Women of the Resistance: Cristina Luca Boico

During the research for my upcoming series, The Resistance Chronicles, I found countless stories of brave women who served in resistance groups around the world. Some joined groups within their native countries. Others like Cristina Luca Boica, today’s featured resister, fled their homelands and joined organizations within their new country.

Born Bianca Marcusohn on August 8, 1916 in Botosani, Romania, Cristina and her family were part of the Jewish middle-class. According to several sites, Romania is a “deeply Francophile country," with French being the language of the Romanian elite since the 18th century. At the time of her upbringing, French was a mandatory language taught in schools, and she and her sister grew up reading French literature.

While attending Carmen Sylva High School, an elite school with an excellent national reputation, Cristina experienced her first antisemitic encounter that she later described a some of the non-Jewish students “maintaining a certain distance from us.” Additionally, the school had a dorm specifically set aside for Jewish students that was often attacked by non-Jewish students. She spent quite a bit of time at the dorm, Schuller, debating the merits of communism with Zionist students. She, and many others, argued that communism could end antisemitism because it “promised a better world for all, and thereby the genuine liberation of the Jewish people, allowing for a complete flourishing of its potential, dissolving nationalities, religions, and ethnicities.”

In 1937, she was expelled from university because of her political activities, and she left Romania to

continue her schooling at the Sorbonne. Three years later she participated in the 1940 demonstrations to protest the arrest of Paul Langevin, a French physicist who was outspoken about his opposition to fascism. She was arrested but quickly released.

The following year she joined the Organisation Spéciale—Main-d’Euvre Immigrée (OS-MOI), the armed group of the Immigrant Labor Force and came up with her first nom de plume: Monique. By 1942, she’d lost her job as a translator and went to work for the OS-MOI full-time. Shortly thereafter, the organization merged with two other groups, and she changed her name one final time to Cristina Luca. Her role was extensive, and she became an intelligence officer. She selected targets for resistance attacks and collected information. Reportedly with the knowledge of her professors, she stole chemicals from the school’s lab that she gave to the partisans. With her knowledge of chemistry, she constructed Molotov cocktails for sabotage missions.

In the first six months of 1943, there were fourteen train derailments, thirty-four acts of arson or bombings, and forty-three assassinations. It is unknown how many of these activities involved Cristina. By 1944, she was assigned to combat duty and participated in several partisan attacks. During the liberation of Paris in August 1945, she was part of the revolt, and after the city’s liberation, she joined the French Army as a lieutenant.

After the war Cristina returned to Romania, eventually married, and worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Due to the change in political climate, she was dismissed from her job in 1952, and her husband was “purged from his position” a few months later. They eventually left Romania and settled in France where she passed away in 2002 at the age of 85.

_________________

Spies & Sweethearts

She wants to do her part. He’s just trying to stay out of the stockade. Will two agents deep behind enemy lines find capture… or love?

1942. Emily Strealer is tired of being told what she can’t do. Wanting to prove herself to her older sisters and do her part for the war effort, the high school French teacher joins the OSS and trains to become a covert operative. And when she completes her training, she finds herself parachuting into occupied France with her instructor to send radio signals to the Resistance.

Major Gerard Lucas has always been a rogue. Transferring to the so-called “Office of Dirty Tricks” to escape a court-martial, he poses as a husband to one of his trainees on a dangerous secret mission. But when their cover is blown after only three weeks, he has to flee with the young schoolteacher to avoid Nazi arrest.

Running for their lives, Emily clings to her mentor’s military experience during the harrowing three-hundred-mile trek to neutral Switzerland. And while Gerard can’t bear the thought of his partner falling into German hands, their forged papers might not be enough to get them over the border.

Can the fugitive pair receive God’s grace to elude the SS and discover the future He intended?

Purchase Link: https://books2read.com/u/m0Od9l

Sources:
https://publicseminar.org/2016/08/antifascism-as-political-passion-in-the-life-of-cristina-luca/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristina_Luca_Boico
https://jewishlink.news/debunking-the-sheep-to-the-slaughter-myth-resistance-heroism-marceau-and-mime-in-occupied-france/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romania_in_World_War_II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Romania
https://bmmhs.org/romanian-military-experience-during-the-second-world-war
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/publication/ACFAF5.pdf

Photo Credits:

Cristina Luca: By unknown - Original publication: Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org

Sorbonne: Pixabay/Pexels

Resistance Members: REX Shutterstock/Roger Viollet

What Lessons Can We Learn From History: A Real-Life Story from Nazi-Occupied France, Part II

 By Donna Wichelman

(Part II of a two-part article on the Raffle of the 10th of January 1944 in the Gironde, France. See Part I From February 4th, 2024.)

