Nicole Sabbag Spangenberg was born in Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France] on 18 January 1928. She remembers her parents speaking together about the possibility of an impending war. Spangenberg's family believed, due to what the media told them, that the strength of the French military and the existence of the Maginot Line [Annotator's Note: a series of defensive fortifications roughly paralleling the Franco-German border built by France in the 1930s] would protect them. The Maginot Line was overtaken very quickly. The French Army was not well organized, was still using personnel that fought in the first World War [Annotator's Note: World War 1] and used outdated tactics. After Chamberlain [Annotator's Note: British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain] declared 'Peace in Our Time', Spangenberg and her family hoped that there would be. When Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] marched into Czechoslovakia, neither the English or French did anything to stop him. When Hitler moved his Army into Austria, the other countries began to take notice. Germany soon invaded Poland [Annotator's Note: German Invasion of Poland – 1 September 1939] and that was the true beginning of World War 2. Spangenberg remembers talking on the phone with her friends and being excited there would be no school. Once the Nazis broke the French lines Spangenberg, her mother, her grandmother, and her 4-year-old sister were crammed onto a train, trying to make it to their house in Brittany [Annotator's Note: Brittany, France]. While staying in Brittany her stepfather was called to fight for France. Her mother enrolled her in school in La Baule [Annotator's Note: La Baule, France] where they tried to continue life as normal. Due to its proximity to nearby port city Saint-Nazaire [Annotator's Note: Saint-Nazaire, France], La Baule became the target of bombardments from the Nazi forces. After two or three months the family had to leave La Baule. They went back to Paris for a while. Life became increasingly hard. In bigger cities it was harder to get food due to rationing, and the black markets for food were extremely expensive. By then her stepfather had been discharged from the French Army and Germany was occupying most of France, including Paris. There was a strict curfew and if you were caught outside after hours, you needed to have your papers on you or you were held for the night. It was difficult to go anyway due to many metro stations being closed and gasoline being almost impossible to find. Food became scarcer and scarcer during this time. She talked to her friends on the telephone, and they all shared her experience: life was hard, and it was almost impossible to leave. Her stepfather decided to move the family to Cannes [Annotator's Note: Cannes, France], Cannes was part of unoccupied France at this time. Spangenberg and her little sister were enrolled in school again. Her youngest sister had been born in Paris during a bombardment. The Germans, with the help of Italy, eventually took the unoccupied zone as well, causing drastic changes for all of France. The train station was the focal point of the attacks, unfortunately it was in the middle of the town and the bombardments forced Spangenberg and her family to evacuate yet again.

Nicole Sabbag Spangenberg's stepfather constantly listened to the radio to glean info on how the war was going outside of France, which had already fallen. Spangenberg's family moved to the Basses-Alpes in a small town named Beauvezer [Annotator's Note: Beauvezer, France] away from the Germans, waiting for the Allied invasion of mainland Europe to happen. Spangenberg's family stayed at a hotel with two Jewish families fleeing from the Germans. She was forced to leave school and her friends yet again. The hotel loaned her a bicycle so that she could travel to nearby farms to get some supplies for people staying at the hotel. She did this until one day when she encountered a roadblock and a young man with a gun. The young man told her he was part of the underground [Annotator's Note: French freedom fighters], Spangenberg asked what she could do to help. He told her that his comrades were wounded, and Spangenberg offered the help and supplies of the people at the hotel she was staying at. As more and more wounded showed up, the Jewish doctor and nurse at the hotel began treating them. The Germans were not in Beauvezer, they generally stayed in the large cities. The head of the French resistance in the area heard that the Germans were coming to check in on Beauvezer, which prompted the wounded French resistance fighters to be removed and the Jews there to go into hiding. Spangenberg offered to leave with the wounded and helped them to get to the rendezvous point. She was already a known ally to the resistance and potentially would be taken prisoner and executed. She and the wounded fighters went up the mountain to the Col d'Allos [Annotator's Note: a high mountain pass in the Alps in Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, France]. They made it to a clearing in the mountains with a hut, presumably for a shepherd to stay in. One of the young soldiers was Polish and he had a very badly infected wound. Eventually the Jewish doctor showed up and made the decision that the only way to save his life was to amputate his leg. They gave the young soldier a bunch of very strong alcohol, tied him down, and cut his leg off. Spangenberg and the group were getting ready to leave, but her stepfather came and made her return to the family. The return home was perilous because the French underground laid mines [Annotator's Note: stationary explosive device triggered by physical contact] throughout the mountain paths. Spangenberg's mother locked her away, making sure that she did not leave again. By now the Allies had landed at Normandy [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944], and once the Allies started clearing the Germans out the family moved back to Cannes [Annotator's Note: Cannes, France]. They returned back to a relatively normal life in Cannes. The Jewish doctor eventually returned, giving Spangenberg the news that the young man whose leg she helped amputate died when the Germans found the Resistance in the mountains. Joining the Jewish doctor, Spangenberg went to work at a hospital taken over by the Free French Interior, or FFI. She worked there until it was safe to return to Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France].

