Behind enemy lines

The Smell of Danger

There was no time to be frightened. My mission was clear. Shortly before midnight on that bitterly cold night in February 1945, I left the small French town of Thann with four officers and twenty Moroccan commandos. The men were heavily armed with machine guns, tommy guns, and grenades, and well-prepared for the weather. Posing as Martha Ulrich, a young nurse fleeing from the Allies, it was part of my subterfuge that I was neither armed nor suitably dressed. I wore simple clothes--a woollen skirt, jacket, hat, and gloves. I had knee-high socks under my ski boots, but my legs were bare above the knees.

It was very dark and intensely cold. The towering fir and pine trees dimmed what little light there was, and only the snow was distinguishable in the gloom. We set off in a long line, marching through deep drifts. The snow came halfway up the legs of the fourteen men in front of me and the ten behind me, but most of the time I sank up to my hips. My only consolation was that I was now warm. I had to use my hands to pull each leg out of the snow as I walked, but I never once faltered. I could see the men constantly watching me, ready to help if I fell, but the challenge of keeping up drove me on.

For five hours we traveled in complete silence, aware that the Germans were all around us. Sound carries surprisingly well in such a still, frosty environment. Outside Thann, with all its crooked buildings, we must have gone more than four miles up a mountain, and then down toward Amselkopf. The snowy peaks of the Vosges Mountains loomed high above us.

At the edge of a small valley my military escort stopped and stared at me, blinking in the dark. This was where they were to turn back. We were deep in the thick pine forests, trees close all around, making it almost impossible to see. Nothing was said, only hand signals were used. The guide shone his hooded flashlight on his map to remind me which narrow, icy path to take along the southern slope

Marthe Cohn lives in Palo Verdes, California. A holocaust survivior, she was awarded the title of Chevalier de l Ordre de la Légion d Honneur in 2005.

Wendy Holden has written numerous books and is a celebrated journalist. She lives in England.

This compelling memoir is a testament to how extraordinary circumstances can transform a life and how an extraordinary person reacts to difficult circumstances. What comes through is the importance of courageous individual action in the most dire situations. This is the amazing story of a woman who lived through one of the worst times in human history, losing family members to the Nazis but surviving with her spirit and integrity intact. Publishers Weekly