Maria Gulovich Liu
Encyclopedia
Maria Gulovich Liu was a Slovakian schoolteacher who joined the underground resistance during World War II. She was awarded the Bronze Star for her "heroic and meritorious" service in aiding agents of the American Office of Strategic Services
("OSS") and British intelligence escape Nazi-occupied territory during the winter of 1944-1945.
, Slovakia
, near Jarabina
in 1921. She was the blue-eyed daughter of a father who was a Greek Catholic village priest and a mother who was an elementary school teacher. She attended the Greek Catholic Institute for Teachers in Prešov
. She became a school teacher in Jarabina in 1940 and later in Hriňová
.
After Slovakia was occupied by Germany in 1939, Gulovich continued to teach. In early 1944, a Jewish friend asked Gulovich to hide his sister and her five-year-old son. She later recalled, "I never intended to hide anyone. My sister brought the woman's brother and he was crying and I'm a softie. And he said, 'Would you hide her just for a few days until she finds something else?' She never did. I was stuck with them."
From April through June 1944, Gulovich hid the woman and her son in the Hriňová
schoolhouse where she taught, allowing them to stay in the living quarters while she slept in the classroom.
Her concealment of the Jews was reported to the Slovakian authorities, and a Slovak Army captain was sent to question Gulovich about her actions. Fortunately for Gulovich, the Slovak officer sent to investigate was part of the anti-fascist resistance. Gulovich later recalled, "Lucky for me. Otherwise we wouldn't be here."
The Slovak officer offered to find a new hiding place for the woman and her son if Gulovich would become a courier for the resistance. Gulovich reluctantly agreed and moved to Banská Bystrica
, where she was employed as a dressmaker for an underground sympathizer.
Her first mission required her to smuggle a short-wave radio in a suitcase on a train. She had a close call when the Gestapo
stopped the train and began methodically checking all the passengers' luggage. In a 1989 interview, she recalled the incident as follows:
Because of her fluency in five languages (including Russian, Hungarian, Slovak) as well as speaking a little English, Gulovich was assigned to work as a translator for the resistance. When the Slovak National Uprising
began at end of August 1944, she worked in the rebel headquarters translating documents from Slovak into Russian for Russian military intelligence.
During the summer of 1944, Gulovich was introduced to American OSS agents who had been sent to assist the Slovak uprising and rescue downed American airmen.
In October 1944, the Germans crushed the uprising, and Gulovich fled to the mountains where Russians, Americans and several thousand rebel troops evaded the German Army. The OSS mission in Slovakia was led by a South Carolina cotton magnate, Holt Green, and included a dozen OSS agents, 18 airmen, and an Associated Press correspondent Joe Morton. The Americans asked Gulovich to join them as their translator and guide as they sought to escape from German-occupied territory. Gulovich agreed and helped the Americans obtain provisions, shelter and intelligence as they moved through the Slovak countryside. Gulovich later recounted how she would concoct a cover story on entering a new village: "I would say I was looking for my brother or we had had to evacuate ... And depending on the answers, I would know whether to keep talking or say, 'thank you,' and move on. Ironically if someone was a communist, I knew I could trust them." On several occasions, Gulovich had confrontations with German soldiers, and one of the OSS agents later recalled that "she got by through wit and guile" and her ability to speak German.
As the Americans sought to evade capture, an elite German intelligence unit was sent to the area to track them down. According to one historic account, "SS
units prowled the countryside, executing whole villages of suspected partisan sympathizers and families sheltering Jews while looking for the Allied mission."
As the winter arrived, Gulovich and the Americans were caught in a blizzard on Mt. Ďumbier
, the highest mountain in the Low Tatra
range in central Slovakia
. She later recalled that "the wind blew so hard that it turned people over. Our eyebrows and hair changed into bunches of icicles." They kept moving forward, passing 83 partisans who had been frozen stiff on the mountain.