When Nicole Sabbag Spangenberg returned to Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France] the city had vastly changed. Because of the bombings during the war, buildings were destroyed, and many amenities were not available. Gasoline was scarce and food was hard to find. The Germans started executing and hunting for French Resistance collaborators soon after the Allied invasion of Normandy [Annotator's Note: D-Day; Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. Spangenberg went off with the French Resistance, and her parents could not do much to stop her. Spangenberg did not learn much about the resistance cell she was part of, she was largely kept in the dark regarding other members of the Resistance. When she and the injured Resistance soldiers went into hiding in the mountains, she was given a cyanide pill [Annotator's Note: a lethal poison] and a gun; she never used either of them. Because she was the healthy one with the injured soldiers, she had to keep watch for a couple of hours at night. The Resistance was well supplied with ammunition and explosives. Spangenberg was never present for any of the supply drops. Everyone in the Resistance cell were not given the names of their conspirators. Her father worked in the stock market, allowing him a modicum of freedom to move throughout the country.

Nicole Sabbag Spangenberg learned to survive because of World War 2. She learned to fend for herself and take what she needed to live. Modern-day children are shielded and overprotected from the lessons that they should be learning. France made the mistake of listening to the media and not being aware of the weaknesses of the French military and the Maginot Line [Annotator's Note: a series of defensive fortifications roughly paralleling the Franco-German border built by France in the 1930s]. World War 2 changed Europe particularly because of the stakes created by Germany taking over and defeating so many countries. It is very important to learn history, and the National World War II Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] is a bastion for education. Its purpose is to educate and thus prevent another world war from happening. A Consul General of France, Brochenin [Annotator's Note: French ambassador to New Orleans 2007- 2009, Olivier Brochenin] asked Spangenberg if she had any documents to prove her involvement with the French Resistance during World War 2. Her documents were sent back to France to be researched, and she was given a medal upon their verification. When her family finally returned to Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France] she was very excited to find her friends and family, but just because the war was over did not mean that things immediately turned to normal. Spangenberg took piano lessons with a friend from an older woman. One day her piano teacher did not show up, and nobody could locate her. Spangenberg later learned that her piano teacher and her family were hiding Jews from the Nazis. Some of her neighbors turned them in to the Nazis, who sent them to Dachau [Annotator's Note: Dachau concentration camp complex near Dachau, Germany] where they died during the war. One day two students showed up to her Catholic school with yellow stars [Annotator's Note: Jewish badges, Judenstern, worn on the clothes of Jews in Nazi Germany]. Because they had Jewish grandparents, they were considered Jews, and eventually they disappeared. Spangenberg moved to many places during World War 2. She knew that they were doing what they could to escape bombardments. It took a long time for Paris to return to normal. She left Paris in 1945 to go to college in the United States, at that time there were still food shortages. She was amazed by the amount of food available in stores in New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York].