Category: French Resistance

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I Was Looking Forward to a Quiet Old Age

They say that revolutions are for the young. That’s probably a truism when you look at the French Revolution and even to contemporary ones like Egypt’s “Arab Spring.” It may also apply to resistance movements during periods of conflict. When one studies the French Resistance during the German Occupation, it becomes clear very quickly that most resistance members are young (thirty-five or younger).

Etta Shiber. Photo by anonymus (c. 1943). From the book Paris-Underground.
Etta Shiber. Photo by anonymus (c. 1943). From the book Paris-Underground.

That is until you meet Etta Shiber, a 62-year old widow and former Manhattan housewife, who lived in Paris with her best friend before and during the Occupation—with the exception of the time she spent in a Gestapo prison.

Did You Know?

After nearly 600 years in England, a medieval ring belonging to Joan of Arc was returned to France. On the eve of her execution in May 1413, she gave the ring to an English cardinal. Throughout the centuries it was bought and sold multiple times. On 4 March 2016, it came back to France after an organization successfully bid $425,000 at auction. Reportedly, there is sufficient documentation to authenticate the ring as belonging to Joan.

Kitty

Etta and her husband traveled to Paris every year for a three-month stay. While there in 1925, she met Kitty who was to become her best friend. Kitty Beaurepos, the daughter of a London banker, was an English society woman who married young. Moving to Italy, she and her husband had a son but shortly after, her first husband passed away and Kitty moved to Paris. She married a Frenchman but then amicably separated. Kitty eventually opened a small dress shop on Rue Rodier where she catered to Americans and this is where the two women met.

Every year on her annual trip to Paris, Etta would call on Kitty. In 1933, Etta traveled to Paris without her husband but did take her ill brother. Irving became so ill that Kitty had to bring in the best medical help that Paris had to offer. Alas, it wasn’t enough and Irving died (he was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery). William Shiber died three years later leaving Etta a widow. Kitty invited her to move to Paris and live with her at 2, rue Balny d’Avricourt in one of Paris’s more exclusive neighborhoods (near the Arc de Triomphe). Read More I Was Looking Forward to a Quiet Old Age

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Noah’s Ark

Official stamp of the Réseau Alliance. Photo by anonymous (date unknown).
Official stamp of the Réseau Alliance. Photo by anonymous (date unknown).

My attention is always drawn to stories about the brave members of the resistance movements who fought the Germans in their respective occupied countries. These men and women were always aware of their potential fatal outcomes if caught but largely ignored it to continue the fight for liberation. I’ve written in the past about some of these fighters including Nancy Wake (read here), the Boulloche sisters (read here), the Sussex Plan (read here), Rose Valland (read here), and the SOE—Special Operations Executive (read here).

Today, I’ll introduce you to the remarkable Hedgehog and the other animals of Noah’s Ark, one of the most successful résistance réseaux (resistance networks) operating in France during the German Occupation.

Did you Know?

Nazi concentration camp prisoners (i.e., those chosen for labor and not sent directly to the gas chambers) received a number tattooed on their arm. The misconception is that all camps tattooed their prisoners. That is not true. Only Auschwitz and two of its sub camps, Birkenau and Monowitz, practiced tattooing the prisoners. Learn more in our next blog, The Auschwitz Tattooist.

 The French Resistance

Most people have the mistaken idea that the French resistance movement was a single organization comprised of men and women with the same motivation: identify and sabotage strategic German targets for the purpose of driving the occupiers out of France. It’s not that simple.

Strasbourg France memorial for the Réseau Alliance agents executed by the Nazis on 23 November 1944. Photo by Rolf Krahl (2014). © Rolf Krahl. PD-Creative Commons license CC BY 4.0. Wikimedia Commons.
Strasbourg France memorial for the Réseau Alliance agents executed by the Nazis on 23 November 1944. Photo by Rolf Krahl (2014). © Rolf Krahl. PD-Creative Commons license CC BY 4.0. Wikimedia Commons.

The French Resistance movement was largely comprised of hundreds of independent networks, each with its own set of politics, motivations, and specific purposes. These networks were Communist, apolitical, right-leaning, left-leaning, and Christian democratic. Resistance activity began to gain strength after Hitler attacked Soviet positions in eastern Poland on 22 June 1941 in violation of the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Prior to the German attack, French communist resistance activities were not allowed by Moscow.

Eventually, Charles de Gaulle assigned Jean Moulin the task of uniting and organizing the various resistance networks. In May 1943, Moulin created the Conseil National de la Résistance (CNR) under which the primary networks would coordinate their activities with the Free French Forces of the Interior. Read More Noah’s Ark