1. Liberating Paris
On August 23rd, 1944, Simone Segouin was with the Resistance fighters of the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans when they helped liberate Charters. She took part in capturing 25 Germans, and shepherded them to POW cages. Simone and her comrades then linked up with the French 2nd Armored Division as it headed out to liberate Paris, and she was in the thick of the fighting that freed the French capital on August 25th.
For her performance, Simone was promoted to lieutenant, and awarded a Croix de Guerre. After the war, she became a pediatric nurse, and in 2017, a street in Courville-sur-Eure, a small town near Charters in which she now lives, was named in her honor.
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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading
Alter Net, December 28th, 2018 – Josephine Baker’s Secret Life as a WWII Spy
NYPost – Meet the Dutch Girls Who Seduced Nazis and Lured Them To Their Deaths
Imperial War Museum – Odette Sansom, GC
History – Meet the Night Witches, the Daring Female Pilots Who Bombed Nazis by Night
Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation – Eta Wrobel
RTD Documentary – How a Soviet Woman Bought a Tank and Avenged the Death of Her Husband During WWII
Vice, May 11th, 2016 – This 90 Year Old Lady Seduced and Killed Nazis as a Teenager
Washington Jewish Week, March 1st, 2017 – Charlotte Sorkine: Unknown Hero of the French Resistance
World War II Database – Roza Shanina
Wrobel, Eta – My Life, My Way: The Extraordinary Memoir of a Jewish Partisan in WWII Poland (2006)