Espionage Archives - Infinite Women

Lise Lesèvre

A member of the French Resistance, she was brutally tortured by Klaus Barbie, the so-called “Butcher of Lyon,” after being captured with clandestine documents.

Madeleine Riffaud

Madeleine Riffaud was a French war correspondent and poet who worked with the French Resistance during WWII

Frech Resistance memebr who later co-founded Maternité Heureuse, an organisation to promote birth control, and developed what is believed to be the world’s the first women’s studies course in 1967 at Paris Nanterre University.

Françoise de Boissieu

French Resistance fighter in WWII

Isabel Townsend Pell

American socialite who joined the French Resistance during World War II — one of the few women who was part of the Maquis — purportedly due to her good aim.

Jeanne Berthomier

Jeanne Berthomier, who was a civil servant in the Ministry of Public Works in Paris, managed to deliver top-secret information typed on tissue paper to the Alliance chief, Marie Madeleine Fourcade.

Jeanne Chanton

As a member of the French Resistance, Jeanne Chanton was arrested and sent to a work camp in Germany during WWI.

Célia Bertin

Célia Bertin was recruited to help Allied aviators hidden in Occupied Paris because of her ability to speak English. In 1993 she published a study of women during this period, Femmes sous l’Occupation.

Claire Chevrillon

After the increasingly harsh laws were imposed on Jewish citizens during WWII, she joined the resistance most notably encoding and decoding messages between the Free French in London and de Gaulle’s Paris delegation.