The Indomitable Spirit of Marthe Cohn

“My name is pronounced M-a-r-t . . . the rest is silent.” This is how the documentary Chichinette: The Accidental Spy opens, with an almost-96-year-old Marthe Cohn giving an interview on the phone. Her one syllable name matched her entire aspect. Short, sweet, and strong.

Certain monikers shine through the annals of history, tied to heroic achievements, but for various reasons Marthe Cohn isn’t a household name, despite living an extraordinary life. But then again, it was her ability to blend in—her slight stature, the way some people assume a woman is not involved in important work, her seamless language skills—that gave her the edge required to glide through Nazi-controlled territory and obtain information that saved countless lives. Standing just 4 feet 11 inches tall, with blonde hair and blue eyes, Cohn defied expectations of what a wartime Jewish spy would look like.

On May 20, 2025 Marthe Hoffnung Cohn passed away at 105. She spent her long life tending to the sick, working for peace, standing up for justice, and bearing witness to the horrors of war and fascist ideology. But how did this Jewish refugee find her way into spycraft? And what lessons did she leave us with?

A Beginning Amidst Rising Darkness

On April 13, 1920 Marthe was born in Metz, France to Regine and Fischel Hofnung ¹ . Her family were observant Orthodox Jews—her grandfather was a rabbi—and early in life Marthe learned to recognize the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. She asked her mother if she could learn to read Hebrew in order to understand Jewish holy texts, but was informed that such knowledge was reserved for men alone. And so, Marthe resolved to stop praying in Hebrew, rejecting any rules that would disallow her participation just because of her sex. She would only pray in French. Even at a very young age, she was determined to stand up for what she believed was right.

Metz is located in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France, which from 1871 to 1920 was officially part of Germany following annexation from the rival state. During this period it was illegal to speak French in the region. The result was that people like Marthe, born after the reunification of Alsace-Lorraine to France, had the distinct advantage of growing up bilingual. Marthe’s parents were only fluent in German, but she and her siblings spoke German at home and French in school. This ended up being a life-changing gift for Marthe.

• 1At some point the spelling of Marthe's maiden name changed from Hofnung to Hoffnung.

Neighbors Helping Neighbors

In August 1939 French Jewish families were warned by their government to move away from any towns near the border shared with Germany. The Hofnungs took this advice and, leaving almost everything behind, relocated to the city of Poitiers.

Despite the growing danger, the Hofnungs demonstrated remarkable compassion and bravery. Marthe and her sister Stéphanie, who did everything together, would spend time at the local train station helping newly arrived German-speaking Jews who didn’t speak French. Every day the family’s doorbell would ring from Jewish refugees looking for a place to stay. The family offered shelter to many, but Marthe and Stéphanie went further still and organized their own mini-resistance, partnering with a local farmer, Monsieur Degout, to help people escape to the Allied side. His land just so happened to span the border across the free and occupied zones of France.

A deeply sad oversight occurred in 1942. Stéphanie signed her name to a letter to Monsieur Degout discussing some of their illegal activity, forgetting to use an alias. She was taken in, but refused to give up the name of their farmer friend. Marthe and her fiancé Jacque attempted to plan an escape for her sister, but Stéphanie refused to comply with the plan, knowing that if she slipped away from detention, her entire family would be targeted.

It was at this point that Marthe resolved that she and her family would flee to the Free Zone. Only once there could she help Stéphanie escape without repercussions to the rest of her loved ones. Through the extraordinary kindness, and great risk, of a friend who worked in local government, Marthe was able to secure passports for her entire family without the word “Jew” stamped in them. The night before the Hofnungs were planning on slipping away from Poitiers, Odile de Morin, a classmate of Marthe’s, came to their house to let them know she’d heard that all French Jews were going to be arrested that evening. The entire Hofnung clan quickly followed Odile to her home, evading the Nazi patrols. From there they made their way toward the Free Zone.

As the Hofnungs walked carefully to the line of demarcation, pushing their grandmother along on a bicycle, they passed house after house belonging to poor farmers. The Nazis had plastered occupied France with posters promising 25,000 Francs to anyone who turned in a Jew, and Marthe wondered how safe they would be passing through this area. As they approached the first farm, a man sitting outside his front door stood up. He then started to pray. The people at each subsequent farm house did the same.

The ultimate goal of helping Stéphanie flee detention, however, never came to pass. As Marthe heartbreakingly recalled, “She was sent to Drancy when they discovered that we had escaped. And from there she was deported. I thought I had arranged everything perfectly. I felt responsible.”

The Making of a Spy

With her forged passport giving her access to move more freely, Marthe began nursing school in Marseille. From there, she found an internship in Paris. But left behind in Poitiers was Marthe’s gentile fiancé, Jacques, operating for the resistance. After a planned sabotage against a man known for giving up the identities of Jews went wrong, Jacques was arrested by the German government. On October 6, 1943 he was executed. Marthe was devastated and wasn’t sure she could finish her nursing exams. But she found it in herself to continue forward.

