13. The Teenage Resistance Heroine Who Saved Jewish Children from the Holocaust
As part of her Resistance work, Charlotte Sorkine stashed and transported weapons and money, often under the Nazis’ noses, and created and supplied fake documents. She also guided fugitives to the French border and safety beyond in Switzerland or Spain. In addition to escorting freedom fighters and political opponents of the Nazis and their French puppet regime, her charges included many Jewish children. She also took part in direct action, and on one occasion, planted a bomb that went off in a Paris movie theater where SS members were gathered. She also fought in the 1944 Paris Uprising that preceded that city’s liberation.
For her wartime services, Charlotte received numerous awards. They included the Médaille de la Résistance, the Croix du Combattant Volontaire de la Resistance, the Médaille des Services Volontaires Dans la France Libre, and the War Commemoration Medal. After the war, Charlotte resumed her education, and studied psychology at the Sorbonne and art history at the Louvre, as well as languages. She sailed to America to further her mental health studies, and to examine a model health treatment center in Kansas for replication in Paris. During a rough crossing of the Atlantic, she met and befriended Ernest Hemingway. After her return to France, she got married in a ceremony attended by her Resistance compatriots, and settled into family life and a rewarding professional career.