Clodagh Finn: The Irishwoman who led Danish resistance to the Nazis

Monica de Wichfeld was put in charge of building a resistance network in Lolland where she helped shot down Allied airmen to escape and hid Danish Jews in her own home.

When Monica de Wichfeld (of Derrylin in Co Fermanagh, among many other places) was condemned to death on May 13, 1944, for her role in the Danish resistance, there was an audible gasp in the room. A woman had not been handed down such a sentence for several decades.

Monica, however, showed no emotion. She took out her enamelled Tiffany compact so that she could see her son Viggo who was sitting behind her. She smiled at him, and slowly began to powder her nose. Then she looked towards the three judges dressed in SS uniform at the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen and asked: “Anything else, gentlemen?”