Young, Brave and Beautiful

by Tania Szabô

  It was hot and Violette had taken off her jacket. Her suitcase had been placed in the boot. The lining had been ripped apart and there were signs of interference with the leather casing where attempts had been made to discover hidden recesses where maps and documents could be hidden. They must have found her identity papers, because they had gone. Luckily, she had no maps or notes in her possession as she had memorised everything. Not even a code key sewn into her clothes or shoes.

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  As they approached Paris, Violette saw there were barricades up everywhere, far more than when she had last been there just six weeks ago. Things were changing and hope was rising in the hearts of Parisians as they looked towards liberation in the not too distant future. Hope even stirred in Violette’s heavy heart.

  They arrived in rue Pergolese and turned into Avenue Foch. Not far along, among other imposing maisons, was 82–85 Avenue Foch, Gestapo headquarters for the Nazi security services throughout France. The four buildings were all used for Gestapo counter-intelligence services, the SD, while Americans and diplomats from other countries lived in houses close by.

  They entered the rather gloomy and forbidding hall, where the guard led Violette over to a desk and the uniformed receptionist entered her name meticulously into a ledger while confiscating her suitcase once again. A large female SD prison officer dressed smartly in grey led her to a cell. To reach the cell on the fourth floor they first had to pass through a long underground passage, which was cold and damp. This passage actually led them from 84 Avenue Foch to the adjacent building where the cells were. Warder and prisoner then climbed an iron staircase that rang its complaint from the heavy steps of the warder and creaked alarmingly at Violette’s lighter step. Three floors could be reached from this staircase, but only via an iron cage that had to be unlocked to enter, then the first door was relocked before they crossed to the opposite side, where the second door had to be unlocked to gain the corridor of that floor along which ran the cells. It clanged shut and was locked by the warder as they left it.

  On the fourth floor, they traversed another cage where a security warder opened and locked each side after their passage. They walked along the corridor until they reached the cell into which Violette was unceremoniously shoved. It was small and dark, about four metres long by two metres wide. The plaster peeled from the walls and the sole window was a series of small squares of frosted glass covered in grime and dust. A couple of panes were cracked and a tiny sliver of fresh air entered the dark cell if the wind was in the right direction. A fraction of light penetrated the dim interior. The guards had long ago removed the handles and renewed the cement so the window remained firmly closed.

  Violette saw that her sleeping arrangement was yet again another rusty old iron bedstead, folded, this time, against the wall. However, here a lumpy, bug-ridden palliasse could be thrown on the bedstead when lowered. The second luxury was a rickety chair. The third luxury was a lavatory seat, not just a hole in the ground; with a tap above it.

  Many female and male SOE agents had passed through the cage doors. Some jumped from Avenue Foch windows to their death or injury and recapture, including Violette’s friend Harry Peulevé. He was injured and recaptured to later be deported to Mathausen concentration camp. On 12 May 1944, eight women were brought from Fresnes to Avenue Foch. They were: Diana Rowden (Paulette), Eliane Plewman (Gaby), Yolande Beekman (Mariette), Madeleine Damerment (Martine), Vera Leigh (Simone), Odette Sansom GC MBE (Lise) and Sonia Olschanesky (Tania) and one other. Only Odette survived; she famously said of Violette, ‘She was the bravest of us all.’

  Violette spent about two weeks in the cells at Avenue Foch. Here, she was severely beaten and subjected to all manner of humiliating torture and sadism, as so many others had been. She did not give away any of her comrades nor any plans or other information entrusted to her. The Gestapo knew exactly who she was, that she had a daughter in England staying with her mother and that her husband had been a Legionnaire and killed at El Himeimat during the second El Alamein battle, on 23 October 1942. From this, Violette surmised there had to be a traitor in the camp.158 Her interrogators used this information to show her how helpless she was before their intelligence services and how small her own knowledge; hence she might as well be amenable to save herself unwanted suffering.

