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A Ballerina Who Stabbed an SS Guard With a Stiletto and Other Historic Rebels

Khalid Elhassan August 10, 2020 34 min

38. A Last Minute Resistance Member

The women who undressed were hurried into the gas chamber, but Franceska Mann grew suspicious, and hesitated to disrobe. A group of SS camp guards entered the room, ordering Franceska and other women who had not yet undressed to hurry up. Franceska refused, and in that instance, became a one-woman resistance cell.

Until then, Franceska had not been a member of any resistance group. However, in a split second, in an undressing room next to a gas chamber, she decided to stand up and defy her oppressors. At that moment when she made up her mind to challenge evil and hit back, Franceska Mann effectively became a resistance cell of one.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.