Rita Kramer Papers

Rita Kramer is a journalist and author. After visiting the Natzweiler-Struthof Concentration Camp in Alsace, France in 1984, she began researching four female Special Operations Executive officers, Diana Rowden, Vera Lee, Andrée Borrel, and Sonia Olschanezky, who were executed in the camp during World War II. This research culminated in Kramer's 1995 book, Flames in the Field: The Story of Four SOE Agents in Occupied France. In 2004, Kramer published When Morning Comes, a novel about Olschanezky. In 2010-2011, she acted as a consultant for The Ohio State University's "Camouflage Project", an interdisciplinary endeavor to tell the stories of SOE agents during World War II.


Kramer’s papers contain research, publication, and publicity materials related to her published and unpublished works, with the bulk of the material documenting Flames in the Field and When Morning Comes. The collection also contains materials on Kramer's other projects, including prospective books about George Begue and Vera Atkins. Types of materials in the collection include correspondence with family members of resisters and other researchers, photographs, photocopied documents, clippings, VHS videocassettes, an audiocassette, and a microcassette. The collection dates range from 1945-2010.