Maria Gulovich Liu (October 19, 1921 - September 25, 2009) was a Slovak schoolteacher who joined the underground resistance during World War II.
She was the blue-eyed daughter of Edmund Gulovich who was a Greek Catholic village priest and Anastasia who was an elementary school teacher.
"[3] 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.
"[3] 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.
In a 1989 interview, she recalled the incident as follows:There was a bunch of Wehrmacht officers sitting in a compartment and one started flirting with me -- which I gladly returned.
"[3]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.
[1] 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.
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.
[2] On December 26, 1944, Gulovich and four others from the group (two American and two British) left the lodge seeking food and medical supplies.
To avoid capture, they often moved each night to new locations, including a mine and a barn, and suffered through lice and frostbite.
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.
[1] 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.
"[3] 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.
The Times wrote: "Vivacious Maria Gulovich, 25, Czechoslovakian schoolteacher who arrived here yesterday, is the essence of what fictionalized women spies should look like.