Young, Brave and Beautiful

by Tania Szabô

  My grandmother told Dickie on the journey home to Stockwell that I seemed to have no other companion but the dog. It is true. He was my friend and would sit next to me on a bench underneath the window that looked onto the tiny front garden. My main meal was bread and milk, which I liked very much. And just occasionally, I had a plate of chips, which tasted good. Perhaps, as I proved to be in Stockwell, I was just incredibly fussy with food. Shortly after arriving back in Stockwell, my grandmother took me to the doctor. He told her that I was seriously undernourished and would have only had another six months or so to live had I stayed in Mill Hill. But, once I had been back in Stockwell for a while, something wonderful happened: bananas arrived from a ship and a brown ‘cough medicine’ bottle full of the purest orange liquid was prescribed. It was orange concentrate, rationed and just for children, and I was to have a teaspoon a day in a glass of water. But it tasted so good that I would drink half the bottle before anyone could take it away.

  But on this icy-cold December day there was much fuss and palaver in the Stockwell household of the Bushells. My grandparents put on their best clothes. My grandmother had had her hair done and wore her best hat. And she dressed me in my frock from Paris. She combed and brushed my hair while I squealed and fidgeted, then dressed it in shiny white ribbon bows while Dickie grumbled that the ‘kid’ was always kicking up a fuss. Then my coat was put on, but then, horror of horrors, because of the bitter cold wind from Siberia and my uncertain health, my grandmother started to put gaiters over my shoes and socks. Well, I knew that you just absolutely did not wear gaiters to see the King. They came up to my knees and looked horrid. So I shouted, ‘No! I won’t wear them!’ I cried. I stamped my feet. Everyone was now in a state of high tension and red-faced with anger and frustration.

  We were going to be late.

  My grandmother finally gently pulled me over to her. ‘Now, Violette … oh, I mean Tania. You only have to wear them to the Palace door. As soon as you’re inside, I shall take them off. But you can’t fall sick on the way to see the King.’ Well, that made sense and knowing only too well that it was bed and not kings that I would see if I were sick, I said, ‘But you must promise to take them off just inside the door. Not wait or anything, just in case the King comes in. Promise me. Promise me, or I won’t go!’

  Laughing by now, my grandmother promised, explaining that we would have to wait a while in the antechamber.

  When we arrived, I tugged my grandmother’s sleeve and said, ‘Quick, quick, my gaiters. The King may come in.’ And so she removed them as the courtiers smiled and asked my grandparents if they would accompany me. Before my grandfather could say a word, my grandmother said, ‘Oh no, that would not be right. It is Tania’s mother that is being honoured today and it is Tania who must go to the audience with the King. She has lost her mother and she must have this honour to remember all her life.’

  I walked into a much larger room, but not huge. I think it was quite beautiful in a muted kind of way. And then the King came over to me – he was very tall and slim. Perhaps he had a navy-blue suit on. I curtsied as I knew so well how to do. And he leant forward and pinned the George Cross onto my right-hand side, saying that as my mother’s representative I must always wear it on my right-hand side. He asked me to keep it carefully for my mother, for such a very brave lady, and I replied that I would always keep it. It is lovely: a fine massive silver cross nestling in a beautiful blue bow. And it was his cross. He handed me the box to keep it in and then I do not remember quite how I left, except maybe there was a lady who led me out into the antechamber to my grandparents.

  I remember meeting a very well dressed gentleman who seemed very kind. He talked to my grandmother for some time. It was Philippe Liewer. He had taken the surrender of the Germans in Limoges and finally returned to England. Later, he went to live in Canada with his family.

  That day we also went on the Tube, which I enjoyed very much. What I enjoyed most was how creamy and glistening the curved walls and ceilings of the Tube carriages were and, as we sat on the shiny wooden seats, I could see into each carriage and the creamy walls and creamy curved ceilings went on and on into the distance.

