By Nicole Yurcaba
These days, historians, academics, journalists, and anyone else who has studied history finds themselves drawing correlations to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the events of World War II which reshaped Europe forever. While the main focus of these correlations narrows to Russia’s sphere of influence and power during and after World War II, people tend to forget another key player in the war—Italy, specifically Mussolini. In Tilar J. Mazzeo’s Sisters in Resistance: How a German Spy, a Banker’s Wife, and Mussolini’s Daughter Outwitted the Nazis, readers of narrative nonfiction discover the head-scratching tale of Edda Ciano—Mussolini’s oldest daughter; Hilda Beetz—an epic German spy; and Frances de Chollet—an elite socialite and how their lives overlapped at one of the most complex and destructive points in world history.
Sisters in Resistance is dense. Mazzeo invests a lot of time in conveying small details. However, in the defense of the inclusion of these details, they’re necessary in order to show the miniscule ways in which Ciano, Beetz, and de Chollet found enough commonality to work with one another in order to reveal to the world that which Mussolini and Hitler wanted to protect and hide—the diaries of Galeazzo Ciano, Edda’s husband. Galeazzo Ciano’s diaries held key, incriminating information about the German campaigns in Europe and those involved with them, and the Allies needed Ciano’s journals as proof of Germany’s atrocities during the war.
While the book’s focal point is Ciano’s journals and Edda’s role in handing over her husband’s diaries, an integral story line that’s overshadowed is that of Hilda Beetz, the German spy who eventually becomes a double agent. Tasked with seducing Galeazzo Ciano to share his secrets, Beetz eventually becomes the seduced rather than the seducer. Her mission regarding Ciano was essentially her first assignment, and as a rookie spy, Beetz quickly found herself entangled in a plethora of emotions for Galeazzo, despite being newly married and “apparently in love with her husband.” Beetz becomes an intricate, even problematic, character for readers. While readers may feel empathy for Beetz because of her situation, they must also bear in mind that she was, after all, spying for the Nazis—at first. Eventually, after leading spymaster Allen Dulles to the copies of Ciano’s diaries she secretly made and buried, Hilda Beetz continued working for the Americans, and as Mazzeo states, “Even in her sixties, the CIA decided it was foolhardy to try to think one could control Hilde.”
Also receiving a scant mention for her valiant efforts is Frances de Chollet, a middle-aged American socialite and mother. The wife of banker and aristocrat Louis de Chollet, de Chollet was the hostess of the “house of spies,” where Allied intelligence frequently mixed with well-connected and important refugees “under the guise of raucous house parties.” De Chollet was charged with helping to persuade Edda Mussolini Ciano to give her husband’s diaries to the Allies. Though de Chollet held a small role, she held an important one. However, the book’s brief mention of de Chollet’s role in the acquisition of the Ciano diaries somewhat matches de Chollet’s espionage career. After the war, de Chollet left espionage. At “forty-five the year that the conflict in Europe ended,” the work de Chollet performed was “a brief, midlife taste of freedom.”
At times, it seems that Mazzeo paints Edda Mussolini Ciano as the story’s true heroine. Perhaps, for some, she is. However, readers may find themselves in a moral quandary about that elevation, since Edda Mussolini Ciano was a die-hard fascist. Nonetheless, the role she played in the Allies’ acquisition of her husband’s diaries, and the stalwart resolve she showed in making sure they did not fall into Hitler’s hands, cannot be denied.
What Sisters in Resistance adeptly achieves is something much needed in the realm of historical narrative nonfiction—giving recognition to the behind-the-scenes women historians and historical narratives have so often ignored. Sisters in Resistance truly is a spy thriller unlike any other. For fans of World War II historical works, it’s a must-read. For those interested in the historical role of women in the espionage world, it’s a significant contribution, one that may leave them asking “So when are they making a movie of this?”
Nicole Yurcaba (Ukrainian: Нікола Юрцаба) is a Ukrainian-American poet and essayist. Her poems and essays have appeared in The Atlanta Review, The Lindenwood Review, Whiskey Island, Raven Chronicles, Appalachian Heritage, North of Oxford, and many other online and print journals. Nicole holds an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University, is the recipient of a July 2020 Writing Residency at Gullkistan, Creative Center for the Arts in Iceland, and is a Tupelo Press June 2020 30 for 30 featured poet. Her poetry collection Triskaidekaphobia is forthcoming Black Spring Group in 2022. She teaches poetry workshops for Southern New Hampshire University and works as a career counselor for Blue Ridge Community College.