In late December 1944, Gulovich and the Americans stayed at a hunting lodge for two weeks. The group had planned to leave the lodge on Christmas Day, but stayed an extra day waiting for an overdue airdrop of provisions. On December 26, 1944, Gulovich and four others from the group (two American and two British) left the lodge seeking food and medical supplies. While they were gone, the Germans raided the hunting lodge. The Americans were captured and later executed.
Gulovich and the four others who were away from the lodge avoided capture. It took the five of them nine more weeks to get to the Russian lines. She recalled that they never felt safe for a minute. To avoid capture, they often moved each night to new locations, including a mine and a barn, and suffered through lice and frostbite. Gulovich's foot became seriously frost-bitten, but she declined to seek medical attention. She later explained her rationale for avoiding hospitals: "It never occurred to me to go, because I knew I would never come out. The Germans had my number. I thought, better to die on my feet than in a concentration camp."
Gulovich arrived in Bucharest on March 1, 1945, and was flown to OSS headquarters in Italy. She was put "on Army status" so that she could be paid for her service. She was later assigned to Prague as an interpreter, where she met Allen Dulles, an OSS officer who later became the director of the Central Intelligence Agency
.
To reward her for her service, Dulles and OSS chief William Donovan
arranged for Gulovich to immigrate to the United States with a scholarship to Vassar College
.. She recalled that she felt out of place at Vassar and was astonished by the waste of food she saw there: "My first night there, I broke down and cried when I saw the food they were throwing out. I saw in my mind the millions of hungry, starving people -- my family included."
In 1946, Donovan personally awarded Gulovich with the Bronze Star at a ceremony held at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York
.
In September 1946, the Los Angeles Times published an article about Gulovich's work with the OSS. The Times wrote: "Vivacious Maria Gulovich, 25, Czechoslovakian schoolteacher who arrived here yesterday, is the essence of what fictionalized women spies should look like."
Gulovich became an American citizen in 1952 and moved to Oxnard, California
and worked for many years as a real estate agent in Ventura County, California
. She was married twice and had two children, Edmund Peck and Lynn S. Peck, with her first husband. She later married Hans P. Liu. She had one granddaughter, Elisabeth Maria Peck.
In 1989, Gulovich and other women who had served the OSS were honored with a black-tie dinner for "The Ladies of the OSS" in Washington, D.C.
. Gulovich was interviewed by a reporter for The Washington Post at the time of the event and was the subject of a feature that drew attention to her story.
Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and it was a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency...
("OSS") and British intelligence escape Nazi-occupied territory during the winter of 1944-1945.
Biography
Gulovich was born in JakubanyJakubany
Jakubany is a village and municipality in Stará Ľubovňa District in the Prešov Region of northern Slovakia.-Geography:The municipality lies at an altitude of 610 metres and covers an area of 16.748 km². It has a population of about 2488 people....
, Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
, near Jarabina
Jarabina
Jarabina is a village and municipality in Stará Ľubovňa District in the Prešov Region of northern Slovakia.U.S. Marine Michael Strank, Flag Raiser at Iwo Jima, was born here.-Geography:...
in 1921. She was the blue-eyed daughter of a father who was a Greek Catholic village priest and a mother who was an elementary school teacher. She attended the Greek Catholic Institute for Teachers in Prešov
Prešov
Prešov Historically, the city has been known in German as Eperies , Eperjes in Hungarian, Fragopolis in Latin, Preszów in Polish, Peryeshis in Romany, Пряшев in Russian and Пряшів in Rusyn and Ukrainian.-Characteristics:The city is a showcase of Baroque, Rococo and Gothic...
. She became a school teacher in Jarabina in 1940 and later in Hriňová
Hrinová
Hriňová is a town in the Detva District of central Slovakia.-Geography:The town is located on the Slatina river, under the Poľana mountains. It is located app. from Detva and from Zvolen. A dam is located above the town.-History:...
.
