Marthe cohn biography

Marthe Hoffnung Cohn (born 13 April 1920) is a French author, nurse, former spy and Holocaust survivor.
Interview Summary: Marthe Hoffnung Cohn, born on April 13, 1920 in Metz, France, describes her childhood; being forced by the French.
COHN, Marthe 1920-PERSONAL:Born 1920, in Metz, France; immigrated to the United States; married Major L. Cohn (an anesthesiologist); children: two sons.

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Marthe Cohn, Holocaust survivor who spied on the Nazis, publishes her memoir

After keeping her story secret for years, thinking nobody would believe her, French Holocaust survivor Marthe (Hoffnung) Cohn published her memoir Behind Enemy Lines: The True Story of a French Jewish Spy in Nazi Germany, on March 28, 2006.

Cohn was born on April 30, 1920, in Metz in Alsace-Lorraine, a French region on the border with Germany. The area had been annexed by Germany for nearly 50 years before World War I, so Cohn grew up speaking both German and French. In 1942, after her sister was arrested and murdered in Auschwitz, Cohn fled to Vichy France. There, she obtained fake identity papers and was able to pass as a non-Jew because of her blonde hair and blue eyes. Her fiancé, fighting for the French army, was killed by the Germans in 1943.

In 1944, after the liberation of France, Cohn joined the French Army as a nurse then was sent to a base as a social worker. When an officer asked her to answer his phones during his lunch break but apologized that she would be bored because all of his

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Cohn, Marthe 1920-

PERSONAL:

Born 1920, in Metz, France; immigrated to the United States; married Major L. Cohn (an anesthesiologist); children: two sons.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Rancho Palos Verdes, CA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Harmony Books, Crown Publishing Group, Random House, Inc., 201 East 50th St., New York, NY 10022.

CAREER:

Nurse. Military service: French army, nurse, intelligence officer during World War II; awarded the Medaille Militaire for outstanding military service, 2000.

WRITINGS:

(With Wendy Holden) Behind Enemy Lines: The True Story of a Jewish Spy in Nazi Germany, Harmony Books (New York, NY), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS:

At the age of eighty, Marthe Cohn was awarded the prestigious Medaille Militaire for her service as an intelligence officer in the French army during World War II. Cohn, a fair-haired Jew who was fluent in German, became a spy who, beginning at the age of twenty-four, made many trips behind enemy lines to return with information critical to the Allies. Cohn's children grew up not knowing of their mother's heroism until her story was published as

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102-year-old Holocaust survivor who kept spy identity secret for years reflects on Russian invasion

RANCHO PALOS VERDES, Calif. (KABC) -- The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine has 102-year-old Marthe Cohn of Palos Verdes worried and upset. Cohn was a spy during World War II who went behind enemy lines into Germany for the French army.

"War never solves any problem. It creates more problems," Cohn said. "To destroy cities and people, it doesn't make sense. Peace is sweet, and war is terrible."

An unlikely spy, Cohn, who is Jewish, spoke German, and the French sent her to Germany to gather intelligence like hidden German positions that ended up saving hundreds of lives. Cohn pretended to be a German nurse searching for her Nazi fiancé.

"I told them that if they help me and give me information, they will be released earlier, and if they give me the address of their family, we will protect them," said Cohn.

Some of Cohn's family were killed by the Nazis in concentration camps, and she kept her story a secret until she was 80 yea