16. An International Entertainer Who Used Her Work as Cover to Fight the Fascists
As an international entertainer, Josephine Baker had an excuse to travel. So she did just that, within Nazi-occupied Europe, to neutral Portugal, and to South America. She transported coded messages between the French Resistance and the Allies, written in invisible ink on her music sheets. They contained information about German troop concentrations, airfields, harbors, and defenses, all of which Baker smuggled beneath the Nazis’ noses. She also hid fugitives in her home, and supplied them with forged identification papers and visas obtained through her contacts.
In 1941, under cover of health reasons and doctor’s orders after a bout of pneumonia, Baker left a Europe groaning under Nazi occupation. She headed to French North Africa, then under the control of the collaborationist French Vichy regime. In reality, she was there to help the Resistance. She worked from Morocco, traveled back and forth to Francisco Franco’s fascist Spain, gathered information, and sent it to Allied intelligence. She counted on her celebrity to avoid a strip search, and pinned intelligence reports to her underwear.
