Heroes at 97 - Marthe Cohn and J Paul Taylor

On the 97^th Anniversary of women's suffrage in the U.S., two 97-year-olds, speaking on consecutive nights, reminded us – more with their lives than their words – of the importance of standing up against intolerance and hatred.

Sunday, lifelong resident J. Paul Taylor spoke. He embodies ethnic mixing: his Scotch-Irish father and Mexican mother raised a fine young man who taught generations of kids. Then, at 66, he started a nearly two-decade career as the Conscience of the Legislature. He's always stood up for tolerance, equality, and freedom. He still does. 

Monday . . . Imagine a Jewish French girl living near the German border during World War II. She and her family suffer much as France surrenders and Germans occupy her town – and the rest of France collaborates with the Nazis. She trains as a nurse. Risking their lives, she and her family hide refugees, and help them navigate the European version of the Underground Railway. 

When France is liberated, she joins the French Army, at 24. A captain learns she speaks and reads German fluently. She has blonde hair and blue eyes. She ends up in Intelligence, volunteering for repeated missions across the border into Germany. (Only women can do this: posing as a male German would fail, since any young male would be in the army.) 

Sounds like a movie. Not something you go into the Rio Grande Theater to hear the heroine describe.

Marthe Cohn's book, Behind Enemy Lines tells a hell of a story. Not without humor. As when she describes waiting with an older French guide for nightfall, so that she can cross when the German sentries won't see her. He tells her a lot about his wife and family, then, with a strange smile, says, “'You may die tonight. Why don't we have a bit of fun?” But, she tells us more than 70 years later, “that wasn't on my agenda.”

Across the border, she mingles with Germans as a German nurse seeking her lost fiance, a German soldier. She learns much about German troop movements, information that saves lives and helps shorten the war. When she's offered a chance to go home, she declines. Her mission will only end when there's an Armistice. She asks only for a bicycle, having walked many miles. 

 

She falls in with some Germans. One SS officer boasts of his atrocities and brags that he can smell a Jew from a mile away. When he suddenly faints, she nurses him back to health. Grateful, he invites her to visit him at the Siegfried Line. Several weeks later, she tries, but some German soldiers tell her that the entire area west of Freiberg has been evacuated – and ambushes await the Allies in the Black Forest. She manages to get this critical information into Allied hands. (Fortunately, the first tank that shows up is French, since she has not yet learned English.) “That is what they gave me all those medals for,” she tells us, gesturing at the long table on stage.

With occasional help from her husband, she tells us her story. She speaks with charm and wit, and a surprising command of the English vernacular, referring to “mom-and-pop stores,” and of soldiers “taking me for a bimbo,” and using such words as “newcomer,” “rickety,” and entailed.” (She learned English after the war.) 

 

Marthe was pretty then. She's magnificent now. Like J. Paul, she speaks with humility and grace. 
 

Both articulate a message still painfully clear: if we do not each do what we can against hatred and injustice, the fight could be lost.

                                                   -30-

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 3 September 2017, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and KRWG's website.  A spoken version will be aired by KRWG several times this week, including twice on Wednesday, and by KTAL-LP 101.5 FM on Thursday.]

[Much thanks to Dr. Richard Hempstead for alerting us to Ms. Cohn's imminent appearance here -- and treating us to seats; thanks to Rabbi Bery Schmukler and the Alevy Chabad Jewiosh Center of Las Cruces for arranging Ms. Cohn's appearance; and thanks to Cynthia Garrett and the others who organized the annual birthday fest for Mr. Taylor.]  

[I've written often about J Paul ["An Admirable Friend"], including an earlier birthday celebration ["Where Love Abides - J Paul Taylor is 95!"] and the book about his life (The Man from Mesilla)by Ana Pacheco ["A Saturday Afternoon in Mesilla" (2012).]. 

[Ms. Cohn's book, co-authored with Wendy Holden, is Behind Enemy Lines - The true story of a French Jewish spy in Nazi Germany, published in 2002 by Three Rivers Press.  I will read it with interest.  Interestingly, Ms. Cohn was pretty silent about her exploits for decades, so silent that her children had been unaware of them in any detail until she was awarded the Medaille Militaire on 14 July 2000 (presented by the French consul in Los Angeles).   "She was just our mom," they commented.] 

Marthe Cohn signs a copy of her book - Rio Grande Theater 28Aug2017

J Paul Taylor - "Happy Birthday!" SNMFRM 27Aug2017

[To anyone who objects that Ms. Cohn's conduct is much more "heroic" than J Paul's, I'd agree -- as, I'm sure, would he.  But the coincidence of hearing moving speeches by two admirable 97-year-olds on consecutive days was irresistible; and both speak to contemporaneous concerns, to which their own lives and spirit are highly relevant.]