Relisten to The Girlfriends: Spotlight: Hélène Outwits the Nazis

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We're launching Pod Landia, A.O.A.O. rewatch. Our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode of Portlandia together. Breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters, and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped to bring it all to life.

Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Christle, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician, Amy Man, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvise not just words, but a song about it. I thought you were all going to write a song.

I remember you thinking about it. Listen to Pod Landia. A.O. rewatch on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nick Tutorial.

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Listen to Raiders of the Lost Podcast on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And for more, follow @ Raiders of the Lost Podcast, and @ TikTok podcast network on TikTok. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burnup Guild Season 3 podcast.

This is a story about a horrendous situation that destroyed two families. It's a scorched earth war that shows just how far someone will go to get what they want. Cindy said, I had to choose between the truth and my family, and I had to choose the truth. Listen to season 3 of Burnup Guild, on the iHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, listener, I wanted to give you a heads up that this story discusses concentration camps in Nazi Germany. There will be some mentions of torture and violence.

But you will also get to hear about nine amazing female resistance fighters,

“and how their friendship was the key to their survival.”

Thousands of women are marching. They are organised in rows of five blocks of 100 and groups of 1,000. They are wearing wooden clogs that scratch and slip on the dirt road. Their thin coats are emblazoned with a thick white cross on the back. They are marked as prisoners.

It is spring 1945, we are in Germany, and the writing is on the wall for the Nazis. Heinrich Himmler has ordered the evacuation of all concentration camps. These women are on a death march. They don't know where they're going. They just know that they have to keep walking.

If they stumble out of line, they'll be shot. Besides the road is a ditch, and they're in the ditch, a nine women. They are arranged in a pile like corpses. But they're alive. Elene is the leader of this group of women, and she has a plan.

If she and her friends can pull it off, they will finally be free. They have all suffered torture, starvation, force labor, and disease. But through all of that, they also had each other. Wicked jokes, rebellious schemes, and tender nurturing support.

They never stopped fighting.

From Elene's position, face down in the mud. All she can hear is the third, third, third of clogged tripping past. Her body is completely motionless, but her heart is racing. She listens intently until the final few steps disappear into the distance. Then, she grabs her friends' hands and runs.

where we tell stories of women winning. Today, Elene outsmarts the Nazis.

“For as long as she's known her, Gwen Strauss has admired her great aunt, Elene.”

She was brilliant, especially for her time. She was highly educated. She was a chemist and also a mathematician, and she continued to work her whole life after the war. I obviously knew her more as an elderly woman in her 80s, 90s.

She was very elegant when I knew her always really well dressed.

She was sort of Chanel, fashion, beautiful, tailored outfits. She had beautifully manicured fingernails, and had a lovely voice as well. And spoke gorgeous French, and also spoke English really well, and she also spoke Russian and Polish and German. Wow.

She was a polyglot. She was an incredibly good linguist. Gwen knew that Elene was impressive, but she didn't know just how seriously impressive she was, until one day when they were having lunch. She started telling me this incredible story.

I was so... that was Guards Mac, to really, I mean, I was just like, "Are you kidding?"

Elene tells Gwen a story that starts back in 1943, four years into the Second World

War. Elene is in her early 20s, living in Paris. The city, and most of the rest of France, is under Nazi occupation. Elene's father, Elif Yuanyun Russian Jew, has fled the country with her mother. It had gone to Switzerland, and left her behind and she supposedly was behind to continue

her studies, and also she had a job at a factory there, as a chemist, but she stayed behind actually to work in those systems. 23-year-old Elene had joined the French resistance, a group of ordinary citizens who opposed the Nazi occupation of France. They did everything they could to undermine the regime.

Elene was involved in all sorts of operations, but some of the most high-risk involved

“organizing secret parachute drops from the Allies.”

She would listen to the radio and wait for messages from Britain that were hidden in BBC broadcasts. She would then crack the codes to discover where and when the next drop would be. Then, she would organize a group of fighters to be there to receive it. She would liars with all the different resistance groups, and have the field ready for when

the plane would come and it would always be on a full moon, or a few days around the

full moon because the plane had to have some visibility, but that also makes you very visible. So she had to choose a right kind of place where it was far enough away from people perhaps seeing it. Elene and her band of comrades would hide in the shadows of trees and hedges bordering the field, and then when they heard the little single engine plane probably coming from