  Some years later, when I was seven, my grandparents and I were invited to the French Embassy to meet the French Ambassador, René Massigli, KBE,189 who would present me with Violette’s Croix de Guerre with bronze star. It was not actually posthumous as it had been awarded in August 1944 in Limoges by Colonel Rivier, who awarded other agents, Résistants and Maquis members – including Jean-Claude Guiet, who received the same decoration for conspicuous bravery. As a prisoner of Ravensbrück concentration camp, Violette had been unable to be present.

  A gala dinner had been laid on in my honour (in reality of course, in Violette’s honour) and before dinner commenced I was to give a speech from the head of the table to the resplendent dignitaries sitting at the long mahogany table. Crystal chandeliers glittered and glasses too, cutlery shone and dark wood gleamed. All around were servants in red wearing white gloves. They were ramrod straight, quiet and very serious. At our kitchen table in Stockwell with my grandmother, I had memorised the short speech I had been asked to give, and then been tested by my grandfather. In the great dining hall of the Embassy, I felt a little anxious but pushed those nervous thoughts away because it was important to say what I had to say. On finishing my speech, I suddenly realised the import of the words I had spoken and felt a tear or two prick my eyes. With great endeavour, I breathed in to hide the sniff and went to sit down while the table applauded. A French gentleman pulled my seat out for me and I sat down. He bent over and whispered as I gazed at all the silver knives and spoons and forks and crystal glasses set before me, ‘Just start from the outside and work in.’

  ‘Oh,’ I replied.

  We chatted a little, and the gentleman on my right joined in for a moment or two. Finally, as champagne was being poured, the room became very quiet and a voice boomed, ‘And now, we would like to give Tania a toast.’ I immediately gathered all my pride and said, politely, that I didn’t want any toast, thank you. I had hoped that I, too, could sip a little champagne. After all, I had completed a very difficult task in giving a speech to all these grand people who spoke French and English to me. The only French I knew was ‘Oui, Monsieur’, ‘Non, Madame’ and ‘Merci’. Titters and chuckles and smiles erupted and the French gentleman on my left said that a toast was when everybody drank a tiny sip of champagne in someone’s honour – mine on this occasion. After that, the toastmaster would call another toast to the French president, Charles de Gaulle and finally to our King George VI and on both occasions I could drink a little sip of champagne with everyone else. I was much mollified.

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  So the years passed and many people in the English-speaking world and in France remembered the courage of one lovely young woman who had fought like a tiger and who had died with great dignity.

  Today there are museums honouring Violette. In Herefordshire, owned by Rosemary Rigby MBE, is a tiny museum is dedicated to Violette at the old kennels, now called Cartref,190 where Violette used to spend summer days roaming the lovely countryside, much as she had in France. Closest to Violette’s birthday of 26 June and on the last Sunday of June since 2000, Rosemary invites people to Violette’s picnic. About 200 people come to celebrate her life including French and British military, politicians, councillors, mayors, children and cadets. There is a display at the Imperial War Museum in London and in Stockwell a Blue Plaque adorns the old house at 18 Burnley Road. A block of council flats is named after her in the area and a huge circular mural opposite Stockwell Tube Station tells her story. At Stockwell Park School there is a commemorative garden dedicated to Violette and at Lambeth Town Hall and in Hans Crescent her picture is prominent. In Jersey at the Jersey War Tunnels Museum, where several million pounds were invested to develop a grand exhibition on the Occupation of the Channel Islands, is a room devoted to Violette, called the Szabó Room. In France, at Pont-Rémy, in Pic
ardy a few miles south-east of Abbeville, there is a stele in her memory opposite the Leroy family home where she lived with Tante Marguerite. In a neighbouring village, Quevauvillers, is the street, la rue Violette Szabó, named in her honour and, in 2015, another street, this time in the Haute-Vienne, will be named for Violette. There is mention of her in the Museum of the Maquis des Diables Noirs just outside Rouen at Forges-des-Eaux. In Sussac, she is honoured each year when the people of Haute-Vienne climb to Mont Gargan to honour all the Résistants who died for France and for freedom. At a crossroads on the way, they stop at an imposing monument to commemorate Violette and are debating whether the road of the ambush should be named after her. Schools have walls covered with her story, and books and DVDs telling her tale on their shelves. In the USA, Australia and the UK, and possibly elsewhere, people have completed their degrees using Violette’s heroic story to that end or have erected plaques and other memorials. Now she adorns the plinth in front of Lambeth Palace looking over the Embankment to the Houses of Parliament. The book and the film, both entitled Carve her Name with Pride, were translated into French for the French and Canadian French. The French title chosen was Agent Sz … There have been two biographies and many short bios in collections; many articles have been written. Ohio University has compiled Violette’s story for their archives of women at war.