Marthe now carried a nursing degree, but she also carried the horror of knowing she’d lost her beloved sister and fiancé to the Nazis. She desperately wanted to join the resistance, but each time she tried she was dismissed as a little girl not cut out for such critical work. Marthe was finally able to secure a job with the French military in social services, and one day was asked to answer phones for Colonel Fabien as he went out to lunch. Fabien, a well-respected resistance leader, apologized to Marthe for what might be a boring task, telling her all the reading material in his office was in German. Her reply: “I understand German perfectly.” After confirming with her that she could also speak German, Fabien asked Marthe if she’d be willing to transfer to the French Army’s Intelligence Service. She, of course, said yes.

Immediately Marthe was thrown into rigorous training, learning everything from how to handle weapons to Morse Code to memorizing Nazi insignia. She was the only woman in her training, but she excelled, and was eventually given a commission working under the assumed identity of "Martha Ulrich," a German nurse searching for her lost fiancé. Her task was very loosely defined: move around as much as possible and obtain any information she could, including observations about civilian life, the level of German morale, and any movement of German troops.

The constantly shifting nature of war made sneaking into enemy territory and finding something of use a Herculean task. But finally, on her fifteenth attempt, Marthe successfully infiltrated Germany via Switzerland, covering many miles on foot and bicycle as she developed relationships with the enemy, remembering key details and transmitting this information back to headquarters. This level of immersion required not just physical courage but extraordinary psychological fortitude. Every moment spent in German territory carried the risk of exposure, yet Marthe maintained her cover with remarkable composure.

German citizens would walk in groups when moving between towns, and so Marthe would travel this way as a “fellow German.” During one of these trips an SS soldier fainted, and Marthe used her training as a nurse to help him recover. To thank her, he invited Marthe to visit him at the Siegfried Line to check if her fiancé was there. This was an incredible opportunity—the Siegfried Line was known to be an impenetrable German force at the Western border. Marthe took him up on his offer as soon as she could. When she arrived, the last of the German troops were leaving. The Siegfried Line was finally dissolved, meaning that Allied forces could move forward. Later, when Marthe encountered German ambulance drivers, she complained to them that German troops were not keeping them safe enough. They told her not to worry, revealing that Nazi infantry were waiting to ambush in the Black Forest.

The information that Marthe discovered was pivotal. She directly contributed to saving hundreds of Allied lives and hastening the end of the war.

The Burden of Silence

Jacque and Marthe had planned for their life together after the war. One of their dreams was to go to French Indochina together. Marthe went alone in 1946 and resumed work as a nurse. She received many marriage proposals, but she was still in love with Jacque. Eventually Marthe moved to Geneva, Switzerland for additional training where, in 1956, she met an American medical student named Major Cohn. By 1958 they were married and starting a life together in New York City, eventually relocating to Southern California. Major did not know about Marthe’s life as a French agent until after they were married.

For decades Marthe and Major worked side by side: he as an anesthesiologist, and she as his nurse assistant. But her time as a Jewish refugee, living through occupation and fighting in the resistance, was not talked about. Her two sons, Stephen Jacque and Remi Benjamin, knew nothing of her wartime feats. It was as if it had been a different life. In Marthe’s world, people did not discuss the war; Jews did not talk about the horrors. But the silence was only superficial. Marthe thought about the past all the time.

It wasn’t until 1996, when Marthe was well into her 70s, that she began to share her story. This was prompted by a worldwide call from Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation as they looked for people who had experienced the war. Her decision came at a crucial moment in history, as the number of Holocaust survivors and witnesses to World War II resistance efforts was rapidly dwindling. Marthe realized that her experiences needed to become part of the public record.

Recognition Long Overdue

After Marthe bore witness to the events she lived through, her life entered an incredible third act.

When Marthe finally sought verification of her wartime service, she discovered that the French military had been searching for her, too. The recognition that followed was overwhelming and well-deserved. Among the decorations she received were the Croix de Guerre in 1945, the Order of Merit from Germany in 2014, and in 1999 she was bestowed with France’s highest military honor, the Médaille militaire.

Everyone wanted to talk to Marthe, interview her, and glean how to live such a courageous life. In a reversal of roles, Major was now her second, traveling the world with Marthe as she tirelessly toured, advocating for Holocaust remembrance and education and instilling in young people a sense of care for history.

Well into her 90s and 100s, Marthe continued to fly around the world, always with Major by her side, giving interviews, doing podcasts, and promoting peace and equity.

Marthe would be the first one to say that bravery is very often circumstantial—she would speak about how most people during World War II were willing to risk their lives, how it was common. But there is still a choice to be made, even in the most dire of circumstances. And as her story recounts, individuals whose lives were not tracked and marked by the Star of David often chose to risk death, rather than put a fellow human in harm’s way.

Speaking to Maine Public Radio in 2019, Marthe said that she was “worried about the recent resurgence of nationalism. "I am terrified by it. And I hope we can stop it in the United States with the votes very soon." Every day there are decisions we all make, and some of are difficult, or might even feel impossible. Perhaps we can spare a moment at these decision points to remember a hero like Marthe Cohn, to recall what she did for others, and to appreciate how many of us live better lives because of her courage more than eight decades ago.

Dive deeper into the remarkable life of Marthe Cohn with the following resources:

Book: Behind Enemy Lines - The True Story of a French Jewish Spy in Nazi Germany

Documentary: Chichinette: The Accidental Spy

Podcast: True Spies - “The Survivor”

Video: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - Oral history interview with Marthe Hoffnung Cohn