After Slovakia was occupied by Germany in 1939, Gulovich continued to teach. In early 1944, a Jewish friend asked Gulovich to hide his sister and her five-year-old son. She later recalled, "I never intended to hide anyone. My sister brought the woman's brother and he was crying and I'm a softie. And he said, 'Would you hide her just for a few days until she finds something else?' She never did. I was stuck with them."
From April through June 1944, Gulovich hid the woman and her son in the Hriňová
schoolhouse where she taught, allowing them to stay in the living quarters while she slept in the classroom.
Her concealment of the Jews was reported to the Slovakian authorities, and a Slovak Army captain was sent to question Gulovich about her actions. Fortunately for Gulovich, the Slovak officer sent to investigate was part of the anti-fascist resistance. Gulovich later recalled, "Lucky for me. Otherwise we wouldn't be here."
The Slovak officer offered to find a new hiding place for the woman and her son if Gulovich would become a courier for the resistance. Gulovich reluctantly agreed and moved to Banská Bystrica
Banská Bystrica
Banská Bystrica is a key city in central Slovakia located on the Hron River in a long and wide valley encircled by the mountain chains of the Low Tatras, the Veľká Fatra, and the Kremnica Mountains. With 81,281 inhabitants, Banská Bystrica is the sixth most populous municipality in Slovakia...
, where she was employed as a dressmaker for an underground sympathizer.
Her first mission required her to smuggle a short-wave radio in a suitcase on a train. She had a close call when the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
stopped the train and began methodically checking all the passengers' luggage. In a 1989 interview, she recalled the incident as follows:
"There was a bunch of WehrmachtWehrmachtThe Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
officers sitting in a compartment and one started flirting with me -- which I gladly returned. They said, 'Fraulein' -- I spoke German at the time -- 'would you sit with us?' They made a seat for me in the compartment and the officer carried my suitcase into the compartment with him. The Gestapo came by, saluted, and went on."
Because of her fluency in five languages (including Russian, Hungarian, Slovak) as well as speaking a little English, Gulovich was assigned to work as a translator for the resistance. When the Slovak National Uprising
Slovak National Uprising
The Slovak National Uprising or 1944 Uprising was an armed insurrection organized by the Slovak resistance movement during World War II. It was launched on August 29 1944 from Banská Bystrica in an attempt to overthrow the collaborationist Slovak State of Jozef Tiso...
began at end of August 1944, she worked in the rebel headquarters translating documents from Slovak into Russian for Russian military intelligence.
During the summer of 1944, Gulovich was introduced to American OSS agents who had been sent to assist the Slovak uprising and rescue downed American airmen.
In October 1944, the Germans crushed the uprising, and Gulovich fled to the mountains where Russians, Americans and several thousand rebel troops evaded the German Army. The OSS mission in Slovakia was led by a South Carolina cotton magnate, Holt Green, and included a dozen OSS agents, 18 airmen, and an Associated Press correspondent Joe Morton. The Americans asked Gulovich to join them as their translator and guide as they sought to escape from German-occupied territory. Gulovich agreed and helped the Americans obtain provisions, shelter and intelligence as they moved through the Slovak countryside. Gulovich later recounted how she would concoct a cover story on entering a new village: "I would say I was looking for my brother or we had had to evacuate ... And depending on the answers, I would know whether to keep talking or say, 'thank you,' and move on. Ironically if someone was a communist, I knew I could trust them." On several occasions, Gulovich had confrontations with German soldiers, and one of the OSS agents later recalled that "she got by through wit and guile" and her ability to speak German.
As the Americans sought to evade capture, an elite German intelligence unit was sent to the area to track them down. According to one historic account, "SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
units prowled the countryside, executing whole villages of suspected partisan sympathizers and families sheltering Jews while looking for the Allied mission."
As the winter arrived, Gulovich and the Americans were caught in a blizzard on Mt. Ďumbier
Dumbier
Ďumbier is the highest mountain in the Low Tatra range, in central Slovakia. Despite the remains of medieval mines , the massif is now protected as a part of the Low Tatras National Park....