In February, the first of a two-part article appeared about the Raffle of the 10th of January 1944 in Nazi-occupied France. This past 10th of January marked the 80th Anniversary of the event—something most of us find difficult to talk about because it’s so horrific. This two-part article is the story of one Jewish woman’s survival during one of the darkest times in our world’s history and how she has redeemed the abomination of the past.

Mme Josette Melinon Donna, October 2023, Donna's Gallery

Mme Josette Melinon was only three years old when the French Vichy government, in collaboration with the German-occupied forces, rounded up 335 Jewish men, women, and children in the Bordeaux region. Two days later, 317 people were sent to Drancy Internment Camp outside of Paris and then deported to Auschwitz a few weeks later. Most of Josette’s extended family were part of that group, including her grandmother Kami and Kami’s brother.

Mme Josette Melinon as a young child & her Father: Mme Melinon's Archives 

Kami’s brother was married to a Catholic wife, which gave his wife and children status as Catholics since religious affiliation was passed down through the mother’s side. Her brother retained Jewish status since his mother was Jewish. That meant that Kami’s brother, along with most of Josette’s family were interred at Drancy.

Kami’s brother had a skin disease, so his daughter (a Catholic) traveled by train to Drancy to take care of him. The Germans toyed with them, saying she could stay with her father if two people volunteered to be set free. But, of course, the Germans kept those volunteers’ papers so they could arrest them again later. Unfortunately, despite her Catholic status, his daughter’s decision led to internment at Auschwitz with her father. Many families were lost that way. They would try to discover what happened to their relatives, but then the Germans would take them away as well.

Another cousin was expecting a baby at Drancy. When it came her time to deliver, they sent her to Rothschild Hospital. But she never saw her baby.

In February’s blog post, we learned that Josette’s mother had also been taken to Drancy. But her story took a different turn while interned there. You see, part of the cruelty the Germans imposed was a system by which they determined who would be sent to Auschwitz. Identity papers were marked with an A, B, C, or D. No one knew what the letters meant except the Germans. Those deported to Auschwitz had Bs by their names.

Jewish Indentification Papers: Mme Melinon's Archives

Josette’s mother’s paper had been marked with a B. But someone had done a good deed and crossed out the B and wrote an A. This meant that she would not be deported but instead would be a prisoner, working as a nurse at the Rothschild Hospital mostly in the children’s ward. It would be a pivotal role for her.

The Germans came to the hospital every Saturday to check on who had gotten better and who had died. Josette’s mother became part of a Resistance group that hid the children, telling the soldiers they were dead or too sick with an infectious disease to be released. Then they would shuffle the children off to families or hide them under tables covered with sheets if there wasn’t enough time to get them out.

Mme Melinon's Mother (Middle): Mme Melinon's Archives

At the liberation of Paris, Josette’s mother helped members of the Resistance when they were injured or shot down in the streets. Afterward, when she finally came home, she rarely talked about her experiences except with a cousin.

Despite most of Josette’s family being deported, one relative did escape. He was Josette’s cousin Myriam Errerra’s younger brother Enri. When officials came to take the family away, he was in the house upstairs and didn’t move. He quickly got out of the house and walked along the roof until he could get down and find some friends he knew. They put him on a train away from the trouble. Though guilt haunted him for years, the fact that he could get away meant he could help others in the Resistance.

Myriam and Enri Errerra as Children: Mme Melinon's Archives

Though Enri found friendships in the Resistance, his son related to Josette that they always put him in the most dangerous places. They’d say, “He’s just a Jew,” a sign that even within the ranks of those fighting to win the war, racism wasn’t far from their doorstep.

Enri Errerra and His Wife as an Adult: Mme Melinon's Archives

Fast-forward sixty years to 2004 when a teacher in Libourne took their middle school class to see an exhibition of Jewish children deported to Auschwitz, and one of those children deported came from Libourne. It was because of the class’s heartfelt desire to understand the past that Josette Melinon became passionate about creating a foundation named after her cousin called the Association Souvenir Myriam Errera. The Association not only provides educational resources on the Jewish Holocaust, but it’s also a way to memorialize those who died.