  I hope that my book has helped to breathe life into her story of enduring courage and laughing gaiety and that I have done her some small justice. Her life was short but lived to the full, with much happiness, joy, some deep sadness and great endeavour. It is we who have lost out. What a great old lady she would have made, what a contribution she would have given and what wisdom and fun she would have passed our way.

  She and all those other brave souls who gave their lives for our fragile freedoms would urge us most strenuously to be ever vigilant and strive to remain free and democratic. Lest we forget. And let us beware.

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  ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.’

  Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Art. 1),

  adopted by General Assembly resolution 217 A (III) of 10 December 1948

  * * *

  189 René Massigli, French Ambassador in London from 1944 to 1954, whose diplomatic career ran from the First World War until 1956. Sacked by the Vichy government, he joined France libre at the beginning of 1943, becoming Commissioner of Foreign Affairs in the French Committee presided over by General de Gaulle. He was author of several books on international policy and politics.

  190 Cartref is Welsh for ‘home’. Thanks to Cardiff School of Computer Science for this information.

  Ode to Violette

  a Father’s Pride in Lament

  FAITHFUL EVEN UNTO DEATH

  by her father,

  Charles George Bushell, 1946

  © Tania Szabó

  ’Tis a glorious tale of British Pluck, of heroism grand,

  The deeds of a beautiful woman, in defence of her homeland.

  She stepped from a plane, high in the air, in the darkness of the night,

  With a message for the Maquis, telling them where to strike.

  Think of the fearful dangers, this girl had to face,

  In the midst of the enemy, dropped from out of space.

  Her heart beating high with courage, she knew the risks she ran;

  In her head she kept the message, and complex plan –

  The plan of the Allied Leaders, to land our troops in France

  For the overthrow of Germany, nothing was left to chance.

  How well she did her duty, the world will already know

  She delivered the vital message, she had struck her blow

  To avenge her soldier husband, killed in nineteen forty-two,

  And countless thousands of others – when – from out of the blue

  She found herself surrounded, by the dread Gestapo men.

  Without a thought of surrender, she picked up a gun and then

  Fighting from house to house, killing and wounding the Hun

  At last she fell exhausted, her noble duty done.

  Chained and thrown into prison, suffering thirst and pain,

  Her little daughter in England she knew she would ne’er see again.

  Atrociously tortured beyond belief, she kept locked in her heart

  The secret the Nazis knew she had, and tho’ they tear her apart,

  She determined never to speak, that nothing should make her tell

  And so this wonderful woman, bore the tortures of hell.

  Her spirit still unbroken, she was sent to another camp.

  The train in which she travelled, was bombed in the fields of France.

  Some of the men were prisoners, wounded, without a drink.

  Amid that deadly rain of bombs, again she did not shrink.

  While the guards were taking cover, she staggered to their aid,

  With jugs of water in her hands, she was not afraid.

  And so, she came to Ravensbrück, that camp of awful fame.

  Her sufferings were terrible, but ’twas all in vain.

  No matter what they did, they could not make her talk,

  This girl of Anglo-French descent, with face as white as chalk.

  Little the Nazis knew, the courage they had to face.

  And finding they could not make her speak, tied her to a stake.

  Proudly she faced the firing squad, defiant to the end,

  Knowing she was facing death, yet she would not bend.

  The fatal shots were fired, and to the world was lost,

  Madame Violette Szabó, how well she earned her Cross,

  Never to be forgotten, this girl aged twenty-four

  Torture could not break her, she was British to the core.