  Who was the traitor? Was it her commanding officer, Philippe Liewer, or Buckmaster, head of SOE F Section; Charles Boddington, his deputy – perhaps also known as Nicholas Bodington – second-in-command under Buckmaster of F Section (later accused of being a double agent, he lost his post in SOE, was sent to lecture the Allied troops on French politics)? Vera Atkins, even? Of all of these people, it seems it may have been Boddington/Bodington as he had been sacked on suspicion of handing secrets to the enemy. No one has ever been publicly acknowledged as having betrayed Violette.

  The agent Odette Churchill/Sansom, GC, spoke of being in Avenue Foch:

  We talked about when we were captured, and what this one thought about it, what that other one had to say about it. I remember what one of them said because I had the same feelings. She and I, we had a feeling that something had been wrong. The others thought they had been captured because of the work they were doing or the people they were with. She had the feeling, because she had been arrested as soon as she arrived in France, that there was an informant. And I did too.

  This other person that Odette speaks of was unlikely to have been Violette, although she was arrested very shortly after arriving on her Sussac mission. There were a number of men and women who were, indeed, arrested on arrival, that is, on landing in France – whether by parachute drop or by Lysander. The Germans were waiting. No satisfactory answer has ever been supplied as to how and why this could have happened. From Huguette we are told that Violette said it was a ‘circuit member’. That means someone in Salesman II, the principal members of which were Philippe Liewer, Bob Maloubier, Jean-Claude Guiet and Violette. It was obviously not the latter two. Jean-Claude hardly knew her, and although the first two knew a considerable amount about Violette, having spent time with her in London, it is unthinkable that Philippe or Bob would have betrayed her. Was Violette sent out as a decoy?

  We have two women, Andrée Borell, an agent, and at least one other women she was with who were sure a traitor was operating at a high level in London, in SOE. And if Huguette’s memory is faulty on this point, perhaps Violette was referring to all circuits or Baker Street, as later, another woman, Madame Meunier, reports that Violette was convinced there was a traitor in Baker Street.

  It is interesting to speculate whether there was an infiltrator or traitor higher up the scale. Perhaps a ‘back-room’ member of staff or an agent in the field? Possibly both or more. All agents could have described the schools, the training, the cover names of trainee agents and instructors and so on. But not many people would have known that Vicky Taylor was Violette Szabó who had a child in London.

  Over the war years, and especially towards the end, informers were common in occupied countries, seeking safety for themselves or their families, not able to withstand torture, or selling secrets for money. I can understand all these motives, except the last. Informers and traitors existed at all levels of every secret service, too.

  Sometimes betrayal was of another sort entirely – where information was unintentionally left that the Germans discovered and used. When Roland Farjon was captured in 1943, his apartment in Paris was searched and the Germans found lists in clear and in code of agents throughout France and much other information useful to the enemy. Another case was when the unlucky Southgate (from the Hector and Prosper circuits), arrested on 1 May 1944, had not destroyed his handwritten notebook. This and other papers, including various BBC messages and material on his circuit and sector of activities, were picked up by the Gestapo at the safe-house where his radio operator Aimé was living. He and another agent, wrongly supposing after the first forty-eight hours that they would better be able to save lives, then led Vogt, interpr
eter and interrogator at Avenue Foch, to parachute grounds, weapons dumps, giving names of their comrades and where they worked.

  It has never been made public who might have been the traitor in SOE, although there has been much speculation. It is reckoned, although not verified, that only thirteen percent of SOE files remained after the devastating fire in January 1946. That is, indeed, interesting.

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  During the many interrogations Violette was subjected to, the questions were repeated over and over. Sleep deprivation was one of the minor softening-up processes. Food was grey soup and a hunk of greyer bread. No washing facilities. Toilet – with a seat with a tap above it, but without hygienic paper or even newspaper. It was solitary and disgusting. She remained in isolation for days at a time without interrogation during her stay at Avenue Foch.

