Nuevo Imparcial.- The exhibition hall Martin Chirino hosts the first exhibition devoted to the role of women in the field of international espionage. The lives of many of these women have inspired movies, novels and comics. In this sample are uniforms, weapons, personal items and more than five hundred historical pieces belonging to major spy story women. «Women Spy» is organized by the Spy Museum, the Popular University Jose Iron and the Department of Culture of San Sebastián de los Reyes. It will run until March 23.
In this exhibition you can see the weapons of Pauline Cushman or Belle Boyd,a women spy disguised as a man, who served both sides during the American Civil War and the encoded messages used in the French Resistance during World War II by the protagonist Josephine Baker.
The exhibition focuses on the central role that women have developed in intelligence and information positions. A role that has evolved from undercover agents, double agents and spies, to positions of command and control as the Spanish secret service CNI, the American CIA and British MI5.
From Judith or Delilah in the Bible, to the exuberant Russian spy Anna Chapman, arrested in the US, there have been thousands of brave, bold and brilliant women who have shaped some of the most fascinating episodes in the history of espionage, although their names in the Most cases are less known than those of their male colleagues. Data has been gathered from sources such as Mata Hari or Edith Cavell of the First World War, or bold Krystyna Skarbek, Mathilde Carre ‘La Gata’ or Nancy Wake in World War II, to contemporary Aline Romanones, Valerie Plame or Stella Remington. Giving special prominence to the Spanish spies such as Heras of Africa, Araceli Gonzalez, Marina Vega and Margarita Ruiz de Lihor, sadly known for the case of the ‘cut hand’.