To say that a woman is braver than a man is just a general cliche. However, this heroine's last mission does not allow her to be otherwise described. Who was the tiny 23-year-old who Churchill himself said was the bravest of us all?
One of the tasks of the British government agency SOE (Special Operations Management) was to support the resistance movement in German-occupied European countries. When recruiting new agents, the unit first of all had to assess their predispositions for this job.
Opinions on the candidates, however, did not always turn out to be accurate. Violette Szabó was not rated the best, as her daughter, Tania, recalled in her book "Beautiful and brave. Churchill's favorite agent ":
Szabó showed a clear leadership qualities. However, her mediocre results in technical efficiency and the use of Morse code were disappointing. (...) the overall assessment of D was not very promising:“calm, physically enduring, stubborn girl of average intelligence. She looks for exciting experiences and adventures, but isn't completely frivolous. Very self-confident, good at dealing with others. (...) To a limited extent, not requiring special intelligence (…) can be useful as a courier ”.
Really?
Goddess of vengeance
Violette, a young woman, mother of a young daughter, had her reasons to start working with SOE. What made her risk her life, leaving her beloved child in the care of a friend and take action, from which she had no guarantee of return?
Violette Szabó with her husband. Photo from the book "Beautiful and brave" (Bellona 2017).
The decision to join the Resistance was certainly not an easy one. The new agent had to be ready for everything that Tania Szabó emphasizes in the first pages of the book “Piękna i brave. Churchill's favorite agent ":
But where would those willing to do such operations come from? People ready to jump into total darkness in unknown terrain (...), ready to draw the enemy's forces into battle and accept a terrible fate if they are caught by an enemy who adheres to the principle that the most terrible tortures are allowed .
In the case of our heroine, it is not necessary to look for an answer for a long time. In 1940, 19-year-old Violette married Étienne Szabó, an officer of the Foreign Legion. Two years later, in June 1942, she gave birth to a daughter - Tania. In October of the same year, Étienne was dead. He fell at the Battle of El Alamein. It was then that his consistent and stubborn wife made her decision:time to take her revenge on the Germans, and in every possible way accessible to a woman measuring 158 centimeters tall. So, first of all, using your cleverness, intelligence and even unusual interpersonal skills.
The source for the article was a book by Tania Szabó titled “Beautiful and brave. Churchill's Favorite Agent ”(Bellona 2017).
One-man talent show
It soon turned out that this half-British, half-French was a particularly valuable asset to SOE. In carrying out the tasks assigned, among other things, her impeccable French. When she was transferred to occupied France in 1944, she could easily pretend to be a young resident of that country. Regardless of whether she was in the provinces, or in the still chic - even despite the war - Paris, she played the role perfectly.
However, a number of other Violette abilities cannot be underestimated, which made the first action with her participation a success. The agent went to France to find out what exactly happened to the broken "Salesman" spy network. Above all, her ability to win people over was invaluable in this case.
Conversation with a German colonel on the train? It wasn't a problem for the young woman. Nederholen liked her so much that suggested another meeting twice . It was more difficult to reach an agreement with the war-broken Denise Desvaux, who supported the French resistance. However, Violette managed to gain her confidence and gained information about a destroyed spy network.
A false French identity document in the name of Corinne Reine Leroy, which Szabó used on her first intelligence mission to France in April 1944. Photo and caption from the book "Beautiful and brave" (Bellona 2017).
In contacts with Violette's people, intuition certainly helped. It came in handy, for example, when a woman rented accommodation in Madame Thivier's guesthouse. She couldn't be sure her landlady wasn't the informer. And yet she trusted her, thanks to which the room she lived in became for her not only a place of rest, but also a place for meetings with representatives of the resistance movement.
Another remarkable feature of this young widow was her composure in any situation. She showed them both when she was subjected to checks by German patrols and when she was temporarily arrested in order to accurately explain her travels around the country. At that time, she used her beauty and behaved freely, even if inside she trembled at the thought of the prison and the failure of the action. After all, there were moments of doubt for her as well. Even imprisoned, she did not release anyone, but there were times when she wished she had a cyanide capsule with her:
How can I survive if I end up in the basement. (…) I know too much, including names and addresses. You had to take a capsule. Now I know why so many people take it. But after the training, I found that I can remain silent when necessary. As Joanna d'Arc I will repeat to myself:We will drive them out!.
Self-confidence and self-control were features that Violette often saved the skin. Photo from the book "Beautiful and brave" (Bellona 2017).