England, first they would do a shoot with a signal, like a flashlight flashing signal to the plane, and if the planes would go back, they would all around the perimeter. They would light flashlights or lanterns, so they would light up a runway. When they made the drop, they had to very quickly dig a hole and bury the white parachutes. These beautiful silk parachutes, which she said she always wanted to keep to make clothes

with, but couldn't. Once they'd buried the parachute that tarried from the parcel that was attached to it. A lot of times it was arms, it was guns, sometimes explosives, sometimes she said it was things like cigarettes, chocolate, and also money to pay the resistance, and then she had to make sure that everybody got away quickly because you had about 20 minutes before

the staff or police would come to where they'd heard an airplane. And I must have been quite a dangerous thing to do, because I mean, if you're caught mid-happening, there's no denying that, right, exactly. The life of a person in the resistance was quite short lived. It was really hard to keep things secret, and especially the region where she was working

with Germans had a sense that there was a vulnerable area. So they were definitely trying to break the resistance and find those networks.

“How do you feel about your own doing all of this stuff?”

I'm super proud. I mean, I asked her when I talked to her about it, I said, how did you, why were you so brave? Like, well, how could you do that? And she said she didn't even think about it, because I had to. And I think she was appalled by how quickly France capitulated at the beginning of the war.

I think a lot of young people in France felt that way. So for her, it was almost innate that you had to fight against fascism and the Nazis. My great-great uncle was a bit of a war hero. And the famous line that people quote in books and any memorials or whatever, I actually have the tattooed.

So Judy called and called me to a bay, and he did some crazy stuff during the First World War.

And he wrote that in a letter on his deathbed to his fiance. And I think it really sums up how a lot of people who grow up in times that we can't even imagine, exactly, based with the horror of war, there's no choice.

“This is what you do, it's what you have to do.”

Yeah, yeah, completely. That's a beautiful, it's a good line, I think. Oh my god, a war hero and a poet. Oh my god, what can you do? And then told Gwen about the parachute drops, but that's not even the half of what she was involved in.

She was also the person that was often sent around France to vet potential new resistance people, men. She was a beautiful woman and she could travel more easily than men. And she would go and check them out and see if they were trustworthy. Wow, in her early 20s. Yeah.

How did she rise to those ranks? She was scouted by a British officer who met her, and he's the one that hired her to head that section of the SOE. He only hired 11 people, so he must have thought that she was capable of it. The average time that someone lasted in the resistance was around three to six months. Usually by then, they had been arrested, possibly tortured for information,

or even deported to a concentration camp. LN managed to defy the odds and keep going for about 10 months. But then, on the 4th of February, 1944, her luck ran out. She had a message that she had to give to someone named General Alar, and it was shown in the lining of a purse that she was carrying. People actually did that. Yeah. Yeah. And right when she walked into the cafe,

somebody at the back of the cafe turned out to General Alar now got up and ran out, and then she turned around and behind her in-came the police. So she just moved over and sat down as if she was coming to the cafe and acted as if she was just a normal client. And then they just basically took everybody in the cafe. She was round up.

And she was terrified that they would find the note in the lining of her purse. They never did.

So for a few days, she felt that nothing would happen. And she was told by the Germans,

“oh, it's not a big deal. We just have to check your paperwork and you should be like us soon.”

But while she was in prison, and while they were checking out who was who and whose papers were in order, that's when suddenly she could feel that everything had changed towards her and they must have broken somebody under torture or something, somebody spoke and turned her in. Because then she was suddenly taken from that jail and taken to Anger to the prison there where she was, I think, a couple of months and where she told me she was that Anger is always for me the symbol of suffering.

The life of a prisoner at Anger was bleak. She was alone in a cell. She was handcuffed. I know that they waterboarded her. I know they pulled out her fingernails and that she would often be sent back to her cell in a stretcher. She had lifelong injuries from that time. Even in this most desperate situation, I then found a way to stay strong. She worked out very complicated mathematical formulas on her cell wall to pass the time.

She wrote the formula for me down and I asked my sister who's a mathematician with the formula was about and it's a formula that's sort of unsolved into one of these enigma and mathematics and it's about trying to find unreal numbers. So it's this kind of interesting dilemma to be working on when you're in such a limited space of a cell. It's almost like she was trying to go to outer space with her mathematics on the walls. I then was just 24 years old when she was

arrested. Her parents hiding in Switzerland still thought she was a student back in Paris. She didn't want to get word to her parents because she didn't want to put them in danger but she sent a note to a friend of her godfather and the guard did this German guard sent the note for her and so she then got a package from her mother while she was in that cell and she said that's when

she first cried because when she saw her mother's handwriting, she just crumpled her knees,

it was real then. In a way she said once she knew that they knew then she felt all of the suffering that she was trying to stoically keep in. I can imagine it would feel so wrong to have something like her mother's writing this woman who's there to comfort her and is from this side of her life which is so separate to be in such a hostile environment. Absolutely,

“I think that's exactly right. I think you're very stupid. She doesn't belong there to the mother.”

