- Aug 6, 2012
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To those who fight for their liberty. The world today could learn a great deal from the spirit they possessed. The true Resistance. I remember hearing about her in a documentary series I watched on youtube.
RIP.
Cécile Rol-Tanguy, resistance fighter who helped liberate Paris during Second World War, dies at 101
From a clandestine underground bunker among the stinking sewers of Nazi-occupied Paris in 1944, young mother of two Cécile Rol-Tanguy would climb 100 steep steps and emerge onto the city’s streets carrying her infant daughter while pushing her baby son in his stroller.
Her faked flirtatious smile, as well as forged documents, allowed her to pass Nazi soldiers and checkpoints with little more than wolf whistles. What the Germans didn’t know was that she had hidden pistols, grenades, ammunition, anti-Nazi leaflets, attack plans and often a light machine gun in the bedding of the baby carriage. The underground bunker was a command center of the French resistance.
Described as “a respected freedom fighter” by French President Emmanuel Macron in a tweet honoring her this week, Rol-Tanguy died May 8 at her home in Monteaux, France, at 101. Her death was exactly 75 years after V-E (Victory in Europe) Day, when the Nazis surrendered in Berlin, and World War II came to an end in Europe with only the Japanese to defeat. Her son Jean Rol-Tanguy announced her death but did not disclose a cause.
Her husband, Henri Rol-Tanguy, one of the most-revered heroes of the French resistance, died in 2002.
RIP.
Cécile Rol-Tanguy, resistance fighter who helped liberate Paris during Second World War, dies at 101
From a clandestine underground bunker among the stinking sewers of Nazi-occupied Paris in 1944, young mother of two Cécile Rol-Tanguy would climb 100 steep steps and emerge onto the city’s streets carrying her infant daughter while pushing her baby son in his stroller.
Her faked flirtatious smile, as well as forged documents, allowed her to pass Nazi soldiers and checkpoints with little more than wolf whistles. What the Germans didn’t know was that she had hidden pistols, grenades, ammunition, anti-Nazi leaflets, attack plans and often a light machine gun in the bedding of the baby carriage. The underground bunker was a command center of the French resistance.
Described as “a respected freedom fighter” by French President Emmanuel Macron in a tweet honoring her this week, Rol-Tanguy died May 8 at her home in Monteaux, France, at 101. Her death was exactly 75 years after V-E (Victory in Europe) Day, when the Nazis surrendered in Berlin, and World War II came to an end in Europe with only the Japanese to defeat. Her son Jean Rol-Tanguy announced her death but did not disclose a cause.
Her husband, Henri Rol-Tanguy, one of the most-revered heroes of the French resistance, died in 2002.