Violette also knew that an ideal agent should have an excellent memory. She tried to take as few notes as possible, so that in case of a slip-up, she had as little evidence of her guilt and "hooks" as possible for people who helped her. She repeated in her mind what she heard over and over again. She wrote only the most important facts on rice paper, which she later sewed under the lining of her sweater. Maps? She usually memorized these so that she could hit everywhere on her own.
"Run away and tell everyone what happened!"
The agent's unusual intuition did not disappoint her until the very end. Unfortunately, at the decisive moment, she did not obey her. The worst happened during her second, much more dangerous action in France. She was sent to help unite and train the resistance networks operating in the Haute-Vienne, Corrèze, Lot and Dordogne areas, preferably before the Allied landing in Normandy.
The young woman knew that she might be setting off on a mission and decided to make a will before she left. She asked her mother to take care of her daughter and her father to take care of her modest salary. Despite her bad feelings, she wanted to take part in the action, although, as Tania Szabó reports, her superiors gave her a choice:
You don't have to go, you know that. (...) You have already done too much. (…) The decision is yours. Your courage and skill are beyond discussion. However, you must know that it will be much more dangerous this time.
Violette set off on a deadly mission to train members of the French Resistance before the Allied landing in Normandy.
Her sixth sense was activated again in France. She really did not want to get into the car with the man nicknamed "Anastas". She preferred to travel by bicycle, as she found driving a black Citroën too conspicuous. How in such a car you pretend to be a couple of young people who simply travel from village to village? But time was pressing ...
"Anastasie" was a wayward and overconfident man. He forced to pick up a passenger on the way, and when Violette, driving through the green fields, decided it was time to change to a bicycle, he simply laughed at her. The agent couldn't get off - the bike was blocking the door. As a result, when a platoon of the SS field gendarmerie suddenly emerged, there was nothing else to do but to shell out.
The source for the article was a book by Tania Szabó titled “Beautiful and brave. Churchill's Favorite Agent ”(Bellona 2017).
The passenger, picked up on the way, had no guns, so he just ran out. Interestingly, no one was chasing him. The girl was shot in the arm, but she and her companion ran as fast as possible through the cornfield, trying to shoot the enemy at the same time. When she sprained her ankle, she convinced the man that she would only delay her escape. She told him to tell her supervisor, Philippe, what happened, and she ran to the nearest apple tree.
Before she ran out of ammunition, she fired many more shots on target. Meanwhile, "Anastasie" hid in his fiancée's house. Violette was captured alive by the Germans. No wonder that after such sacrifice she was considered braver than many men. And even, as Churchill said, "the bravest of us all."
In France, women are not shot
In the last period of the young agent's life, the features that were recognized as her flaws during SOE training turned out to be the most helpful in enduring the nightmarish reality. How did she survive multiple tortures, being transported from one prison to another, microscopic food rations, or finally being transported to the Ravensbrück camp in inhuman conditions? Probably only thanks to treating everything that surrounded her with the lightness that was characteristic of her. She tried to think pragmatically, survive and run away until the end.
After her capture, Violette ended up in the Ravensbrück camp.
Unfortunately, regardless of the efforts made, Violette had no chance of surviving. The Germans, finally defeated in 1945, decided that the people who knew the most could not be released from the camps. As Tania Szabó recalls:“Each British or French prisoner suspected of having ties to SOE received an individual death sentence. What they witnessed decided their fate. ”
In January 1945, the agent, who had been optimistic so far, began to become increasingly depressed. Apathy and possibly pneumonia caused her to lose her will to live to a large extent. However, she remained steadfast to the end, although she had to endure stays in brothels, solitary confinement and bitter frost. She also helped others - even then she was still able to give her bunk to a sick friend.
Tania Szabó with her parents' medals after the Croix de Guerre award ceremony at the French Embassy in London. Photo and caption from the book "Beautiful and brave" (Bellona 2017).
The exact day on which Violette and two other agents were led to the death corridor is unknown. This took place no later than February 6, 1945. She was the only one to walk on her own. She was the last to be shot. Before that, she had to watch her friends - Denise Bloch and Lilian Rolfe die from a shot in the neck. The bodies of the women were most likely thrown into a muddy lake.
The 4.5-year-old daughter of one of the bravest agents in history received a posthumous decoration for her mother in 1947 from the hands of George VI himself. She was wearing a dress that Violette had bought for her over two years earlier while on an assignment in Paris, hoping that the girl would wear the outfit at the end of the war.
