She was executed in Ravensbrück concentration camp and posthumously awarded the George Cross, the highest honour given to civilians. Special operations officer Violette Szabo was posthumously awarded the … After the war the couple lived in London, where Charles Bushell worked as taxi-driver, car salesman and shopkeeper. Member of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War, Violette Reine Elizabeth Szabo née Bushell, has managed exactly this, with her daughter Tania receiving her deceased mother’s George Cross on her behalf, and stating that without Violette, ‘the world’s treasury of courage would have been immeasurably less’. In R.J. Minney's biography, as above, she is described as putting up fierce resistance with her Sten gun, although German documents of the incident record no German injuries or casualties. Painted on the exterior of the entrance to a deep level shelter, this mural was executed by Brian Barnes (with the assistance of children from Stockwell Park School). )[41] From there, she was moved to Fresnes Prison in Paris and brought to Gestapo headquarters at 84 Avenue Foch for interrogation and torture by the Sicherheitsdienst, who by now knew of her true identity and activities as an SOE agent. Violette was also awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French government in 1947 along with La Medaille de la Resistance in 1973. The Prince of Wales meets Tania Szabo (right), daughter of Violette Szabo, at a Service of Dedication a memorial to honour and remember the women who flew out of RAF Tempsford to aid resistance movements in occupied Europe at The Wheatsheaf public house, Tempsford, Bedfordshire. She returned to England by Lysander, piloted by Bob Large, DFC, of the RAF, on 30 April 1944, landing after a stressful flight in which the plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire over Chateaudun, and Szabo was thrown about the body of the plane. The daughter of a French mother and an English father she was born in Paris. [47][48] According to Christine Le Scornet, a seventeen-year-old French girl whom Violette befriended, and Jeannie Rousseau, the co-leader of the Torgau revolt, she maintained her morale, was optimistic about liberation and continued to plan to escape. It also includes the heroines Vera Atkins, Denise Bloch, and Lilian Rolfe. [7] They married at Aldershot Register Office in Manor Park on 21 August 1940 after a whirlwind 42-day romance;[8] Violette was 19, Étienne was 31. [10] He returned to the UK for a brief leave later in the year. Tania Szabo attended the museum's opening in 2000, as did Virginia McKenna, Leo Marks and members of SOE. Though she was treated harshly at Ravensbrück, there is no conclusive proof that she was tortured or sexually assaulted by the Germans; her biographer, Susan Ottaway, thinks it unlikely. "Szabo, Violette Reine Elizabeth", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004: rev. But in October Étienne died near El Alamein in … The bust of Violette Szabo. And, too, in Jersey at the Town Hall of St. Helier, she has started collating the Violette and Etienne Szabo Archives where the Connetable of St. Helier, Simon Crowcroft, has kindly allowed her to establish the VS Archive Room where students of WWII, SOE, and related matters will be able to access an important resource to further their studies. Violette Szabo, the second child of five and the only daughter of Charles George Bushell and Reine Blanche Leroy, was born as Violette Reine Elizabeth Bushell in Paris on 26 June 1921.During her early life she was a lively girl, regarded as a tomboy and enjoyed long-distance bicycling, ice-skating and gymnastics with her four brothers and several male cousins. These pages will be increasingly about them and Tania's first book, Young Brave and Beautiful , her exhaustively researched reconstruction of Violette's missions and life, with help from many people, inlcuding archives from the Foreign Office, SOE and National Archives, FANY archives, along with help and archives from private, … [14], After an assessment for fluency in French and a series of interviews, Szabo was sent from 7–27 August to STS 4, a training school at Winterfold House, and after a moderately favourable report, to Special Training School 24 of Group A at Arisaig in the Scottish Highlands in September and October. while attending school in Brixton. When she realised what had really happened, he was rewarded with a kiss. Szabo was born Violette Reine Elizabeth Bushell in Levallois Paris on June 26, 1921. "[76], Szabo's wartime activities in German-occupied France were dramatised in the film Carve Her Name with Pride, starring Virginia McKenna and based on the 1956 book of the same name by R. J. This, while Paul Emile Francis Holley kept the Language Studio ticking over. [30], After two aborted attempts, due to stormy weather on the night of 4/5 June and the abandonment of the intended landing ground on 5/6 June by the Resistance reception committee because of German patrols, Szabo and three colleagues were dropped by parachute from a USAAF Liberator flown from RAF Harrington in Northamptonshire onto a landing field near Sussac on the outskirts of Limoges early on 8 June 1944 (immediately following D-Day, and Tania Szabo's second birthday). During this period, she was informed of her husband's death in action. Under the code name "Louise", which happened to be her nickname (she was also nicknamed "La P'tite Anglaise", as she stood only 5'3" tall),[25][26] she and SOE colleague Philippe Liewer (under the name "Major Charles Staunton"), organiser of the Salesman circuit, tried to assess the damage made by the German arrests, with Szabo travelling to Rouen, where Liewer could not go as a wanted man (both he and Maloubier were on wanted posters with their codenames), and to Dieppe to gather intelligence and carry out reconnaissance. [27] While the destruction of Salesman was a heavy blow to SOE, her reports on