[Music] A land is imprisoned in on chair for two months. Then on the 6th of June 1944, she hears something that sounds kind of like hope. In the distance, there are explosions. D-Day has arrived

tomorrow I'll be a prisoner and you'll be free. But that night, they started to execute all the male prisoners in Algeria and she could hear them being executed throughout the night in the courtyard. Thinking that in any minute it would be her turn. But instead they put her and some of the other women in a train so she ended up in Germany. It's clear that the Allies have the upper hand

and the occupying Germans are beginning to panic. Eleanor's first sent to the Ravensbrook

concentration camp where she faces violent treatment and profound hunger and then she is transported again this time to a forced labour camp in Leipzig. Here she will meet eight women who will be the key to her survival. After the break, meet the nine.

“What's up fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up y'all? Is she girl Sam J?”

And we're the host of everyone watches women's sports, a new podcast from together and I heart women's sports. Because let's be real, women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Fennler, she became the first female solo rover to go from California to Hawaii.

My first husband was like, what's up with the snacks? Like what do we eat? The highlights,

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Hey, Portlandia fans. Carry Brown seen in front of our mission here. You know us or rather, you know them.

Tony and Candace, Nina and Lance, Spike and yes, the chicken. We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years, but today we're showing up other cells to tell you about podlandia, AO rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, breaking down the sketches, exploring the back stories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our

“creative process. How did any of this get made? Why do you think that was a good idea?”

We're ready to talk about it. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. guest stars, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Christle, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician, Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song about it. I thought he was going to write. I thought you're all going to write a song. I remember you thinking

that. Listen to podlandia. AO rewatch on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is Chelsea Hamlet from Dear Chelsea. Every week the news gets worse. The world gets crazier. And Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible you're the problem. If you come over here to play games, I'm a check you. Okay, if you do some in a news that don't sound good,

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problem with Yamanika on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Nick Tutorial. You probably know me from NYU PD Blue, the longest yard, or Spike Lee's Black Plansman. But I'm also from Queens, which means I know Pizza. And on my no podcast, delivering happiness with Nick Tutorial, I deliver Pizza from Prince Street Pizza to a new guest. Are you delivering Pizza now? Then we sit down for a real conversation. I've shared a slice with

everyone from Seth Rollins. What are you doing, my bell? To Alex Rodriguez. Just let you people know we're talking to one of the goats here. To Bill Bar. I don't think I've ever met somebody, so exactly out of the mind is I am. And now we even have more great guests coming up, including a great John Tutorial. It's called happiness. Delivering happiness. Mariano Rivera.

And listen now.

Until a few months ago, a Len was a free woman cycling her bike through the French countryside,

and commanding groups of resistance fighters to carry out thrilling operations. Now she was hundreds of miles away from her home. At a German forced labor camp, called Hassag Leipzig. They're using these women as labor. They were making pants of ass, which are these grenade launchers. Because she was young and strong, she along with a group of women with chosen to go work in this factory. They were on the same sort of work unit

together, and they became quite close and really a strong friendship and bond of helping each other out.

“Gwen is going to introduce you to these nine women. But don't worry, you don't need to remember”

all the details. I just want you to be able to picture this incredible gang of young women.

Age between 20 and 29. The youngest was Jose. She was Spanish and apparently very beautiful and had a gorgeous singing voice. So they all remember her singing. Then there was Renee, who used the code name Zinka. She'd gotten the rest of what she was pregnant. But as soon as the baby was born, whom she named the baby France, of course, very patriotic. They took the baby away from her and then she was deported. But she basically was wanted to get back to France to both the

country and her daughter. And she was very little and very brave. Everyone said she was the most brave amongst them. There was Zaza. Zaza's very funny, very positive, very optimistic. I would say. Two of the women were Dutch, Lone and Gigi, who had come to France to join the resistance.

“But they'd walked right into a trap and the very next day they were arrested by the Gestapo.”

