Violette Szabo, G.C.

I agree about Edith Cavell, it always makes me pause for thought when I pass her statue just off Trafalgar Square. It's an aspect of war I've read a lot about & there are some exceptional books out there!

The life of agent could be short & brutal. Despite the 'PR', SOE made some dreadful mistakes costing the lives of many agents, particularly in Holland.

It's the story of the women in particular, that I find moving. Maybe I'm old fashioned about the 'Fairer sex'..........? The brutal methods used by The Gestapo & in the camps makes your blood run cold. For the men it was awful, Matthausen appeared to be a favoured final destinanation for many & the executions that took place there were carried out by sadists.

The French resistance leader Jean Moulin, a true hero, how he suffered.

In England I feel we are sometimes rather quick to judge 'Collaboration'. An easy standpoint when you Country has never been occupied, perhaps different with German soldiers on your street.

Thank God for all those brave men & women that kept us free!!

 

Surname:SzaboForename:Violette Reine ElizabethUnit:F Section SOERank:EnsignNumber:F/29Date Of Death:25th January 1945Age:23Gravesite:Brookwood Memorial,Surrey Panel 26 Column 3Additional Information Women's Transport Service (F.A.N.Y.)
born 26.6.1921 72 rue de Villiers,Levallois-Perret,Hauts-de-Seine,France (0600 hours)
"born Brixton,London" (G.C.Register) - error - grew up there
daughter of Charles George and Reine Blanche (nee Leroy) Bushell,18 Burnley Road, Stockwell.South London,SW9 (postwar Long Jetty,N.S.W.,Australia)
wife of late Etienne Michel Rene Szabo,36 Pembridge Villas,Notting Hill,London W11 (Tel.Bayswater 6188 ) (60145 Sgt-Mjr 1 Bn 13th Demi Brigade Legion Etrangere - killed in Egypt 24.10.1942 age 32)(married 21.8.1940 Aldershot Registry Office)
mother of Tania Desiree Szabo (born 8.6.1942 St Mary's Hospital,Paddington,London)
educated Stockwell Road School,South London
sales assisiant at perfume counter,Bon Marche department store,Brixton Road,London in civilian life
joined Land Army,Fareham,Hampshire 1940
Private ATS 11.9.1941
7 Heavy Anti-Aircraft Training Regiment,RA
481 HAA Battery,137 HAA Regiment,RA
joined SOE 10.7.43 as Section Leader,WTS + Ensign
awards G.C.,Croix de Guerre (France)
codename Louise
Salesman Circuit (courier)
alias Leroy,Corinne Reine
alias Taylor,Vicky
arrested 10.6.1944
executed Ravensbruck,Germany (25th January - 5th February 1945)
F Section Memorial,Valencay,France
Memorial Plaque,Lambeth Town Hall
Surname:SzaboForename:Violette Reine ElizabethUnit:F Section SOERank:EnsignNumber:F/29Date Of Death:25th January 1945Age:23Gravesite:Brookwood Memorial,Surrey Panel 26 Column 3Additional Informationarent unit Women's Transport Service (F.A.N.Y.)
born 26.6.1921 72 rue de Villiers,Levallois-Perret,Hauts-de-Seine,France (0600 hours)
"born Brixton,London" (G.C.Register) - error - grew up there
daughter of Charles George and Reine Blanche (nee Leroy) Bushell,18 Burnley Road, Stockwell.South London,SW9 (postwar Long Jetty,N.S.W.,Australia)
wife of late Etienne Michel Rene Szabo,36 Pembridge Villas,Notting Hill,London W11 (Tel.Bayswater 6188 ) (60145 Sgt-Mjr 1 Bn 13th Demi Brigade Legion Etrangere - killed in Egypt 24.10.1942 age 32)(married 21.8.1940 Aldershot Registry Office)
mother of Tania Desiree Szabo (born 8.6.1942 St Mary's Hospital,Paddington,London)
educated Stockwell Road School,South London
sales assisiant at perfume counter,Bon Marche department store,Brixton Road,London in civilian life
joined Land Army,Fareham,Hampshire 1940
Private ATS 11.9.1941
7 Heavy Anti-Aircraft Training Regiment,RA
481 HAA Battery,137 HAA Regiment,RA
joined SOE 10.7.43 as Section Leader,WTS + Ensign
awards G.C.,Croix de Guerre (France)
codename Louise
Salesman Circuit (courier)
alias Leroy,Corinne Reine
alias Taylor,Vicky
arrested 10.6.1944
executed Ravensbruck,Germany (25th January - 5th February 1945)
F Section Memorial,Valencay,France
Memorial Plaque,Lambeth Town Hall

