UROP in History: Women Spies during World War II

Danielle Wirsansky, Ph.D. candidate in History, directed an Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program project on women spies during World War II last spring. The aim of the project was to analyze primary source materials from the archives to discern differences in the experience of Special Operation Executive agents based on gender. This was the fifth time that Wirsansky directed a UROP project on the theme of women spies. She had three students working with her, two of which we were able to interview: Spencer, then a freshman double majoring in international affairs and human rights and social justice and Chiara, a sophomore, who is an editing, writing and media major in the English department. Both students had done research in high school and were interested in continuing at FSU. Chiara had a special interest in working on a gender-related topic.

Wirsansky was a UROP student herself as an undergraduate in 2013-14. Although she was a theatre major, she opted to work with Dr. Nathan Stoltzfus on the Rosenstrasse protests in Berlin during World War II. She enjoyed the research aspect so much that she continued to work for the Rosenstrasse project. That led her to do her master’s degree with Dr. Stoltzfus; her thesis was on the experience of women spies who worked for the British, connecting their experience to that of British women more generally during World War II.  Her Ph.D. dissertation is a gender analysis of the experience of the Special Operations Executive’s agents, both men and women, focusing on each step of their experience from recruitment to execution. Wirsansky was in England and Israel for the spring semester doing archival research at the Imperial War Museum and British National Archives in London and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

Why did you choose this project?

Spencer: I chose this project because I wanted to be involved in research that made knowledge about this topic, espionage during World War II, and these incredible people, available to a broader audience. I personally wanted to learn more about the spies too.

Chiara: I was interested in this project because of its focus on women. Throughout high school, I did not have many opportunities to learn about historical events focused solely on women, so I wanted to research this collective further. I also know German and wanted to use that skill to help with translating material.

What specifically were you working on in the project?

Spencer: We analyzed the impact and lives of female spies of the SOE who were active in Vichy France and helped the French resistance.

Chiara: We got to look at the different missions they were on and their wartime efforts. We also reviewed their day-to-day lives, how they camouflaged daily activities in helping the Allied powers.

Spencer: We each worked on recovering the stories of different agents. Both learning more about their individual lives but also their relationships with other people.

What sort of archival material were you looking at specifically? 

Chiara: We analyzed archival material, whether it was recorded interviews or letters or other personal documents. This was to get a better look into the personal lives of the agents as well as their extensive wartime accomplishments.

Spencer: In the beginning of the year, we read secondary material relating to about a dozen agents each but as we moved on to working on primary sources, we each focused on two agents. There were a lot of connections and crossovers between all of the agents; some were siblings or had gone to the same school.

We began to transcribe interviews that had been done with the agents that we were responsible for. All the audio recordings were housed in the British National Archives, but they varied in style. Some of them were professional interviews. But others were just two people talking to each other.

The interviews I transcribed were focused on the day-to-day activities of the agents abroad. I have to admit, transcribing interviews was not my thing. It is definitely interesting hearing the stories, but it is very time-consuming work, and because I had not budgeted enough time for this, it wasn’t so much fun to do.

Chiara: Doing audio transcriptions was an interesting skill to learn and not something I had done prior to UROP. It gave me a better appreciation for language and how people speak. It turned out to be a bit tedious though.

After the audio transcriptions, we moved on to transcribing different primary documents. It was largely letters, correspondence between agents or agents and their loved ones. I was able to translate documents that were in German. It was interesting to see how people were writing at the time.

Spencer: Most of the things I read and transcribed related to Vera Atkins.  It was correspondence to do with the planning and then the actual execution of operations.

Chiara: Danielle provided us with some transcription guidelines in the beginning, which was really helpful. The handwriting itself was not too difficult to read.

Danielle: I hand picked documents from the archival collections I was working in and asked Spencer and Chiara to transcribe them for me. That was enormously helpful! I did not have to spend my time in the archive trying to decipher the handwritten documents. And with Chiara being able to read German, I could give her material in German, whether typed or handwritten, and ask her to translate it. This allowed me to be so much more productive in my archival work; I became a human scanning machine and was able to retrieve three or four times more material than on last year’s field trip.

What was the most fun part of your work?

Spencer: Learning about individual agents. There was one to whom I felt I had a real connection; her name was Julian Eisner. Looking at her life choices that led to where she ended up and making connections to my own life, that was really interesting. It showed me what might have happened to my life, had I lived at a different time. Another intriguing thing was discovering an agent who had a very specific last name that only exists in a certain town with a very small Jewish community from which a lot of my family are from. That means that she could have been distantly related to me, which was really cool.

Chiara: For me, it was the different connections I made through this project. Both in working with Danielle but also through my UROP colloquium class. It is so inspiring to be around motivated and passionate people. It makes me realize that I am a piece of something much larger than me.

And then of course learning more about women of the past. Being able to take a closer look into their daily lives, their personal routines, as well as the more technical and military aspects of their work – that was really eye-opening for me.

What was the most challenging part of the project?

Spencer: Time management. Figuring out how much time to budget was hard, especially in the beginning of the semester and whenever we started a new task. What made it much more flexible was that we could decide for ourselves on when to work on our project. We did not have to attend scheduled lab sessions, for example. Once I had worked out how much time to give to a task, it was up to me to integrate it into my daily schedule.

Chiara: I agree. Juggling a full schedule – I have a job and do a lot of extra curriculars, took some getting used to in the beginning. But once I had figured it out, effective time management became a useful skill to have and something I am able to apply in other areas of my academic and professional life. I did most of my work late at night, when I had finished with my job, classes, and homework, I sat down in my room and focused on the UROP tasks.

Spencer: For me, it was the opposite. I worked on things in the mornings. I would go to the library early in the morning and spend three hours on UROP before going to class.

What advice would you give to other students who might be interested in doing UROP?

Chiara: I would say, if it’s possible for you, do it! Whether you already have a background in research or are new to the process, UROP is an incredible opportunity. From the people you meet to the different skills learned; you can gain so much from this experience.

Spencer: Talk to your mentor, communicate. Learn to ask for help and to advocate for yourself. If you have a week with a lot of tests on which you need to focus, explain that to your mentor. People will work with you, but you need to reach out first and tell them about your needs and concerns.