When we picture the French Resistance, we often imagine men carrying Sten guns across forests or blowing up railway lines under the cover of darkness. The truth was far more complex.

Thousands of women became couriers, spies, fighters and organisers, using society’s assumptions against the occupiers. Many paid with their lives. Others returned to anonymity once peace arrived.

In this episode, I begin with a comedy—‘Allo ‘Allo!—before following a trail that leads through occupied Paris, Ernest Hemingway’s famous arrival at the Ritz, and finally into one of the city’s most peaceful sanctuaries, the Grand Mosque of Paris.

History has a habit of hiding in plain sight. Sometimes all we need to do is slow down enough to notice it.