On "Doing Something"

A tale of two resisters and the blueprint for activism they left behind.

About a decade ago, I spent the afternoon with two ninety-something-year-old Parisiennes who shared with me their recollections of Nazi-occupied France. At the time I was working on a book about a friend of theirs, who, like them, looked around at what she saw and did not like it one bit. Not liking what you see is one thing, but having the mettle to stand up and do something about it is an altogether different story. And their tales of what they did and how they survived the unthinkable are something I’ve been reflecting on this week.

“The occupation was heartbreaking for us,” Michele Moet-Agniel told me that day. “It was intolerable.”

It was so intolerable Moet-Agniel hid downed Allied pilots before helping them out of Paris to safety. She was a teenaged schoolgirl at the time, aware that her exploits would land her in a concentration camp if she was ever caught. Her friend, Anise Postel-Vinay, gathered military information about the Germans.

“I feared I would not be up to the task,” Postel-Vinay remembered. “Asking a nineteen-year-old to distinguish one tank from another? It was hard enough for me to distinguish a tank from a machine gun.” 

But Postel-Vinay found her footing, just as others in what would come to be known as the French Resistance did too. There is a certain cinematic quality to Postel-Vinay's tale: beautiful young woman on a bicycle risks life gathering information for the Allies, all the while gaining confidence and pride in her abilities. Postel-Vinay passed her intel along to a man with a marvelous command of English, who’d translate her reports. The translator then passed his work on to a photographer who shrunk it down to microfilm that could be concealed in a matchbox. The matchbox would be passed along to another young woman who’d shepherd it to British consulate in Lisbon, Portugal, which would then forward it on to London.

“I didn’t learn this [translator’s] name until ten years later,” Postel-Vinay said. “All that time, I had been working with [Irish writer] Samuel Beckett.”

During the occupation, neither one of these women had the right to vote, but both elected to demonstrate their devotion to France, rather than accept its defeat. Completing missions like theirs took great presence of mind, and male resisters soon found that women had a flair for improvising when placed in pressure-packed situations. One German prosecutor even mused that if the French army had been composed of women and not men, the Nazis never would have made it to Paris.

“When people speak of resistance in France, they speak very little of the woman who were involved,” Moet-Agniel declared. “No one ever talks about the women!”

I am grateful to have spent time with these two grandes dames who stood for something and acted on it. I wouldn't have been able to finish writing The General's Niece without them, and hope that I did them some justice in my imperfect little book.

That memorable afternoon Michele also talked about how everyone remembers how brave the Americans were during the war, but says very little about those who helped the Americans and other Allies liberate France. Right now, I’m thinking about Michele and Anise’s sacrifices for their country, the lives they almost didn’t get to lead, the obligation they felt after the war to tell their stories so that the horrors that occurred during World War II were not repeated. I’ve been wondering what they’d think of this moment we Americans find ourselves in, some eighty years after they put their young lives on the line. As we sort out where to put our energies right now, I know that they’ve left us a blueprint for integrity and action that’s rooted in their respective life stories. They jumped in and found one or two good ways to help the cause. I remain forever grateful to these two special women, and encourage you to turn to them if you’re in search of inspiration and hope.

Writing prompt: If you could focus your do-gooder energy somewhere right now, where would it be? What are your reasons for selecting this particular thing, and in what ways would you be lending your time and talents to it?

Quote

It's the action, not the fruit of the action, that's important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there'll be any fruit. But that doesn't mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.

– Mahatma Gandhi

Endnotes

What I hope you'll read: Tommy Houseworth's lovely essay on those small, good things that can't be touched. Like him, I believe that finding and sharing inspiration is a small, good (AND IMPORTANT) thing that keeps our respective lamps lit. It's one of the reasons I send you this little love letter every week. Just so you know, hot tea and the cozy tartan blanket I picked up in Edinburgh are among my small, good things. Hit reply and let me know what's keeping you afloat and aflame.

If you haven't listened to it yet, try...: ...this week's bonus episode of "The Stacks" podcast, where poet Saeed Jones talks about Toni Morrison's "Goodness: Altruism and the Literary Imagination" and muses about how we can lean into our own goodness in 2025 and beyond. My takeaway: I'm going to keep writing and sharing stories, enjoying art and literature, showing up for my people, and finding a couple of places that might benefit from whatever goodness I might be able to provide. We can't give our goodness to everyone and everything, Jones says, but we can focus it in a way that's most meaningful, both for us and the people in our lives.

From the "Protect her at all costs" files: Here's a profile of Mariann Edgar Budde, the Episcopal bishop – and hero – who told you-know-who what needed to be said this week. It's worth noting that the hardcopy version of her book How We Learn to Be Brave is out of stock right now on Amazon and Bookshop. Gee I wonder why...

What I'm watching: "Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat" is a fascinating, richly layered, and maddening documentary centered around the CIA-led assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo. I highly recommend it, especially to anyone looking for a decolonization-meets-bebop narrative, or a "WTF America?" tale that isn't the one we're living in. It's available for streaming, and for sale as a DVD.

What I'm wondering about: I'm not a golfer, but I respect people who are because they have the eye-hand coordination I lack. Now that I have that off my chest, I've been watching a little bit of this new TGL series and I want to know two things. Number one, how does the real ball know how and when to turn into a computerized ball that falls onto the computerized fairway? If you ask me, that is some serious voodoo. Number two, how can you legitimately say (as one TGL golfer did this past Tuesday night) that the real-ball-turned-robo-ball you hit resulted in the longest drive you've ever had (or something to that effect)? Because in my mind, only part of what they did was real. What is real, anyway? Perhaps a TGL representative would be willing to speak to this.

Curious about this: Lead Boldly: Seven Principles from Martin Luther King, Jr. In it, Robert F. Smith of Vista Equity Partners provides his own insights and experiences on how themes like “The Beloved Community”, “Economic Justice”, and “Two Americas” played a central role in his own leadership journey and why they are so important for leaders to understand today. That book comes out August 12, but you can preorder it now if you're so inclined.

What I'm looking forward to: Warmer weather. The beginning of MLS season. People in my life being cancer-free. The return of Savoie's andouille to my friendly neighborhood Publix. It's the little things, folks...the little, good things.

Where I hope you'll donate this week: The American Civil Liberties Union. It's not tax deductible, but it is incredibly important, especially right now.