  To all the women throughout the world, a pattern she has set

  Of unexampled courage; and thought of the fate she met

  Makes brave men and women, turn pale at the very thought.

  Words fail to describe the courage, of one so frail and young,

  But to the ends of the earth her praises shall be sung.

  For never before in History and possibly never again,

  Has a girl been so brutally tortured, tortured but all in vain.

  Bibliography

  This is a small fraction of the material studied by the author – books, private and public correspondence, private and public archives – but might be a guide to those wishing to research the Second World War, SOE and the Résistance in France.

  Adeline, François, Haute-Vienne la Guerre secrète; Le Populaire du Centre

  Amouroux, Henri, Au printemps de mort et d’espoir; Robert Laffont

  Amouroux, Henri, Le peuple du désastre; Robert Laffont

  Archives of FANY HQ

  Archives of the SOE Advisor in the Foreign Office

  Atkins, Phœbe, Vera Atkins Archives; courtesy of Sarah Helm

  Binney, Marcus, Secret War Heroes; Hodder &Stoughton

  Binney, Marcus, The Women Who Lived for Danger; Hodder & Stoughton

  Bleicher, Hugo, Colonel Henri’s Story, The War Mémoires of Hugo Bleicher; Kimber

  Buckmaster, Maurice, They Fought Alone; Odhams Press

  Calet, Henri, Les Murs de Fresnes; Viviane Hamy

  Clark, Freddie, Agents by Moonlight; Tempus

  Coiffier, Patrick, Rouen Sous l’Occupation; Editions Bertout

  Cookridge, E.H., Inside SOE; Arthur Barker

  Cowburn, Benjamin, No cloak No Dagger; The Adventurers Club

  Cuningham, Cyril, Beaulieu, The Finishing School for Secret Agents; Leo Cooper

  Deacon, Richard, A History of the British Secret Service; Granada

  Dallot, Sébastien, L’Indre sous l’occupation allemande; de Borée

  Dowswell, Paul, True Stories of the Second World War; Usborne Publishing

  Ellis, Mark, Chil
d at War; Mercury House

  Ensminger, Thomas L., Spies, Supplies, and Moonlit Skies, Vol II; Xlibris Corp.

  de Gaulle Anthonioz, Geneviève, God Remained Outside; Souvenir Press

  Faramus, Anthony, Journey into Darkness; Grafton Books

  Foot, M.R.D., SOE 1940-46; BBC

  Foot, M.R.D., SOE in France; Whitehall History Publishing

  Frazer-Smith, Charles, The Secret War; Michael Joseph

  Guingouin, Georges, Quatre Ans de Lutte sur le sol Limousin; Lucien Souny

  Gundry, Elsie, Personal writings, diary and images

  Hamilton-Hill, Donald, SOE Assignment; William Kimber

  Helm, Sarah, A Life in Secrets: The Story of Vera Atkins and the Lost Agents of SOE; Little Brown

  Howarth, Patrick, Undercover; Phoenix Press

  Hudson, Sidney, Undercover Operator; Leo Cooper

  Hue, André, The Next Moon; Viking

  Imperial War Museum, Archive and film archives

  Jackson, Julian, France the Dark Years; Oxford University Press

  Kartheuser, Bruno, La France occupée, Vol II; Editions Krautgarten

  Kedward, H.R., Occupied France: Collaboration and Resistance; Blackwell

  Lanckoronska, Countess Karolina, Those Who Trespass Against Us; Pimlico

  Legoy, Jean, Les Havrais dans la Guerre; Edit par la municipalité du Havre

  Loveless, Irène, Spirit of Survivial; Lord Mayor of Portsmouth’s Charitable Fund

  Luneaux, Jean, Dans les Pas de Jean Moulin; Editions du petit Pavé

  MacKenzie, William, Secret History of SOE; St. Ermin’s Hotel

  Malraux, André, La Corde et les Souris; Folio

  Marks, Leo, Between Silk and Cyanide; Harper Collins

  Matthew, Adam and team, Special Operations Executive Series 1; Adam Matthew Publications

  Maurois, André, Rouen dévasté; Association Le Pucheux