Since the inception of the association, a local school has been named after Myriam Errerra. Josette travels to the community schools each year to speak about what happened, and the classes have a unit that addresses racism and anti-Semitism. In addition, every year, Libourne has a calendar of events that commemorate the Jewish Holocaust as well as the liberation of Libourne on 28 August 1944. See Libourne Local Newspaper

Libourne Schedule of Commemoration Events: Mme Melinon's Archives

Libourne Commemoration Event: Mme Melinon's Archives

Libourne Brochure of School and Community Commemoration Events: Mme Melinon's Archives

Libourne Brochure of School and Community Commemoration Events: Mme Melinon's Archives

After hearing Josette's story, I asked her what she would say to the younger generation today about that time in history. She said she tells them it's important to realize not everything they hear in the media or online is the truth. Look at the people who followed Hitler without questioning what they were being told. It's the same with fake news today. Analyze what you see and hear and test it to see if it is true. Especially given how AI has invaded our world, I would have to agree with Josette.

I leave this blog with a letter from Myriam's father on their way to Auschwitz in February 1944. He threw it out the train window with the hope someone would find it and deliver it to her grandfather: 

We’re going away from Drancy today towards Metz and we will be in Dresden or Czechoslovakia. We send you back the money we have, because they took away all our money, jewels, the food we had in cans, they took 810 francs… the rest was saved as you can see. We’re 60 people in the carriage ... Everyone in families, thank goodness. There are quite a lot of people who are ill. Happily, until now we’ve been saved from this. The stay in Drancy was not too bad. We hope this war will soon end. We don’t know where we stay or if this letter and its contents comes to you. Thank God, because I suppose afterward you will not get any news and we won’t get out of this to get them to you. I hope you have as much courage as we do, because our courage here is magnificant to see, and our morale is excellent. We regret all our beasts [animals] that we’ve left behind. We hope that Marcel and you will take care of our little cat…Courage and come back soon. We kiss you hundreds and hundreds of times.

Leonce Errerra 

Letter Written by Leonce Errerra to His Family in February 1944: Mme Melinon's Archives

Donna worked as a communications professional before turning to full-time writing. Her short stories, essays, and articles have appeared in various inspirational publications. She has two contemporary suspense novels in her Waldensian Series, Light Out of Darkness and Undaunted Valor available on Amazon.com. Her historical romance, A Song of Deliverance, will come out in December, published by Scrivenings Press. She is also working on a World War Two historical slip-time project that takes place in Libourne, France.

Weaving history and faith into stories of intrigue and redemption grew out of her love of history and English literature as a young adult while attending the United World College of the Atlantic--an international college in Wales, U.K. She loves to explore peoples and cultures of the world and enjoys developing plots that show how God's love abounds even in the profoundly difficult circumstances of our lives. Her stories reflect the hunger in all of us for love, forgiveness, and redemption in a world that often withholds second chances. You can find out more about Donna Wichelman or sign up for her newsletter at https://donnawichelman.com/

How One Aspect of Adolf Hitler's War Machine Devastated Hundreds of Thousands of French Lives

By Donna Wichelman

In December, I began a multi-month series on the Nazi occupation of France during World War Two. Based on the accounts of three lovely women and one gentleman alive as young children during the war—Mme Pierrette Couillandeau, Mme Marie-José Delage, Mme Josette Melinon, and Msr René Avril—we’ll be talking about their personal experiences and how they relate to the occupation between June 1940 and July 1944.

Mme Pierrette Couillandeau and Mme Marie-José Delage, Libourne, France
Donna's Gallery, October 2023

Mme Pierrette Couillandeau and Mme Marie-José Delage were still young children and friends in Libourne when France capitulated to Aldolf Hitler’s German Army in June 1940. Like most French families, they were uneasy about the armistice France signed in 1919, ending the First World War. But while Mme Delage’s father had been wounded during World War I and experienced what we would today call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and therefore wasn't required to serve, Mme Couillandeau’s father had a different experience.

Believing another war was inevitable, France built the Maginot Line, a series of concrete fortifications and weapons installations along their border with Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Italy during the 1930s to counteract an attack by the Germans. But the German Army made a surprise attack north of Saarbrücken in rugged forested terrain where no one expected, allowing them to break through French defenses, storming the country west and southward.