There's also Mina, who sounds like great fun. Mina was the working class girl from Brittany, who said she joined the resistance because she was in love with a guy. She loved to be in love big flirt. Jacqueline was the oldest of the group. She was 29. She was a widow. She's the one that had diphtheria, smoke like a chimney when she could when she had cigarettes. And also it's for like a

sailor. Eighth girlfriend is Nicole. She was amazing in the resistance, first working in Liel and

almost caught by class Barbie. In her escape to Paris where she was going to join another unit of the resistance in Paris. She was dressed as a nurse and the train got bombed and then she had to act as if she was a nurse. So just terrified. Terrifying. And number nine is Elene. Gwen's great aunt. The chemistry physics,

“maths genius, who can also speak five languages. So that's Elene. Jose Zincar Zaza, Lone, Gigi, Mina,”

Jacqueline, Nicole, and Elene. Brave, young resistance fighters from across Europe. There were all different. There were different social, economic classes and different political beliefs and different, you know, different in every way and yet they managed to be great friends. And all those kind of differences didn't matter. They were very much united in helping each other survive. I'm struck by how relatable these women sound. I could attribute big flirt,

great singing voice and swears like a sailor to half of my own girl gang. As because, of course, they were in many ways just normal girls, but they weren't in a normal situation. Their experiences at the camp were horrific. The women worked 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week in the factory. Every day each of them had to move 7 tons of iron grenade shells. They were told the motto of the camp was whoever doesn't work, doesn't eat. But even if you did work, you were

only given starvation rations, just enough to keep you alive. Disease and injury became the norm, but at least the women had each other. They were incredibly solid air, you know, they had such solidarity with each other, like just beautiful stories. The one that I find really moving, they had a thing called the bowl of solidarity and at night they just had two meals a day. Well, bread in the morning and then they had like a watery super night. If you felt like you could,

you'd take a spoonful out of your bowl and you'd put it in this other bowl and they would decide each night who deserved that bowl the most. So whoever was at their lowest, whoever was depressed, whoever had might have heard that their child had died or their husband had died, they would give that bowl to that person. It wasn't doggy to dog at all. It was this idea that we can only survive if we help each other. It's really beautiful and he's find it in the female

camps. You find it amongst the women. Yeah, it's a very nurturing form of working out for each other. Yeah, and it's a form of resistance, actually. You know, I'm not going to submit to this really violent brutal way of being treated by treating everyone else around me the equally the way.

Another way in which the women keep hold of their sanity and the camp is through

“remarkable creativity. A whole group of the women there with the French women were from the”

hat-making area of Paris. Oh, couture. And so there's a French tradition that no longer is celebrated, but it's a certain day of the year when unmarried women would all wear these really beautiful hats and dance. And so these women made these hats for the women who were not married for the young girls and they all wore them and they danced and they were saying, "Well, we're making them out." Well, that's stolen scraps of wire or they were terror parts of their mattress

or recuperated stuff. Yeah, just incredible. And the other thing that they did, they made cookbooks,

which is kind of hard to imagine, but Nicole had one and actually Gigi had one. Starving people love to talk about food. And so they started to write down the recipes on, unscathed paper and pass them around to each other in the different barracks and share these meals and then they collected them and they made these little cookbooks, which they kept hidden because they thought people wouldn't understand about it. And then they would think that we were just frivolously

making recipes. But it was really because they were starving. That is just like one of the most fearful things ever. I know. Have you seen one of the cookbooks? Yeah, I've seen Gigi's cookbook. Yeah. What kind of recipes are there? I mean they're really full of sugar and butter and cream and eggs and like everything you would want if you were starving and meat and like ladles of fat

poured over noodles. Yeah, there's no grits or porridge. No, no. What's amazing is that despite everything,

these women still had their fighting spirits and none more so than a land. Because she spoke German really well, she befriended the head of the factory, this guy named Fritz Stupitz. They

“became quite close. I think he fell in love with her frankly and he hated the war and he”

was trying to help her escape and he also put her in a position where she could sabotage the factory. He put her in charge of the thermostats and so she was able to rig the thermostats so that in the middle of tempering the shells the ovens would turn off and then they would turn back on at the end so they would come out red hot but they had not been properly treated so they would blow up in the face of the soldiers. So these were really defective and they kept getting inspected but no one could

ever believe that these starving women were capable of such sophisticated sabotage so they

were never caught. That is so cool. It's gruesome but it's gruesome but also she didn't stop resisting.

You know she was fighting all the way through and she told me that when she figured out how to sabotage the production she felt so happy like it was she said she was still a soldier she wasn't just waiting to die. The Allies knew that the camp was a munitions factory and so it was often bombed. Many women did die in these bombings but the nine survived and in April of 1945 their time at the camp came to a sudden end. The factory was completely bombed and no longer functional.

