Famous Romanian women (part II): The spy, the writer, the actress and the aviator

After presenting a first group of famous Romanian women in our recent article of the series, Guest Writer Mariana Ganea places the lime light on four lesser known women, all of whom gained recognition outside Romania. Vera Atkins (Vera Maria Rosenberg) was one of the most famous British Intelligence officers during World War II, and few people know she was in fact born in Romania, in the city of Galati, Eastern Romania, in 1908. Her parents, German Jewish and British Jewish, initially emigrated to France and in 1933 all family settled in the UK. Vera studied modern languages at the Sorbonne at Paris. In February 1941 she joined the French section of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) having as a main task recruiting and deploying female agents. She remained with SOE until August 1944 when she became a flight officer in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. After the war, she went to Germany to find out what had happened to 118 F Section agents ( in French occupied territory ) who had disappeared during the war, presumably captured or killed by the Nazis. In 1987, Vera Atkins received the Legion d’Honneur. She died in 2000, in Hastings, at the age of 92. The surname “Atkins” was her South African born mother’s maiden name. Former Sunday Times reporter Sara Helm published a book dedicated to Vera Atkins’s life and her role in World War II, called A life in secrets. The story of Vera Atkins and the lost agents of SOE. Elena Caragiani Stoenescu was the first Romanian woman aviator. She was born in 1887 in the city of Tecuci, in Galati county, and was the daughter of doctor Caragiani and his wife Zenia Radovici. Aurel Vlaicu' s first flight above the Carpathian Mountains fascinated her and later inspired her to become the first Romanian woman to be admitted into the League of Aviation, a flying school run by Prince George Valentin Bibescu. She was the only female student, which stirred indignation at the time. Her first flight took place 1912. Upon completing the courses, she applied to receive a pilot's license at the Ministries of Education and Civil Defense but her application was rejected. So, she decided to join at the School of Civil Aviation of Mourmelon le Grand in France. She graduated and received her pilot license when she was 27 years old. Romania's authorities at the time however did not allow her to take part in air shows. So instead she became a reporter for a major French daily newspaper, traveling to the Caribbean, Mexico or South America, then a war correspondent for the Press Trust of Mexico. When Romania entered the war, in 1916, she asked to participate as a pilot to defend the country or to carry the wounded in hospitals. But her request was denied, so she became a Red Cross nurse in a hospital in Bucharest. After the withdrawal of the troops, she set up a health clinic in the city of Tecuci. Later, she married lawyer Virgil Stoenescu and they settled in Paris. She continued to work as a journalist in France, Mexico, USA, countries in Africa and Asia, and specialized in reporting on air events. She died in 1929 when she was just 42.