User:JohnathanMulkey/sandbox

Hélène Podliasky was a French Resistance agent de liaison where she organized parachute supply drops, contacted agents, and helped sabotage NAZI plans. Hélène was also captured by NAZI’s for a brief period of time.

Early Life
Hélène was born in France in 1919 and grew up there. Growing up Hélène was able to learn 5 languages including German which aided in her future profession. When World War 2 started Hélène knew that her skills as an engineer and the fact that she could speak many different languages would be very useful to the French Resistance. In 1944 however after a huge push by the SS to mop up resistance groups in France Hélène and several other resistance women were arrested. After escaping a NAZI death march and making it to the safe front lines Hélène continued to live out the rest of her life in France until she unfortunately passed away in 2012.

World War II
During Helene’s time as agent de liaison she was arrested by the NAZI Secret Service along with 8 other women who were close friends of Hélène and other agent de liaisons. Those women were Suzanne Maudet, Nicole Clarence, Jacqueline Aubéry du Boulley, Madelon Verstijnen, Renée Lebon Châtenay Guillemette Daendels, and Yvonne Le Guillou. After being captured they were transferred to Ravensbrück which was an all women concentration camp in northern Germany. There the women were starved, tortured, and stripped naked in freezing conditions for inspections. The woman stayed strong however they took care of each other and even sabotaged panzerfaust shells on the factory line because to them no matter where they were they were still soldiers. Eventually as the Allie’s grew closer to the camp the NAZIS evacuated the 5000 prisoners across the East Germany country side. Gwen recalls that the women knew that if they didn’t escape they would die marching. The 9 women saw on opportunity to escape, there was chaos going on around them so the women jumped into a massive pile of corpses and blended in. Miraculously it worked! The women spent the next 10 days traveling across Germany looking for the American front lines seeking shelter and food at villages they found along the way. After a specifically excruciating cross over a river where the women were found by two Americans driving a jeep. -->