The Forbidden Zone

In 1914, Mary Borden, a wealthy heiress from Chicago and mother of three, volunteered for the French Red Cross during World War I. She quickly rose to the position of director of the French field hospitals in la zone interdite, known to English language speakers as the “Forbidden Zone,” near the Western Front of Belgium and France. Borden was troubled by the brutality she witnessed and the irony of wartime nursing—healing soldiers only to send them back to war and possibly their death. Her ...