Stepsisters and lovers, Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe, moved to the Channel Islands in 1937, from Paris, where their lives had been wrapped up in the surrealist movement and communist politics. They had every reason to maintain a low profile but that wasn’t their style. They cross-dressed and Schwob is now regarded as an early transgender icon under her assumed name, Claude Cahun.
The women began their own propaganda resistance movement against the Nazi soldiers occupying Jersey. They distributed leaflets and slipped typewritten notes signed 'The Soldier with no Name ' into soldiers' pockets and cigarette packets. They convinced the Nazis that this was the work of a highly organized team. They were eventually captured and sentenced to death but the war was coming to an end and they managed to return to their unconventional reclusive village life.
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