Her name was Catherina Koopman, always known as Toto, a coquette of a name that fitted her racy, daredevil personality. Hers was a life of quite extraordinary contradictions — of pleasures and perils, of promiscuity and principles, of self-indulgence and self-sacrifice. Her story, captured in a compelling new book by Alan Frame, is an inspiring tribute to human powers of endurance. She travelled in secret to Venice, where she had friends, and stayed for two weeks, posing as a Belgian baroness. After three months in an airless room with the curtains always shut to block out the light, Toto died, aged 82.

Source: Daily Mail October 24, 2020 00:34 UTC