Chabad House of Western Michigan

and 

The Jewish Women’s circle

Present: 

An Evening with Marthe Cohn 

Behind Enemy Lines: The True Story of a French Jewish Spy in Nazi Germany A Historic Evening with Marthe Cohn Marthe Cohn was a 20 year old French Jewish girl when the Nazis invaded France in 1940. Her life then took a turn so extraordinary that it could have been pulled straight from a Hollywood movie script.

While the rest of her family fled south Marthe decided to fight back. After graduating from nursing school she joined the French resistance and, on account of her perfect German accent and Aryan appearance, was recruited to be a spy. Carrying forged identification papers, she infiltrated German territory in the guise of a German nurse desperately searching for a fictional fiancé (by this time her real-life fiancé had been executed by the Nazis).  

During the next year she mingled freely with Nazi troops, on many occasions caring for injured Nazi soldiers in order to maintain her cover. She gathered invaluable information on troop positions which she secretly relayed to Allied commanders. Her intelligence gathering was instrumental in allowing the Allies to break through the Seigfried line and enter German territory 1945, leading to the end of the war.

When, at the age of 80, Cohn was awarded France’s highest military honor, the Médaille Militaire, not even her children knew to what extent this modest woman had faced death daily while helping defeat the Nazi empire. At its heart, this remarkable story is the tale of an ordinary human being who, under extraordinary circumstances, became the hero her country needed her to be.