It was getting close to the end of where anyway it was snowing it was called the Germans started to line everybody up in the central courtyard to start a death march as they were doing at all the camps. Himla had issued an order to evacuate all concentration camps. The Nazis knew they were losing. They didn't want the prisoners to fall into enemy hands and provide evidence of Nazi war crimes. The 5,000 women from Hassagalipzig were ordered to assemble outside in the freezing

night air. They were told to get information and march. They didn't know why or where they were going to land clung to her eight friends. They were determined not to get separated. After the break, a Lenspotz, a golden opportunity. What's up fam? I'm Sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up y'all? It's your girl Sam J. And we're the host of Everyone Watches Women Sports,

a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women Sports. Because let's be real. Women sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey, she became the first female solo

“rover to go from California to Hawaii. My first husband was like, what's up with the snacks?”

Like, what do we eat? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline. In the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week, every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women sports. Naomi Osaka showing out, she beat, sublinka. Shout out to you Naomi.

we're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women sports.

“Listen to everyone watches women sports on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get”

your podcasts. Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brown seen in front of our mission here. You know us or rather, you know them. Tony and Candace, Nina and Lance, Spike and yes, the chicken. We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years, but today we're showing up other cells to tell you about Podlandia, Ao rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week will revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning,

breaking down the sketches, exploring the back stories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process.

How did any of this get made? Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it.

And we'll also be joined by the people who helped to bring it all to life. guest stars, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Christle, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician, Amy Man and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song about it. I thought he was going to write, I thought you're all going to write a song.

I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia. Ao rewatch on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Join Yamanika Saunders as she breaks down the week's most problematic stories on our new podcast.

“You're the problem with Yamanika. Do you know I just found out who Sidney Sweeney was?”

New episodes weekly, every Wednesday is part of my new network, the dear Chelsea Network. If he got a bunch of women, then I shall have a bunch of men. Do better or do less. So I don't have to do so much. So join Yamanika each episode as she answers one question. Who's the problem? I'm Yamanika and I'm out. Listen to your problem with Yamanika on the iHeart Radio app,

Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I deliver pizza from Prince Street pizza to a new guest. Do you deliver pizza now? Then we sit down for a real conversation. I've shared a slice with everyone from Seth Rollins. What are you doing my belt? To Alex Rodriguez.

“Just let you people know we're talking to one of the goats here.”

To Bill Burr. I don't think I've ever met somebody. So exactly out of their mind is I am. And now we even have more great guests coming up including the great John Tuturo. Let's go happiness, delivering happiness. Marianna Rivera. And many, many more. Open your free iHeart Radio app. Search delivering happiness with Nick Tuturo. And listen now.

As they marched away from Leipzig, the temperatures dropped and the mud froze under their feet. And then, and the rest of the nine managed to stay close together. Along with thousands of other women, they marched all day and all night. Now at this point, a lot of them are really near the end of their rope, physically. And so people were collapsing and there were a lot of executions along the way.

If you stumbled or stepped out of line, the soldiers would shoot you. There was no food, there was no water, there was sort of no plan. After 20 hours of walking, they come to a field, ringed with barbed wire. They were allowed to stop here for the night. And the nine claps in a heap. But a land weren't rest.

Not yet. And then in line started to talk in Leipzig. They said, "Look, we know they're going to kill us at the end of this, or we're going to die, so we have to escape." And they made a plan that the next night they would escape together. This plan gives them something to live for. They allowed themselves to hope. They were sitting in a circle and they each said what they would do if they were free.

Do you know what some of them said? A land that she would go back to school, she wanted to do more training in math. Men asked that she wanted to sit with her grandmother by the sea. The Jacqueline said she wanted to be in a French cafe and have a glass of wine. That's cigarette. Of course, Zincas said she wanted to see her daughter, France,

and long wanted to see her brother. She would never find her brother.

So each talked about, you know, what they would do when they got free. And then they had this plan.

anticipation of their escape that night. But their opportunity comes sooner than expected.

They were walking by these large, calls of fields as yellow flowers in the spring and this woman ran into the fields and started to eat the flowers and nobody shot her. Whereas the day before, a woman was shot for picking up a fallen apple on the road. The march has become stretched out along the road. The guards in front and behind, a suddenly out of sight. A land notices, oh my god, there's no one watching us and she whispers to the person next to where

this is when we should go. And there's a little bit of back and forth. Oh wait, we said we go

“tonight, are you sure they're scared? But finally, it's sort of like a greed. I think it's Zincas,”

it says no, we need to go now. And they slid off into the ditch along the road. And the whole time

there had been these piles of corpses because people were being executed all the time. So they basically

piled on top of each other like a pile of dead bodies and let the march continue past them. When the final footsteps have disappeared into the distance, the women scramble out of the ditch and run away from the road and into the fields. Then they collapsed because they were so exhausted. And there's a moment then when they're catching their breath and kind of incredibly for it because they've escaped. Also at that moment, strangely Nicole doesn't want to go on,

she's just to have pneumonia and her last but a strength list to this escape. And she says to them, "Just leave me. I'm okay. At least I'll die free. This is all I wanted."

