“Former Chanel model, Catharina Koopman, worked as a successful model in Paris before moving to London. Catharina left London in 1939 to live in Italy. There she began a relationship with a leader of the Italian resistance.
When World War II broke out, she agreed to use her contacts and language skills to spy for the Italian Resistance. During her education in a boarding school in the Netherlands Catharina studied various languages. She spoke Dutch, French, English, German and Italian.”
“Catharina infiltrated meetings of the Black Shirts but was captured. After spells in prisons in Milan and Lazio she was sent to the Massa Martana detention camp but escaped and hid in the mountains around Perugia, where she worked with a local resistance group. She was recaptured, promptly escaped again and made her way to Venice.
In October 1944 Koopman was caught spying on high-ranking German officers in the Danieli Hotel and quickly deported to the Ravensbruck concentration camp. Very shortly before the camp was liberated in April 1945, the German authorities released several hundred prisoners, including Koopman, to the care of the Red Cross in Sweden.” – Source listed below
Catharina passed away on August 27, 1991 at the age of 82 in London. Lest We Forget.
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