, the highest mountain in the Low Tatra
Low Tatra
The Low Tatras or Low Tatra is a mountain range of the Inner Western Carpathians in central Slovakia.It is located south of the Tatras proper, from which it is separated by the valleys of the Váh and Poprad rivers . The valley formed by the Hron River is situated south of the Low Tatras range...
range in central Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
. She later recalled that "the wind blew so hard that it turned people over. Our eyebrows and hair changed into bunches of icicles." They kept moving forward, passing 83 partisans who had been frozen stiff on the mountain.
In late December 1944, Gulovich and the Americans stayed at a hunting lodge for two weeks. The group had planned to leave the lodge on Christmas Day, but stayed an extra day waiting for an overdue airdrop of provisions. On December 26, 1944, Gulovich and four others from the group (two American and two British) left the lodge seeking food and medical supplies. While they were gone, the Germans raided the hunting lodge. The Americans were captured and later executed.
Gulovich and the four others who were away from the lodge avoided capture. It took the five of them nine more weeks to get to the Russian lines. She recalled that they never felt safe for a minute. To avoid capture, they often moved each night to new locations, including a mine and a barn, and suffered through lice and frostbite. Gulovich's foot became seriously frost-bitten, but she declined to seek medical attention. She later explained her rationale for avoiding hospitals: "It never occurred to me to go, because I knew I would never come out. The Germans had my number. I thought, better to die on my feet than in a concentration camp."
Gulovich arrived in Bucharest on March 1, 1945, and was flown to OSS headquarters in Italy. She was put "on Army status" so that she could be paid for her service. She was later assigned to Prague as an interpreter, where she met Allen Dulles, an OSS officer who later became the director of the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
.
To reward her for her service, Dulles and OSS chief William Donovan
William Donovan
William Donovan or Bill Donovan may refer to:*Bill Donovan , pitcher and manager in Major League Baseball*William Joseph Donovan , American soldier, lawyer and intelligence officer, best remembered as wartime head of the Office of Strategic Services *Billy Donovan , head coach of the Florida Gators...
arranged for Gulovich to immigrate to the United States with a scholarship to Vassar College
Vassar College
Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...
.. She recalled that she felt out of place at Vassar and was astonished by the waste of food she saw there: "My first night there, I broke down and cried when I saw the food they were throwing out. I saw in my mind the millions of hungry, starving people -- my family included."
In 1946, Donovan personally awarded Gulovich with the Bronze Star at a ceremony held at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York
West Point, New York
West Point is a federal military reservation established by President of the United States Thomas Jefferson in 1802. It is a census-designated place located in Town of Highlands in Orange County, New York, United States. The population was 7,138 at the 2000 census...
.
In September 1946, the Los Angeles Times published an article about Gulovich's work with the OSS. The Times wrote: "Vivacious Maria Gulovich, 25, Czechoslovakian schoolteacher who arrived here yesterday, is the essence of what fictionalized women spies should look like."
Gulovich became an American citizen in 1952 and moved to Oxnard, California
Oxnard, California
Oxnard is the 113th largest city in the United States, 19th largest city in California and largest city in Ventura County, California, by way of population. It is located at the western edge of the fertile Oxnard Plain, and is an important agricultural center, with its distinction as the...
and worked for many years as a real estate agent in Ventura County, California
Ventura County, California
Ventura County is a county in the southern part of the U.S. state of California. It is located on California's Pacific coast. It is often referred to as the Gold Coast, and has a reputation of being one of the safest populated places and one of the most affluent places in the country...
. She was married twice and had two children, Edmund Peck and Lynn S. Peck, with her first husband. She later married Hans P. Liu. She had one granddaughter, Elisabeth Maria Peck.
In 1989, Gulovich and other women who had served the OSS were honored with a black-tie dinner for "The Ladies of the OSS" in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
. Gulovich was interviewed by a reporter for The Washington Post at the time of the event and was the subject of a feature that drew attention to her story.