  Women or men were frequently thrown into a cell together, with perhaps a ‘mole’ or walls that had ears. Prisoners who had given in and given information to their interrogators had special treatment, better food, reading material and so forth. While she was incarcerated in Avenue Foch, Violette survived and grew mentally stronger and more resistant through the strength of her deep hatred for the Nazis. Her health suffered, though. She had grown thinner and her hair hung in lank strands. Under the grime her face was pale, her eyes sunken. The glaze of pain extinguished practically all vestige of sparkle, but anger continued to grow. She remained sardonic at all interrogations, under all circumstances. It was her shield against all they could do to her. Violette had like most prisoners been subjected to the cold bath, a favourite pursuit at Avenue Foch and a little electric shock treatment to coax her stubborn mouth to spill out what she knew. Eventually they tired of her; they had new sources to drill for information. She was sent to the notorious prison at Fresnes, south-west of Paris.

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  Violette had a pretty good idea of what to expect before her first visit there. She had heard of Fresnes prison. The car taking her there drove sedately through a long avenue lined with tall poplars. On the right-hand side was a series of buildings, each with gates leading into their separate outer yards. The gates were slowly opened by armed sentries, allowing the official car to pass through to the female blocks only after a thorough check. The men’s block was adjacent, with similar gates and outer yard.

  The prison stank. It was high summer and, after four years of war, resistance, occupation and normal criminal activity, it was overflowing with far more than the stipulated 1,600 inmates. By 1 July 1944, when Violette arrived at Fresnes, men grossly outnumbered women and were crowded five or six in a cell intended for one or two. There was still space for a good number of the women to be kept in solitary confinement. Violette shared a cell with a much older woman and later a third cellmate until she left for Saarbrücken on 14 August 1944.

  During the harsh interrogations, Violette had remained defiant before the questions, threats and promises, answering, ‘What do you take me for: a halfwit?’ and something along the lines of, ‘It won’t be long before the tables are turned. Then you’ll be where I am, and our men will be in your chair. What will you do then?’

  She was not far wrong.

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  While these interrogations were taking place, the Maquis, all the French groups, the SOE agents, the SAS, the Jedburghs, the paratroopers and bombers of the Allied air arm, all were making huge inroads, sweeping the occupant aside throughout France.

  Railway lines were blown up or torn out, trains sabotaged or derailed, telephone lines destroyed, fuel dumps blown, the enemy harassed at every crossroad, in every town. They were slowly but surely being defeated. Another nine months, more or less, had yet to be endured before capitulation and unconditional surrender, but long before then, small and large pockets of land were liberated.

  After Violette’s capture during June to August, Philippe Liewer secured the loyalty and huge effort of Georges Guingouin, who met every target and never once let Philippe and his team down. Philippe liaised with groups across the entire region from the Atlantic to the Alps, from Châteauroux to Toulouse, making it sheer hell for the German troops; they might be lucky to escape one ambush, only to fall victim of the next. Their nerves were raw, ragged. They shot hostages, but this deterred not one jot the Résistants and citizens, who were going all out to destroy the German army.

  Philippe organised the surrender of the German armed forces, Gestapo and Milice in Limoges, and Guingouin was fêted, as was his due. As Philippe reported to his London masters, ‘We piled up in a deep cutting two kilometres from Salon-la-Tour two successive passenger trains. This produced an effective block for six weeks, the Germans being short of heavy cranes.’ That was just one of the successes for the Salesman II circuit.

  Jean-Claude Guiet, the fourth team member of Salesman II who kept London fully informed, was never caught, never questioned. In a flurry of messages, he let London know of Violette’s capture and the plans to secure her rescue, and finally their failure to do this. It was, after all, an almost impossible task, not least amid the increasing momentum of planning, training, sabotage and so on. Jean-Claude was constantly receiving fresh directions to pass on to Philippe.

  Jacques Dufour (Anastasie) had left the groups of Maquis in the Haute-Vienne, angry with Philippe for supporting what he considered dangerous communist elements that were ready to put France under a new occupation.

