Hiding in plain sight while helping in plain sight. Creating the best of both worlds for herself and countless others. Giving credit where credit is due sometimes never happens yet when it does it's usually long overdue. Thanks, NYT & keep 'em coming!
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I always enjoy your "overlooked" obits, but this one has really bothered me. You praise her for being a spy, yet say that much of her accounts were invented. So, fine, she was a powerful writer. Then you give the writing credit to her husband by saying "Historians believe her husband was probably the ghostwriter for “I Was a Spy!”, and later stating that her writing ended when her husband left her -- further implying that he wrote the books. Throughout history, men have been given the credit for their wives' work -- writers and painters in particular. If you really believe he wrote the books and her spy work was fiction, why are you honoring her? If you're choosing to honor her, why are you dismissing all her accomplishments?
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Thank you for another great story, I look forward to them every week!
1
I love reading about these women. As a mother of a young daughter, we have been talking about how history is molded through those stories that are told. (Reading about Sacagawea right now!)
I would love to read Marthe's book! I wonder if it is in print anywhere...
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@Hollis Zimmer
The book is available on Amazon.
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@Mary MacKenzie
Thanks!
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I love that women are being honoured through this series. However, this one confuses me. The article states, "The account was later determined to be mostly invented." It then goes on to tell of all her thrilling and brave stories, but again, they are largely invented. So, by all means honour her for writing a thrilling novel but in terms of what she actually did in the war...
7
Thank you for this. We must all do our part to fight any evil in any way we can no matter what our role in society happens to be. McKenna's was a life that mattered to the war effort and to the triumph of good over evil.
2
I've read several of these "unforgotten" obits, and thoroughly enjoy them. I share them with a young niece who's interested like me in the early 1900's. Thank you NYT for this series, and for providing links to some of the obits I've missed.
5
A quick recommendation for anyone who enjoys this feature. The documentary called "Obit" about the obituary writers for the NYT was one of the most interesting documentaries I've seen.
5
any cursory perusal of WW 2 Jewish resistance literature will reveal hundreds of women who played heroic and many times fatal roles in the fight against evil. Many remain unnamed like the young woman who alone attacked a German tank during the Warsaw ghetto uprising.
5
Very interesting. How does her life story compare & contrast with that of Edith Cavell, a British nurse who helped soldiers escape German-occupied Belgium and who may have operated a spy network during the war?
3
What a great story, thank you for running it.
I love this series. I grew up in London in the same neighborhood where Violette Szabo - another relatively unknown female spy, tortured and killed by the Gestapo in WWII - lived. We knew about her because she was a local and is part of the neighborhood lore, but the majority of Brits have probably never heard of her. Just as I'd never heard of Marthe McKenna. There are so many women who've done jaw-dropping things, and whose names we've never even heard.
I hope you keep this series going permanently, we're definitely never going to run out of women who belong in it. (The NYT doesn't seem to have covered Ms. Szabo yet, by the way.)
14
Nor Denise Bloch, Cecily Lefort or Lilian Rolfe, all female SOE agents murdered at Ravensbrück along with Violette Szabo.
We have our fair share of people who care little for facts, names or events of history like others nations do, it is true - nevertheless people like Violette Szabo are honoured here in the UK to perpetuity in some way, shape or form, whether it’s a name carved into a memorial alongside other brave men and women, an annual award or a medal on permanent display at the nation’s war museum. Believe me, some of us know our history, know these facts and continue to marvel at people’s courage and will always honour and remember them.
7
The execution of Edith Cavell for alleged spying by German troops in Belgium in 1915 was an important part of the Allies’ war propaganda and her name is still familiar with a good number of British people. As a French immigrant whose grandfathers were seriously wounded in WWI, I had, until now, be indignant as well. This piece suggests to me that the reviled German troops may have been cut of the same cloth as the ‘heroic’ French and English troops exalted by the same war propaganda. In this light, I must admit to finding the first paragraph disturbing.
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@Claude Vidal
Nowhere in the first paragraph, or in fact anywhere in this piece, is heroism mentioned in connection with the Germans, nor is there any false equivalency drawn between the Germans and the Allies. It merely reports impartially that McKenna was a nurse whose job it was to save German lives, but that while doing so, she was spying for the British.
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@Claude,
Can you please direct me where this is in the article? Quote or paragraph number?
1
You must not be familiar with the atmosphere in the civilian populations of the belligerent countries during WWI. What I obviously did not make clear is that the propaganda on all sides portrayed the adversaries as lacking humanity. When nurse Edith Cavell was executed by the German troops in Belgium, her fate was used to further inflame hatred toward the German troops. Meanwhile, a nurse is set as an example for helping her side kill the men she was ministering to. If you don’t see what I am talking about, ignore it and count me as an old French accented fool.
Bravo Jillian Rayfield for this story, and the NYT for the new series Overlooked. Better late, than never.
4
Fascinating story. I think i'll buy the book. It got a rave review from WinstChurchill.
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What a life! Although a film was made the year after her book was published, I will bet it will be made again in the near future. In the right director's hands, a great one, and a coveted role for the actress in the lead.
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