“And they, they won't let her. They're like no.”

The nine are desperate to find a way back to France. But they're stranded in the middle of the German countryside, a landscape that is getting more volatile and dangerous by the day. The Americans are sweeping across Germany, taking over towns and cities from the Nazis and liberating concentration camps. The Soviet army is also on the ground doing the same. They were trying to get to the Americans. They didn't know where the Americans were

and they just didn't want to get caught by the Russians. The Russians soldiers were famously brutal in rapists. And obviously, the Americans had this kind of mythological heroes, right? The women get to that fate. I'm beginning walking towards a

assessment that they can see in the distance. First, they get to a town and the burger

byster comes out and he says, "You have escaped. I'm going to call the police." He yells at them. He said, "You know, you're a shameful Jewish." He's like, "The police are going to come get you and he walks away." And they're like, "Wow!" And they ran away. He thought that they would just neatly stand there. And then they noticed that they need to keep their wits about them. If they're going to make it to the Americans alive, but they also desperately need to rest. They couldn't really

move very fast as a group. They were in such bad shape physically. They were starving. They were exhausted. They find some really kind Yugoslav prisoners who find a place for them to go on this hay barn and who ring them some food. And there's a description of them eating. They all described this moment of eating bread and cream and coffee, too, like, jam. I'm so proud. Someone gave them fat and sugar. Yeah. And Nicole remembered eating that and crying and realizing that only a few hours

earlier, she was ready to die. And then she's sitting in the sun, eating this feast really. Wow. The nine needed to figure out how to survive the next few days. They take an inventory of their meagre possessions. And among them, they have a needle and thread, some y-cutters, and most importantly, civilian dress. And then had traded some food for something she could wear that wouldn't mark her out as a prisoner. And then would wear the dress and she would go into the town. Her German was

perfect so she could pass as a German person and she would scope it out and find somebody and ask them to help. And then they would find a place that they could sleep, but maybe even a place that they could get a meal, get some information. While these stories of the nine's ingenuity and camaraderie

“are heartwarming, it's important not to understand the level of danger that they were in at all times.”

There were these robbing gangs of Germans rounding up escape prisoners and hanging them. There were people just put into barns and the barn set on fire. The last few months of the war, frenzyed, and frenzy deadly time rate. The nine are on the road for 10 days, surviving on just their wits and the kindness of strangers. Eventually, they get to the river mould. They have been told that they will find the Americans on the other side. But there's a problem.

All the bridges have been bombed. To cross the river, they have to descend a precarious ladder from

the river is really raging and several of them couldn't swim. They're almost falling. They lose

some of their really cherished possessions and the river. They've lost their shoes and the river. You know, it's just crazy crazy. All nine women make it across the river alive. I'm running to the nearby forest. But this final effort has pushed them to the very edge. They're wet and shivering. They're so hungry. They know that the Americans have a basin called it. But that's still 15 kilometers away. And that distance feels impossible.

There's a point when they hit a dirt road and three of them sit down and say they can't move.

“They're not getting up again. And a land is like you have to. We're not leaving you here.”

We'll give you 10 minutes and then we're going. So you have to get up. And they're looking down the road and they see a car coming. They think it's German SS coming towards them. And she's trying to get them to get up, get up, get up so we can run into the woods and hide. And then she realizes that the license plate on the car is weird. It's not German. And then she realizes two American soldiers. It's all just fine them and like

ask them if they want chewing gum. I mean, it's really cliche. They're all climbing to their Jeep and they bring them back to the base. Did Ellen tell you what she felt in that moment? She didn't. I got that from the other women's

accounts about how amazing it was. I mean, long just apparently according to her daughter,