 

The most notable memorial is the one in memory of Violette Szabo, GC, a Lambeth heroine of the French Resistance, dedicated on 20 March 1964 by the Mayor and Tanya Szabo, the daughter of Violette Szabo.

the one on the stairs...

 

also found this site..showing violette as a young girl..

http://www.angelfire.com/va/violetteszabo/index.html/

 

duke of wellington unveiling the monument..

Erection of monument in honour of the S.O.E agents « Mayor of Lambeth

 

The secret war

In an exclusive film for Telegraph TV Tania Szabó, the daughter of one of the female agents of Britain's Secret Operations Executive (SOE) who operated in occupied France, talks about her late mother and the 1958 feature film that commemorated her bravery.






The real Charlotte Grays - Telegraph

 

This is a great link to a site that has an interview with the Lysander pilot, who flew Violette home after her first French mission!!

Violette Szabo - POV Production – BLOG

 

​

 

PRIVATE AND PERSONAL TUITION IN VARIOUS LANGUAGES

a very talented woman it appears,jersey a nice place to live too...

also hansard report on tania's education grant in danger,taken from 1958..

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1958/nov/25/tania-szabo-pension

 

Facebook.

Here's the link to a Facebook Group dedicated to Violette.

The Violette Szabo G.C. Memorial Group | Facebook

 

found this video, so I thought I'd add it to the thread...

http://herefordshire.greatbritishli...-agent-1945-museum-chris-poole-germany-22069/ remembering violette....

[YOUTUBE]KbiZyfrILoU[/YOUTUBE]

 

Next month Mrs.Hilts and I are off to France, While we're there, we intend to visit Salon La Tour, where Violette fought her gun battle with the SS. Then on to Le Clos where she landed and finally Sussac where she stayed.

I e-mailed Tania Szabo with some questions and a map attachment. The next day I had a very nice reply from her!

A special Lady!!

 

Violette and tania...



violette and etienne, at 18 burnley road....

[YOUTUBE]UYqurbXMfoI[/YOUTUBE] "The Life That I Have" by Leo Marks Poem animation ..

 

I once had the honour of speaking via. radio (Nicky Clarke's radio show on 5 Live) to Leo Marks. He'd just read out 'The life that I have...' on live radio and I was in tears. I just called in to thank him for his own services to the nation and was lucky enough to get through and speak with him personally. A great moment, a great man.

 

Perhaps the most famous S.O.E. agent to work with the Resistance was Violet Szabo in France.
She was captured by the Germans and died in a concentration camp just before the war’s end.

Her story was immortalised in the British 1950s film Carve Her Name With Pride, starring Virginia McKenna and directed by Lewis Gilbert.

This is the poem that Violet Szabo learnt off by heart as the basis of her codes for sending wireless messages back to Britain.

"The life that I have,
is all that I have.
And the life that I have
is yours.
The love that I have
of the life that I have
is yours and yours
and yours.
A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause.
For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours
And yours."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es6NIt-Oye8

 

There is also a piece about her in a recent copy of Gunner magazine. Before she joined SOE she had conformed to the stereotype of a woman solider serving in the ATS in an AA Regiment on Merseyside. She got married, became pregant and left the army to be a mum. After her husband was kileld at El Alemein she left their child with gtranny and volunteered to work for SOE.