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  Now it is time for Madame Marie Lecomte, Légion d’honneur, Médaille Militaire, Croix de Guerre avec Palme to speak. She was from Morlaix, sixty kilometres from Brest, on the most western tip of Brittany, where she had first been imprisoned and tortured. She first wrote to my grandmother and then me in Australia, when she discovered where we were after the film Carve her Name with Pride had been shown in 1958, and we later met.

  Marie Lecomte had promised Violette faithfully to contact us at war’s end and at last, after the years had passed, was able to keep her promise. This is an extract of Madame Lecomte’s first letter, translated by my grandmother, concerning her meeting with Violette in Fresnes prison:

  No. 75386159

  Morlaix, 19 April 1958.

  Dear Mr and Mrs Bushell

  You will be surprised to hear from me in faraway Britanny. Please excuse me writing to you, but I have to do my duty. With all my heart must I give you the message, which now comes from the grave. It is from your darling daughter Violette, she was of the heart and the flesh to you, to me she was a daughter of the heart and I loved her very much. Violette and I were inseparable.

  I was arrested by the Gestapo, horribly tortured, put into prison in Brest 60 km from Morlaix. After being condemned to death, I was transferred to Fresnes prison in Paris, arriving there at 11 o’clock at night. Everything I had was taken away from me, then up to a cell on the third floor, No. 24 – already in this cell were an old lady of 69, a portrait artist, and your dear Violette. She was looking at my face, covered with bruises, lips cut, etc. She understood why I was there; we were both in prison for the same cause.

  I was 40 years of age and your daughter 23. She looked upon me as a second mother. Maman Marie she used to call me. She told me about her parachute jumps and how, on the first one, she could not get out of it. Had to keep very still when she heard heavy steps approaching. She thought, Germans. But they were only gendarmes talking French to one another. She was then saved to join the Maquis. After her second jump, she stayed at a farm,160 she was to meet her chief at a certain place and by car to Salon-la-Tour to pick up a young man Jack, when they came to the T-junction, they saw Germans on each side of the road. They started firing on them, so a terrific battle took place and ended only when their ammunition ran out. Violette and the other man were161 taken to a guardpost and brutally assaulted. From there Violette was taken to Fresnes, where I met her ten days later.

  We both suffered terribly, morally also because the stairs in the prison were made of iron, very noisy to walk upon.

  Each day several women were taken away, w
e used to listen to the steps coming up, wondering if it was for us they were coming today, and in an instant open our cell door, but when we hear those steps going away noisily, we knew we had another day to live.

  Violette was always hoping to escape, so she kept doing her P.T. exercises to keep as fit as possible. Alas, one day someone came for her, she was going, we were in despair to be separated; it was 13 August 1944. She left, and myself two days later, the 15th, the day of our Virgin Mary, also my own birthday.

  Ah, I almost forgot to tell you about the small hole we made in the windowpane, so we could watch the yard below where the men prisoners were kept in iron cages.

  Each morning they were allowed one hour for exercises. With a piece of meal bone from my corset, we made a small pin sharp enough to pierce the glass. We were only able to put one eye to it and see what was going on down there.

  One day Violette saw a man162 she had worked with. She made me look at him too. ‘We must send a message somehow – you are much taller than I,’ she said. ‘Get on the head of the iron bed and use the stiff curtain as a funnel. Shout loudly through it, ‘All is well, V. All is well V.’ Violette looking at the hole saw him looking up. He had heard our message.

  Among others whom I have spoken with over the years, two Frenchwomen, Huguette Dehors and Marie Lecomte who are witness to Violette’s incarcerations did not know one another but there is a distressing sameness in the way they describe their imprisonment and a heartening similarity in the way they describe Violette.

  Marie Lecomte does not go into great detail of the dank awfulness of Fresnes, but what she says is evocative. As Marie wrote, it must have dredged suppressed memories. After her time in Ravensbrück and her liberation from Buchenwald on 25 May 1945, skeletal at seventy-four pounds (five stone four pounds) and an invalid of war, this extremely brave lady was plagued by long-term ill health. She died at the age of sixty-two, a hero of France, leaving children and grandchildren.