“ever since her mother had a thing from men in uniform. Like any American in any uniform”

her mother was just like the greatest thing ever. They took them to the town. They actually kicked out a German couple who were in their house and required position for the women and said, this is your house now. I know in front of them and the Germans were protesting. They said, "This is what you did to them." It means a brutal time. But in the house, they could take a bath. There was food and they found clothes. They all slept in the same bed together because they couldn't

stand to be apart and all of the women survived. All of them survived. Yeah. The nine had survived the months at the concentration camp. The starvation rations and lethal working conditions. They had survived the death march with its indiscriminate shootings. They survived 10 days on the run, narrowly avoiding snipers and lynch mobs. And now here they all were. Elaine Saza, Zincar, Lohn, Menna, Gigi, Jackie, Nicole and Jose, tucked up together in a feather bed

with American soldiers guarding the door to keep them safe. The nine had made it together. Millions of others did not. It takes a while in all the chaos of the end of the war, but eventually the women are repatriated. All but two. Jacqueline, a trained nurse, stays behind to set up a hospital for refugees to sit to travel and a land. A land end of it becoming the system to the general. She became like the translator for him. She stayed behind and worked with

him for several months. And to thank her, he let her use his Cadillac or Chevrolet. It was like one of these big American cars with a big star painted on it. And then she was allowed to take the car and drive back to France where she drove to see her parents. She drove into their town. And the parents came running out and saw her. Drive up in this big. She's like a scene for a minute. I know. And she had like American uniform on the khaki thing. And the, yeah, yeah, she drove

in and they, it was quite a city. Everyone must have been eyes on her. Yeah, because actually, her father had thought that she was dead. And so her mother said, "You see, I said she was a lot of shoes. I must have thought here's hallucinating when she arrived in the car." And then that car, yeah, yeah. When the women from the concentration camps were turned home, they didn't

always get the welcome they deserved. It was a very traumatic experience for the women.

Because they didn't look like anything they had looked like before. They were emaciated. Some of them still bald. And these families were just horrified to see these women.

“And also you have to understand that Paris had been liberated already for a year,”

by the time the women get home. So there was also a kind of almost discussed with them. Like, we don't need this reminder. There was also a profound double standard applied to the women who had fought in the resistance and survived the camps. Men were commended for that bravery.

Alan so long to tell her story. It was considered shameful if you had been in the resistance

“and young and survived and meant you had slept around or been a prostitute. So it meant that you”

were no longer sure. That's a lot of the reason there was a lot of silence about it after the war. People didn't talk about it. They also erased the amount of work that women did in the resistance. Pretended it didn't happen. Gwen was so inspired by her great aunt's story that she decided to write an article about Alene and the rest of the nine. But once she started researching, she realized that there was so much more to the story that she needed to know.

It couldn't just be an article. It had to be a book. Gwen spent years trolling through documents, working with Archivists and traveling around Germany in order to piece it all together. And now thanks to her thorough research, we know what happened to every single member of the nine after their escape. We couldn't do all of their stories justice here. But Gwen's book

The Nine will give you that all important closure and lots more amazing details from the time

they spent together. By the time Gwen started writing her book, all of the women had passed away. So instead she made contact with their family members in order to see if they knew any more

“information and to share some of her own discoveries. And I think the most beautiful example of”

this is the story of how Gwen found Zincar's baby France. That's actually one of the great experiences for me as writer. It was really hard to figure out who Zincar was because her name was Renée Le Bonne, which is like there's three gazillion of them in France. Anyway, it took a long time for me to figure out who she was. Gwen carried out some very impressive detective work, and eventually tracked down a young Ian's psychoanalyst living in France,

who she saw just might be Zincar's second child. So I emailed him and I said, I don't know if you were actually the son of this woman that I'm trying to write about, but she was known as Zincar, I give him the whole little reveal. And he goes, yes, yes, that was my mother. And do you are talking to my sister France? And I was like, oh my gosh, this is because it's just so, it's since the beginning I had realized that France was born in the prison in 1943. So she could

easily still be alive. So from the beginning I was trying to find her. So then I emailed her and she lives a couple hours away from me. So I drove out. I know, really close by, and I drove up to see her with my daughter. And there she was. And she started to cry, I started to cry like we kind of fell into each other's arms hugging and crying. And I'm going to cry now. Anyway, I said, you wouldn't believe how long I've been looking for you. And she said, well, imagine me finding all this about my mother

seven years later. So she and I had a whole long day talking and her experience of her mother wasn't abandonment. Because after the war, she was reunited with her mother, but her mother was quite ill. And so she went to different families and was taken care of by other members of the family.

“And whenever she would ask her mother, why did you do it? Like, why did you join the resistance?”

