Unsung Heroes: Forgotten Women Who Changed History
Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 27-year-old Darya Vasylchenko worked in public relations for the Kyiv city government. She is now a soldier and medic on the front lines outside the city. “We have arranged everything here for a nice welcome” for the Russians, she told an American reporter, patting the rifle she held in her hands.
Darya’s willingness to confront Ukraine’s invaders echoes a similar courage shown by other women whose countries faced invasion and the threat of dictatorship in earlier wars. In 1940, when the Nazis occupied most of Western Europe, 22-year-old Jeannie Rousseau had just graduated at the top of her class from one of Paris’s elite universities, while Andrée de Jongh, a 24-year-old Belgian, worked as a graphic artist in Brussels. In a matter of months, Jeannie had become one of the French resistance’s top spies, responsible for one of the greatest Allied intelligence coups of the war. Dedee de Jongh, meanwhile, was the creator of the largest escape line in occupied Europe, smuggling hundreds of shot-down British and American airmen out of enemy territory and back to freedom.
As a historian, I’ve always been drawn to unsung heroes like these — individuals of moral courage and conscience who helped change their country and the world but who, for various reasons, have slipped into the shadows of history. While many of the heroes I’ve spotlighted in my books have been men, I’ve become particularly interested in the crucial contributions of women, whose achievements were — and still are — overlooked even more than those of their male counterparts.
I’d like to introduce you to a few of them — women who refused to accept the destruction of basic human rights and the dishonor and degradation of their countries, whether by a foreign power or by injustices committed by their own countrymen. Their accomplishments prove that you don’t need to be a general, a president, or a prime minister to be a hero — that in fact, ordinary women — and men — can make a huge difference when they stand up for what they believe.
