The oddest part of all that: my grand-mother was far more concerned that, if they found her, they would check my grand-father’s ID and potentially the whole group of residents at the hospital.
My grand-father was born in Strasbourg in 1919, the capital of Alsace, one of the two disputed areas between France and Germany. He was born in what was then France, but would have been considered German by the Third Reich. With his medical training, he would most likely be sent to the Eastern front, or worst.
The residents would have been even worst: they had found a way to use hospital resources to host one of their resident friend away from German attention, a Polish jew named Minkowski. He later became a key figure in neonatalogy (and his son is a well-known orchestra conductor). Any time I hear about a baby being born early, I feel something odd.
The only person in the family suspected was my great-grand-mother. She spent some time being interrogated in Fresnes, the nearby jail, with the bulk of the network. She was told that her name was on a notebook; she knew that it was crossed out. She testified that “that man” did knock on her door, asking about her political affiliation and she asked him to leave a widow alone; and that she remembered seeing him striking her name. Truth was: she knew very well this was the whole cell. Her name was stroke out because she did agree to host pilots, but the list was for food (which was rationed) and she said that she didn’t need extra.
Based on my grand-mother’s cooking skill, I think those pilots probably went quite hungry, but dodged a bullet.
All her stories have those incredible near-miss and I learnt a lot about OpSec from her.
My grand-father was born in Strasbourg in 1919, the capital of Alsace, one of the two disputed areas between France and Germany. He was born in what was then France, but would have been considered German by the Third Reich. With his medical training, he would most likely be sent to the Eastern front, or worst.
The residents would have been even worst: they had found a way to use hospital resources to host one of their resident friend away from German attention, a Polish jew named Minkowski. He later became a key figure in neonatalogy (and his son is a well-known orchestra conductor). Any time I hear about a baby being born early, I feel something odd.
The only person in the family suspected was my great-grand-mother. She spent some time being interrogated in Fresnes, the nearby jail, with the bulk of the network. She was told that her name was on a notebook; she knew that it was crossed out. She testified that “that man” did knock on her door, asking about her political affiliation and she asked him to leave a widow alone; and that she remembered seeing him striking her name. Truth was: she knew very well this was the whole cell. Her name was stroke out because she did agree to host pilots, but the list was for food (which was rationed) and she said that she didn’t need extra. Based on my grand-mother’s cooking skill, I think those pilots probably went quite hungry, but dodged a bullet.
All her stories have those incredible near-miss and I learnt a lot about OpSec from her.