We are going underground.
― Jacqueline Marié

It’s the continuation of my new miniseries on a subject extremely near and dear to my heart: Women In War! For the next few weeks I’ll be focusing on the experiences of women in France during World War II: fighting the resistance, collaborating with the Nazis, keeping children alive against the odds, and trying to figure out the right way to live in a world that seemed upside down. The idea of this series first took shape before I even began this podcast, and I’m thrilled to bring it to you now.
While our last episode focused on Coco Chanel and other French men and women who eagerly collaborated with the Germans, a number of brave men – and, particularly women – risked their lives to fight back. This week, we’ll focus on the women of the French Resistance.
Episode 56: “Women At War 4: The Résistante (Jacqueline Marié)”






Jacqueline Marié: Heroine of the French Resistance
Jacqueline is incredible – and I don’t mean to spoil the ending of the miniseries with that verb tense, but YES, that’s RIGHT, she is STILL ALIVE and kicking butt and writing her memoirs. If you speak French, here are some incredibly precious videos of Jacqueline telling her own story.

Transcript
Bienvenue and welcome back to The Land of Desire. I’m your host, Diana, and this week I’m continuing my series about life during the German Occupation: Women At War. Each episode, I’m examining one specific woman’s life during this extraordinary time. The series is roughly chronological, so I’d recommend listening to the series in order, as it traces the way that women’s circumstances changed over the course of the war. In episode one, we began with Elisabeth Kauffman, a 16 year old Jewish refugee from Austria, as she watched Paris fall to the German army before she hit the road in the epic French Exodus. In episode two, we met with Berthe Auroy, a retired schoolteacher struggling to make her way back from the Exodus to her home in Paris, and then building a new life under the eyes of an occupying army, as food grew scarce, homes grew cold, and the population got restless. In episode three, we took a look at France’s dirty little secret, the collabos who benefited from the Occupation and wholeheartedly supported the Nazi regime. Specifically, we focused on the fashion designer Coco Chanel, whose right-wing conservativism and rabid anti-Semitism encouraged her to spy for the Gestapo. However, not every French woman took a position of “wait-and-see” or outright collaboration. There were a few women – much fewer than the French would perhaps like to admit – but there were a few women of tremendous bravery who viewed the German Occupation as a call-to-arms. These women risked their freedom, their families, and their lives in order to fight the Nazis, and after the war they were almost entirely forgotten or scrubbed out of the history books by their own leaders. One such woman was Jacqueline Marié, another 16 year old girl on the front lines, who risked everything to free her country from German occupation. Hers is an epic war story: intrigue, espionage, sabotage, imprisonment, torture, liberation, abandonment, and eventually, over time, perhaps a sort of victory. Join me for today’s episode, The Résistante.

 
“We are going Underground.”
 
It was October 24th, 1940 when 16 year old Jacqueline Marié reached her breaking point. From the moment Germany declared war against France, Jacqueline and her family were ready to fight. Gathered around the radio, Jacqueline and the Marié family listened in disbelief as the President of France, Philippe Pétain,