WW2 resistance hero Nancy Wake dies
GETTY IMAGES
Nancy Wake displays her Companion in the General Division of the Order of Australia award she received in 2004
ENLARGEAustralian Nancy Wake, who as a spy became one the Allies' most decorated servicewomen for her role in the French resistance during World War II, has died in London, officials said today. She was 98.
Code named "The White Mouse" by the Gestapo during the war, Wake died Sunday in a London nursing home, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said.
"Nancy Wake was a woman of exceptional courage and resourcefulness whose daring exploits saved the lives of hundreds of Allied personnel and helped bring the Nazi occupation of France to an end," Gillard said in a statement.
Trained by British intelligence in espionage and sabotage, Wake helped to arm and lead 7,000 resistance fighters in weakening German defenses before the D-Day invasion in the last months of the war.
While distributing weapons, money and code books in Nazi-occupied France, she evaded capture many times and reached the top of the Gestapo's wanted list, according to her biographer, Peter FitzSimons.
"They called her the 'la Souris Blanche,' 'the White Mouse,' because every time they had her concerned ... she was gone again," FitzSimons told Australian Broadcast Corp. radio on Monday.
"Part of it was she was a gorgeous looking woman," he said. "The Germans were looking for someone who looked like them: aggressive, a man with guns — and she was not like that."
France decorated her with its highest military honor, the Legion d'Honneur, as well as three Croix de Guerre and the Medaille de la Resistance.
The United States awarded her its Medal of Freedom and Britain, the George Medal. Her only Australian honor did not come until 2004, when she was made a Companion of the Order of Australia.
Born Aug. 30, 1912, in the New Zealand capital of Wellington, Nancy Grace Augusta Wake was the youngest of six siblings. When she was 2 the family moved to Sydney, but her father left the family soon after and returned to New Zealand.
Wake became a nurse before an inheritance from a New Zealand aunt enabled her to run away from home in 1931 and fulfill her dream of traveling to New York, London and Paris, she said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corp. in 1985.
After studying journalism in London, she became a correspondent for The Chicago Tribune in Paris and reported on the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany. A 1933 trip to interview Hitler in Vienna led her to become committed to bringing down the Nazis.
"I saw the disagreeable things that he was doing to people, first of all the Jews," she told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio in 1985. "I thought it was quite revolting."
When World War II broke out in 1939, she was living in the French city of Marseille with her first husband, French industrialist Henri Fiocca. She helped British servicemen and Jews escape the German occupying force.
Her husband was eventually seized, tortured and killed by the Gestapo. But Wake managed to escape in 1943 through Spain to London, where she received the espionage training before helping to lead the French resistance in its final days.
Wake continued working for British intelligence in Europe after the war until 1957, when she moved back to Australia and married British fighter pilot John Forward. She moved back to Britain in 2001, four years after Forward's death. She never had children.
According to her wishes, Wake's body is expected to be cremated privately and her ashes scattered next spring at Montlucon in central France, where she fought in a heroic 1944 attack on the local Gestapo headquarters.
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Mulher mais procurada pela Gestapo na Segunda Guerra Mundial morre aos 98 anos
Por O Globo, com Reuters | Agência O Globo – 2 horas 44 minutos atrás
Nancy Wake morreu aos 98 anos, em Londres
SIDNEY - Nancy Wake, uma condecorada espiã australiana que atuou durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial e chegou a ser a pessoa mais procurada da polícia nazista Gestapo, morreu neste domingo em Londres aos 98 anos.
- Nancy Wake foi uma mulher de extraordinária coragem cujo esforço salvou centenas de vidas de aliados e ajudou a dar um fim à ocupação nazista na França. A nossa nação homenageia um indivíduo verdadeiramente notável, cujo valor e tenacidade nunca vamos esquecer - disse a primeira-ministra da Austrália, Julia Gillard, em uma nota divulgada à imprensa.
Conhecida como 'a rata branca', Nancy foi considerada uma heroína de guerra e resistência por causa de sua habilidade de manter sua identidade escondida das forças nazistas por muito tempo.
Nascida na Nova Zelândia, Nancy se mudou para a Austrália ainda bebê e foi criada no país. Lá, ela trabalhou como enfermeira, por pouco tempo. Depois iniciou sua carreira como jornalista na Europa, onde conheceu e se casou com o executivo francês Henri Fiocca, em 1939.
Depois que os nazistas invadiram a França, a moça de cabelos escuros logo se tornou uma mensageira da resistência e depois começou a agir como uma espiã. Após ser traída por um colega, ela fugiu para Londres, mas seu marido foi torturado e morto pela Gestapo.
Tempos depois ela voltou para a França e se tornou um dos principais contatos entre Londres e os grupos da resistência local.
- Na minha opinião, alemão bom era alemão morto, e quanto mais morto melhor. Só me arrependo de não ter matado mais deles - disse Nancy certa vez em uma entrevista.
O legado de Nancy se resume em suas medalhas: ela ganhou a condecoração britânica de George, a medalha americana da Liberdade e a 'Croix de Guerre' da França. Em 2004, ela foi promovida a Companheira da Ordem da Austrália.
Nancy morava em um retiro de descanso para veteranos de guerra aposentados em Londres. Em 2003, ela sofreu um enfarto. E neste domingo uma infecção no tórax tomou-lhe vida, poucos dias antes de ela completar 99 anos, no dia 30 de agosto.
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