“All in the same boat”: Non-French women and resistance in France, 1940-1944
Date
2010
Authors
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Resistance in France during World War II has been the subject of much
historiographical and popular interest. Few narratives, however, acknowledge the
impact of the resistance work of non-French women, who often served in capacities
beyond nurse and nurturer. Deeper research into the lives and experiences of foreign
women in France who participated in resistance activities reveals much about Vichy’s
expectations of women’s roles under their regime, as well as the limits of exclusive
categories of resistance and nationality. In this thesis I explore the participation of
non-French women in resistance activities in France by examining their involvement
in the American Friends Service Committee, the Emergency Rescue Committee (or
Centre Américain de Secours), and Special Operations Executive. The concepts of
relief, rescue and recovery help frame the discussion of resistance inherent in the
activities of these organizations.
I also examine how these women understood or confronted gendered
expectations of work, family and service through their resistance activities, and then
recorded their experiences in memoirs, letters and oral histories prepared years after
the end of the war. These sources offer the dilemmas of selective, subjective memory,
as well as the opportunity to question the political tools that shape official history and
the personal motivations that determine institutionalized memory.