrac, and the Politics of Memories of the French Resistance, 114.
[25]Marina Julienne, “The Silent Heroines of World War II,” CNRS News, June 6, 2024, https://news.cnrs.fr/articles/the-silent-heroins-of-world-war-ii.
[26]“Colette: The French Resistance Fighter Confronting Fascism – Oscars 2021 Short Documentary Winner,” YouTube, YouTube, November 18, 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7uBf1gD6JY, 23:34.