Born: 12 December 1881, France
Died: 10 October 1966
Country most active: France
Also known as: NA
French schoolteacher Louise Thuliez became a resistance fighter during World War I, and then again during World War II. At the outbreak of World War I, she was teaching in Saint-Waast-la Vallé, near the border with Belgium. Working with people like Edith Cavell, Philippe Baucq and Princess Marie of Croÿ, she was part of an underground network that helped Allied soldiers trapped behind enemy lines escape Belgium into the Netherlands. They were able to save around 200 soldiers before German authorities closed in, arresting Thuliez in 1915. Although initially sentenced to death, this was reduced to life imprisonment in Brussels’s Saint-Gilles prison. She was released in 1918 with the end of the war, and published Condemned to Death, an award-winning book about the experience, in 1935.
During World War II, Thuliez once again worked with Princess Marie de Croÿ, helping Allied soliders escape from occupied France. She survived the war, living to her 70s. A statue of her was erected in Preux-au-Bois in 1870, and a Paris street named for her in 1974.