Lest We Forget.

On this Remembrance Sunday, we remember all those fallen in defence or our country and its values. The Great War, the Second World War, the Falklands, the Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan. The loss and the memories span generations. How important it is to remember these men and women who fought so that we can enjoy the lives and freedom that we do.

Today, I wanted to talk about one remarkable lady who you may have heard of, but she was a local girl to me here in Stockwell, and every time I read of her courage, tenacity and determination I am overawed.

She is Violette Szabo.

Violette was the daughter of a French mother and British father. She was born in Paris, but she and her parents moved to London, to Stockwell in 1932 and Violette attended school.

In July 1940, in a whirlwind romance she married a Hungarian soldier from the French Foreign Legion she met in Hyde Park at the Bastille Day Parade. Their daughter, Tania, was born in 1942. Four months later Violette heard the tragic news of her husband’s death in North Africa.

A desire for revenge drove her to the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in July 1943. After training, she was first landed near to Azay-le-Rideau on 6^th April 1944, she was to act as courier (women could move around in occupied France without arousing as much suspicion as men), to Phillipe Liewer. Liewer was by then a wanted man so Violette had to operate alone to judge the damage to the SALESMAN network of resisters, she concluded it was too damaged to restore. She returned home on 30^th April.

She volunteered for a second mission to resurrect SALESMAN elsewhere. She and Liewer parachuted in to Sussac in June 1944. Violette spent one and a half days cycling around delivering Liewer’s instructions and explosives to the Maquis network.

Liewer decided the send Violette to assess the willingness of Jacques Poirer and his Maquis to follow his instructions. She was to be given a lift part of the way in a car driven by Maquis leader called Dufour.

They met an unexpected road block at Salon-la-Tour.

They were waved down by soldiers, Dufour brought the car to a stop just short of the road block and they, he and Violette, launched themselves out of the car, shooting at the soldiers as they ran to escape. The soldiers pursued them relentlessly.

Then, Violette’s weak ankle, which she had broken in her initial parachute training two years previous, gave way. She insisted Dufour leave her while she kept the soldiers at bay.

When she ran out of ammunition, she was captured.

She was taken to the headquarters in Limoges and cruelly interrogated. She remained silent. She was transferred to Gestapo headquarters in Avenue Foch, Paris where she was subject to cold bath, electric shock treatment and sleep deprivation and other torture. She refused to say anything useful. Violette was finally sent to Frèsnes Prison.

In August, she and other SOE women, including Lilian Rolfe and Denise Bloch, that had been captured, were shackled by the feet in pairs and put on a train to Ravensbrük. They were transferred to both Torgau, to work in the fields, and then to Königsberg, in the cold north, in their thin clothes, to clear a swamp for an airfield. They worked often in freezing water up to their knees on scarcely any food and with disease rife.

In January 1945, Violette, Lilian and Denise were recalled to Ravensbrük.

On the evening of 27^th January 1945, Violette Szabo, Lilian Rolfe and Denise Bloch, all SOE F Section women agents, walked barefoot to the executioner’s wall.

After the formal order was read to them they were each shot through the back of the neck.

Their bodies were burned afterwards.

Violette was twenty-three years old.

So cripplingly heartbreaking and awe-inspiring is her story that they made a film about her. Carve Her Name With Pride.

The film ends with Violette’s young daughter, Tania, with her grandparents after leaving Buckingham Palace where she has collected the George Cross awarded to her mother by King George VI on behalf of her country.

She is remembered in Stockwell. On 26^th June 2001, which would have been Violette’s 80^th birthday,  a mural was unveiled in her honour.

Although one of the most well-known of the SOE F Section women, Violette was one of many beyond brave women:

Gillian Gerson

Virginia Hall

Yvonne Rudellat

Blanche Charlet

Andree Borrel

Lise de Baissac

Mary Herbert

Odette Sansom

Marie-Therese Le Chene

Sonia Olschanezky

Jacqueline Nearne

Francine Agazarian

Julienne Aisner

Vera Leigh

Noor –un – Nisa Inayat Khan

Cecily Lefort

Diana Rowden

Elaine Plewman

Yvonne Cormeau

Yolande Beekman

Pearl Witherington

Elizabeth Reynolds

Anne-Marie Walters

Madeleine Damerment

Denise Bloch

Eileen Nearne

Yvonne Baseden

Patricia O’Sullivan

Yvonne Fontaine

Lilian Rolfe

Muriel Byck

Odette Wilen

Nancy Wake

Phyllis Latour

Marguerite Knight

Madeleine Lavigne

Sonya Butt

Ginette Jullian

Christine Granville

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.

Sources: The Heroines of SOE F Section, Squadron Leader Beryl E. Escott

Photos: Violetteszabo.org