Women in the French Resistance
After the conquest of parts of France by German troops in June 1940, established various resistance groups, which take precedence over against the occupation and organized schedule for this purpose. Women played within the Resistance in many groups a particular role. They gave inter alia, information about German equipment and troop movements to the Allies on and participated as connecting women in the procurement and delivery of messages. They took care of their part learned professions as nurses or doctors to the wounded. They worked in the background in the food activists who often needed a safe place to hide.
In the active resistance Résistance went on to with acts of sabotage to disrupt the infrastructure of the Germans and to interrupt supply lines. Attack targets were therefore. Among other road and rail networks, including transport of weapons and other supplies The sabotage often women were deployed to transport weapons and ammunition to convey messages to activists or eliminate traces in attacks. You were there exposed to a significantly higher risk than those who exercised the attacks.
Research position
Only since the 1970s - in the light of testimony in processes, as in the trial of Klaus Barbie - the role of women in the Resistance was addressed in French public. Today it is a part of the gender research.
To date, there is more English-language literature on the subject than French. Margaret Collins Weitz from Suffolk University, Boston, USA, in 1995 intensified the debate with her book Sisters in the Resistance. The Women 's War to Free France, 1940-1945. Here for the first time reported a variety of contemporary witnesses about their experiences.