Madeleine Riffaud was twenty years old when she was arrested for assassinating a German officer.

Back then, in 1944, she led a unit of the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans (FTP), a Resistance formation created by the French Communist Party. The aim was to liberate Paris from the Nazis; the order was short and sharp: “everyone get a German.” As she recalls, “I was the only girl in the group. It was easier for me to approach a soldier without arousing suspicion.”

That sunny Sunday, with a culotte skirt and with her hair flickering over her shoulders, Madeleine pedaled in search of her target. At the Solférino bridge she picked out an officer, looking out over the Seine. “I waited for him to turn around — I did not shoot anyone in the back. He was killed instantly.”