German Army Shows Japanese Officials Maginot Line
Everett Collection Inc / Alamy Stock Photo

Mme Couillandeau’s father was one of the French troops stationed in a village along the Maginot Line. He shouldn’t have been there. For one thing, he was too old at age thirty-six and had two children with mouths to feed. Moreover, he was a baker, and bakers were protected from military service by a law dating back to 1798 during the French Revolution, which said that the authorities could “commandeer bakeries and …. keep the masses in bread.” But Mme Couillandeau’s father had not declared his status and suffered the consequences of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Boulangerie Spécialité Pan Gascon, Since the Reign of Louis XV in 1765
Donna’s Gallery, October 2023

Boulangerie Spécialité Pan Gascon, Baking Bread Since Louis XV in 1765
Donna’s Gallery, October 2023

As the story goes, the men in Mme Couillandeau’s father’s unit took turns watching for German soldiers from the top of a church. One day, her father and one of his buddies were on the lookout but unaware that their unit had pulled out. They were left behind to be caught by the Germans and made prisoners of war. Her father was returned to his family in 1943 at a time when they were liberating the older prisoners and sending the younger ones to work in the Compulsory Work Service (Service du travail obligatoire or STO) for the German government.

STO required the forced enlistment and deportation of French men to Germany to work for the German war effort. Created under the regulations of Vichy France—the puppet government under Marshal Philippe Pétain, Hitler’s Vichy President—between 600,000 and 650,000 men from June 1942 to July 1944 were sent to work camps to compensate for the loss of German manpower as more and more soldiers were needed at the Eastern Front. The German government promised that one French prisoner of war would be released for every three men sent to Germany under the compulsory system. 

In Paris, French men and women being chosen for work in GermanyDeparture of STO workers from the Paris-Nord station in 1943
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-J14405%2C_Paris%2C_Abreise_franz%C3%B6sischer_Kriegsarbeiter_nach_Deutschland.jpg

In the beginning, before STO became compulsory, Pierre Lave, Prime Minister of the Vichy government, sold the enactment of relève as a volunteer work program to help secure the release of French prisoners of war. One French prisoner of war would be released for every three volunteer workers from France. It’s probable the “suggestion” came from Fritz Sauckel in, also known as the “slavemaster of Europe,” who was appointed by the General Plenipotentiary for Labor Deployment and charged  in March 1942 with finding labor in Europe. Eighty thousand prisoners of war were exchanged for 24,000 French workers during the Relève program.

But Sauckel’s demands became increasingly demanding, probably because Germany needed labor for their war machine. By April 23, 1943, Sauckel instituted the Compulsory Work Service, requisitioning 120,000 workers in May, 100,000 in June, and another 500,000 in August. However, the numbers were never achieved because the French began evading German compulsory demands by joining the French Resistance. At least 200,000 of them went into hiding.

Members of French Resistance March in Liberation Celebration in Libourne, France
Libourne City Archives

Mme Couillandeau’s father was one of the prisoners of war who was fortunate to come home because of the STO exchange program, though perhaps he could have evaded it altogether if he had declared his status as a baker from the start. Unfortunately, he did not, leaving two bakers at home, an eighteen-year-old young man who had just finished his training and a fifteen-year-old apprentice. Mme Couillandeau’s mother also delivered the bread using a cart she pushed around the community.

Upon Mme Couillandeau’s father’s return, he wanted to take back his old occupation and play cards with friends in a bar on the square in Libourne. But they told him they had made substantial money in the market, and he realized he had been a prisoner of war all the while they had made a lot of money. It was a bitter pill to swallow. He sold his shop and went to Bordeaux.

As I contemplated this real-life story, I was once more struck with the irony of how the war affected Mme Couillandeau's family every bit as much as Mme Delage's. In different ways, both men had become casualties of war, Mme Delage's father to experiencing PTSD during the First World War, and Mme Couillandeau's father to Adolf Hitler's war machine. In both cases, neither theirs nor their families' lives would ever be the same. It's something for all of us to ponder as we consider our contemporary world and those who would use war as a means to conquer and destroy other nations.

Donna worked as a communications professional before turning to full-time writing. Her short stories, essays, and articles have appeared in various inspirational publications. She also has two indie-published Christian contemporary suspense novels in her Waldensian Series, Light Out of Darkness and Undaunted Valor. She is working on a World War Two historical slip-time project.

Weaving history and faith into stories of intrigue and redemption grew out of her love of history and English literature as a young adult while attending the United World College of the Atlantic--an international college in Wales, U.K. She loves to

explore peoples and cultures of the world and enjoys developing plots that show how God's love abounds even in the profoundly difficult circumstances of our lives. Her stories reflect the hunger in all of us for love, forgiveness, and redemption in a world that often withholds second chances. You can find out more about Donna Wichelman or sign up for her newsletter at https://donnawichelman.com/