Deaths elsewhere

Last update: October 1, 2009 - 8:03 PM

Maria Gulovich Liu, 87, who as a young schoolteacher in Slovakia during World War II joined the underground resistance as a courier and later helped a small group of U.S. and British intelligence agents evade the German army as they fled through frigid mountains to safety, died last Friday at her home in Port Hueneme, Calif. Liu, who was fluent in five languages, received a Bronze Star for her "heroic and meritorious" service to the Office of Strategic Services. "I interviewed men who were with her, and they were flabbergasted by how brave she was," said Jim Downs, who first met Liu when he interviewed her for his 2002 book "World War II: OSS Tragedy in Slovakia." In the book, former U.S. Army Sgt. Ken Dunlevy, who escaped Slovakia with Liu and three other intelligence agents, called her "our little sweetheart for whom I am and will be grateful forever. To her, it is no doubt that I owe my safety and perhaps my life."

LOS ANGELES TIMES

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