You know, why did you leave me, basically? And about this, oh, it was just for fun. It was so much fun. It was her mother tried to downplay it, like all the women did. And when I was able to tell France was, your mother talked about you all the time. And you're the reason that she's still like her reason to continue with you. She fought to survive because of you. And it was like kind of a it was a gift that I could give her. And then she went up into the attic and opened up a box that she

had never looked at of her mother's papers because it had been too painful for her. And in that box,

there was an account of the escape. So she was able to kind of recover the story of her mother. And that was a great moment for me. Has it changed the way that you view yourself? Yes, absolutely. It's been a life changing experience. Weirdly positive. I just found in their story of friendship and sticking together and taking care of each other, such amazing inspiration. I don't know if I could do that. I hope that I could, but the way that they helped each other out,

really move me and made me realize, oh, there's all these different ways to resist. It's not just throwing them all off cocktail, something. There's many, many ways that we can fight back against fascism. And I also found in finding out these stories and sometimes bringing the stories to the families, things about their mother and sister, they didn't know that was also

incredibly powerful for me. I felt really honored, I guess, really lucky to have been given the story

by my aunt. It's saddens me that these amazing heroic women felt unable to share their stories after the war. And I'm so pleased that Gwen's written them back into history through her book. Sometimes Wall Stories only focus on the moments to make someone a hero, which are for most of us

in these women. Of course, they were extra ordinary. But at the same time, when they sat down and spoke

“about what they longed for, they said the sort of things I would. A glass of wine and a cigarette”

by the sea. Bliss. It makes me feel that perhaps we've all got a bit of the nine's courage

locked away in us, even if I hope we never have to use it.

If you've enjoyed this conversation, you can find loads more incredible women on our feed. Do check them out. And please do spread the word and tell your friends about us. We want as many people as possible to be part of the girlfriend's gang. Next time on the girlfriend's spotlight, Tuba stumps the Taliban. He told me, "Tuba, the Taliban take the head of province. Everything is under the air control."

I say, "What's mom?" It's impossible. Our dream is finished.

This season, we're supporting the charity Women Tind worldwide. They do amazing work to help

women's rights organizations and movements to strengthen and grow. If you'd like to find out more or donate to help them secure equal rights for women and girls across the globe, you can go to womenkind.org.uk. The girlfriend's spotlight is produced by novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from novel, visit novel.ordio. The show is hosted by me and a sin field. This episode was written and produced by Maddie Hickish,

with production support from Al Shabani. Our assistant producer is Lucy Carr. Our researcher is

Sayana Yusuf. The editor is Hannah Marshall, Max O'Brien and Craig Stracken are executive producers.

Production management from Joe Savage, Shari Houston and Charlotte Wolf. Sound design, mixing and scoring by Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempson. Music supervision by J. Kotaivich, Nicholas Alexander and Anna Sinfield. Original music composed by Louise Agustin and Gemma Friedman. The series artwork was designed by Christina Lemcool. Willon Foxson is creative director of development. Special thanks to Katrina Norville, Carrie Lieberman and Will Pearson at iHeart Podcasts,

as well as Carly Frankel and the whole team at WME. [Music] Hey, Portlandia fans. Carly Brown seen in Fred Armison here. The dream of the 90s is alive in podcast form. We're launching Podlandia, A.O. rewatch. Our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode of Portlandia together. Breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters and pulling back

the curtain on how it all got made. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped to bring it all to life. guest stars, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Chrysel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician, Amy Man and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song about it. I thought you were all going to write a song.

“I remember you thinking about it. Listen to Podlandia. A.O. rewatch on the iHeart Radio app,”

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nick Tutorial. You probably know me from NYU PD Blue, the longest shot or Spike Lee's Black Plansman. And on my no podcast, delivering happiness with Nick Tutorial, I deliver pizza to a new guest. I've shared a slice with everyone from Seth Rollins, where you're doing my belt. To Bill Burr, I don't think I've ever met somebody. So exactly out of the mic, this I am. And now we even have

more great guests coming up, including the great John Tutorial. It's called happiness, delivering happiness. And many, many more. Open your free iHeart Radio app, search delivering happiness with Nick Tutorial. And listen now. On Raiders of the Lost Podcast, we explore cinema like no-one else, including huge interviews with stars like Ryan Gosling on Project Hail Mary. It was like the

“John's shark. Didn't always work. Came with its own problems. That's what made it great.”

The cast of obsession. On set, there was so much magic happening with each scene we were putting together. Deep dives into classics like 2001 of Space Odyssey or Fight Club, plus weekly episodes

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“an @ TikTok podcast network on TikTok. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Bird and of Guild Season 3 podcast.”

This is a story about a horrendous situation that destroyed two families. It's a scorched earth

war that shows just how far someone will go to get what they want. Sunday said,

“I had to choose between the truth and my family. And I had to choose the truth.”

Listen to season 3 of Bird and of Guild on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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