Audiobook10 hours
Behind Enemy Lines: The True Story of a French Jewish Spy in Nazi Germany
Written by Marthe Cohn and Wendy Holden
Narrated by Kirsten Potter
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
Marthe Cohn was a young Jewish woman living just across the German border in France when Hitler rose to power. Her family sheltered Jews fleeing the Nazis, including Jewish children sent away by their terrified parents. But soon her homeland was also under Nazi rule. As the Nazi occupation escalated, Marthe's sister was arrested and sent to Auschwitz and the rest of her family was forced to flee to the south of France.
Always a fighter, Marthe joined the French Army and became a member of the intelligence service of the French First Army. Marthe, using her perfect German accent and blond hair to pose as a young German nurse who was desperately trying to obtain word of a fictional fiance, would slip behind enemy lines to retrieve inside information about Nazi troop movements. By traveling throughout the countryside and approaching troops sympathetic to her plight-risking death every time she did so-she learned where they were going next and was able to alert Allied commanders.
Always a fighter, Marthe joined the French Army and became a member of the intelligence service of the French First Army. Marthe, using her perfect German accent and blond hair to pose as a young German nurse who was desperately trying to obtain word of a fictional fiance, would slip behind enemy lines to retrieve inside information about Nazi troop movements. By traveling throughout the countryside and approaching troops sympathetic to her plight-risking death every time she did so-she learned where they were going next and was able to alert Allied commanders.
Related to Behind Enemy Lines
Related audiobooks
Born Survivors: Three Young Mothers and Their Extraordinary Story of Courage, Defiance, and Hope Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Resistance: A Frenchwoman's Journal of the War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz: A True Story of World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Bookshop in Berlin: The Rediscovered Memoir of One Woman's Harrowing Escape from the Nazis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Hitler's Mountain: Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Girl in the Green Sweater: A Life in Holocaust's Shadow Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Nine: The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Dear Ones: One Family and the Final Solution Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Forgotten Hero: Folke Bernadotte, the Swedish Humanitarian Who Rescued 30,000 People from the Nazis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dancing with the Enemy: My Family's Holocaust Secret Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fragments of Isabella: A Memoir of Auschwitz Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Five Chimneys: A Woman Survivor's True Story of Auschwitz Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Day the Germans Came Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Forty Autumns: A Family's Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I Am a Star: Child of the Holocaust Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond the Yellow Star to America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In Broad Daylight: The Secret Procedures behind the Holocaust by Bullets Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Ventriloquists Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Horrors of War: A Jewish Girl, a British Doctor, and the Liberation of Bergen-Belsen Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Suzanne's Children: A Daring Rescue in Nazi Paris Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shores Beyond Shores: From Holocaust to Hope Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Delayed Life: The True Story of the Librarian of Auschwitz Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Mother's Secret: Based on a True Holocaust Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Good Doctor of Warsaw Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Irena's Children: The Extraordinary Story of the Woman Who Saved 2,500 Children from the Warsaw Ghetto Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/550 Children: One Ordinary American Couple's Extraordinary Rescue Mission into the Heart of Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Henry (LU): A Polish Swimmer's True Story of Friendship from Auschwitz to America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The House on Thrömerstrasse: A Story of Rebirth and Renewal in the Wake of the Holocaust Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Remembering Ravensbrück: Holocaust to Healing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Wars & Military For You
The Book of Five Rings Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Watchmaker's Daughter: The True Story of World War II Heroine Corrie ten Boom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Kill Anything That Moves Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Dirty Tricks Department: Stanley Lovell, the OSS, and the Masterminds of World War II Secret Warfare Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America's Colony Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Last Kingdom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Strategy Masters: The Prince, The Art of War, and The Gallic Wars Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Shortest History of Israel and Palestine: From Zionism to Intifadas and the Struggle for Peace Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the Atomic Bomb and the 116 Days That Changed the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Rape of Nanking: The History and Legacy of the Notorious Massacre during the Second Sino-Japanese War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Diary of Anne Frank Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An American Legend Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Saved: A War Reporter's Mission to Make It Home Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Korean War: A History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Operator: Firing the Shots that Killed Osama bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5On Palestine Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin - Book Summary: How U.S. Navy SEALS Lead And Win Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of September 11, 2001 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related categories
Reviews for Behind Enemy Lines
Rating: 4.364864864864865 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
37 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This book never lost my interest. Wonderful from start to finish. And a great narrator.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Well written, held my attention, informative.
Would listen again sometime. Liked the narrator. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A beautiful book about an ugly time. A book not about the war, but about a French Jewish girl and her family, in a time of war.
Early in the book the author (Marthe) talks about a neighbor girl calling her a "dirty Jew". Her response was to tell her that she bathed every day and then when the girl repeated her insult she smashed the bag of eggs she was carrying on her head. The author of this memoir was a young blonde girl at the start of WWII who lived in Northern France with her Jewish family. As the war began and German attack seemed imminent the Family moved away from the border.
It's interesting that the author talks about how she believed the diplomats would all work things out. That they wouldn't really let things get so bad that France would have to fight after how terrible the last great war had been. This was not to be, despite all the good intentions of diplomats of many nations it only took one to make their work of no effect.
The author talks about how some French citizens bent over backwards to treat their fellow citizens that happened to be Jews as well or better than others because of the way the German occupiers treated the Jews. Some, however, believed along with the official German policy that Jews were inherently bad and didn't mind taking advantage of German laws that allowed them to take the Jews belongings and treat them as lesser human beings. It was a time of fear. You never knew when the Germans might come barging into your home for an "inspection". If any little thing was out of line, and the rules changed all the time, they would arrest people and take them to jail.
One of the author's siblings, her sister she loved dearly, who was just getting over being ill, was arrested on suspicion of helping someone escape the area without permission. She did not cooperate with authorities. Her father was also arrested and then released and he told the family that they had her standing at attention, yelling at her for hours. And whenever she would slump or put her hands on the desk to rest some of her body weight they would go ballistic. She would not break and was interred in a local camp. After being moved a couple times she disappeared into Germany. The family searched for months after the war before finding that she was sent to Auschwitz. Only a few were preserved off the train she came in on, most were marched right to the gas chambers. Since she never regained her health it was likely she was not one of the few sent to work.
The family escaped to southern France where the Germans had less influence. A local official forged identity papers without the Jewish designation aiding their escape. The author started nursing school. The French ladies did not want her there but the head lady told them they would allow her to study and work or they would be fired. The author fell in love with a French boy who was caught up in trying to kidnap a collaborator to frighten him. However, the person they tried to kidnap ended up pulling out a gun and shooting and they hit him over the head and stabbed him ending his life. The four kidnappers were arrested and tried. At trial the defense attorney successfully argued that they did not intend to kill the victim. That they were confused young men trying to be patriots and the death was accidental. They were sentenced to long jail sentences. Then the Germans took them from the French authorities and shot them.
Marthe was devastated. She finished her schooling. After Paris was liberated she tried to join the Resistance. She was turned down until the mother of her deceased beau vouched for her. She enlisted in the Free French forces and ended up working as a spy since she could speak perfect German and French. She ended up doing multiple mission into Germany and reporting troop concentrations and movements back to the allies earning several medals for valor. She participated in the occupation force for some time and eventually decided she wanted out of the spy business and went to Vietnam as a nurse for several years.
She relays her adventures and life after the war and ties up the stories of her family members giving the story a good sense of closure.