the local factories producing war materials for the Germans were important in establishing Allied bombing targets. As a tribute to her mother and in order to put right inaccuracies of a detrimental nature to the memory of Violette,  Tania spent at least three years working on the book, while Paul E F Holley kept the Language Studio ticking over. After about ten days,[42] Szabo and most of the other women were sent on to Ravensbrück concentration camp, where over 92,000 women were to die during the war. Upon arrival, she was sent to co-ordinate the activities of the local maquis in sabotaging communication lines during German attempts to stem the Normandy landings. Violette volunteered for tree-felling in the forest, where the trees gave some shelter from the bitter winds (Lilian and Denise were too ill to join her). The family, except her monolingual father, would often converse in French.[4]. Shortly after their wedding he was sent abroad and soon after the birth of their daughter he was killed at the Battle of El Alamein in North Africa. Violette Szabo, GC, a British subject, executed on or around this day, 5 February in 1945, was the daughter of an English father and French mother, and the widow of French army officer, Etienne Szabo who was killed in action in North Africa in 1942. On 17 December 1947 their five-year-old daughter Tania received the George Cross from King George VI on behalf of her late mother. On 15 November 2007, at the launch of the book, Young Brave and Beautiful: The Missions of Special Operations Executive Agent Lieutenant Violette Szabo (.mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit}.mw-parser-output .citation q{quotes:"\"""\"""'""'"}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-free a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-free a{background:linear-gradient(transparent,transparent),url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Lock-green.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .id-lock-registration a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-registration a{background:linear-gradient(transparent,transparent),url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-subscription a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-subscription a{background:linear-gradient(transparent,transparent),url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration{color:#555}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription span,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration span{border-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help}.mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background:linear-gradient(transparent,transparent),url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg")right 0.1em center/12px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output code.cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:none;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{display:none;color:#33aa33;margin-left:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-right{padding-right:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .citation .mw-selflink{font-weight:inherit}ISBN 978-0750962094), at the Jersey War Tunnels, the Lieutenant Governor of Jersey said of her, "She's an inspiration to those young people today doing the same work with the risk of the same dangers". Forty-two female Section F SOE agents served in France, some for more than two years, most for only a few months. She is still sorting out all the books and archives before completing her paperback version of Young Brave and Beautiful and getting back down to writing Etienne's amazing life's story. Violette Reine Elizabeth Szabo, GC (née Bushell; 26 June 1921 – c. 5 February 1945) was a British/French Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent during the Second World War and a posthumous recipient of the George Cross. She was dressed in a light suit, flat-heeled shoes and no stockings. [11], Szabo took a flat in Notting Hill, which was to be her home until she left for her second mission to France in June 1944. Twelve were executed, one was killed when her ship was sunk, two died of disease while imprisoned, and one died of natural causes. Born in Paris in 1922 to a British taxi fleet owner and French mother, Violette Bushell was raised in Britain and married at a young age, but lost her husband when he was killed fighting against the Germans, leavings behind a young daughter. She was twice arrested by the German security authorities but each time managed to get away. She stayed in England and joined the Air Defense in 1941, giving birth to her daughter Tania on June 8, 1942. The citation was published in the London Gazette and read: ... Army and the Auxillary Territorial Service where she met and married a Free French corps soldier and gave birth to a daughter. [9] They enjoyed a week's honeymoon before Étienne set off from Liverpool to fight in the abortive Free French attack on Dakar, Senegal. Szabo fought the Germans for thirty minutes, killing a corporal, possibly more, and wounding some others. The exhausted women arrived at this notorious place of disease, starvation, and violence on 25 August 1944 after a terrible eighteen-day journey. Violette and Étienne Szabo are believed to be the most decorated married couple of World War II. [e], Along with Szabo, Bloch, and Rolfe, one other member of the SOE was also executed at Ravensbrück: Cecily Lefort. As armoured cars arrived at the scene, Szabo crossed the road to join Dufour, and they leapt a gate, before running across a field towards a small stream. Violette Szabo (1921-1945) worked for 'F' Section in Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War. There she was reportedly popular and regarded as exotic owing to her ability to speak another language. Tania is deeply grateful to everyone (wherever they may be in our world - and they are many) who helped her in so many different ways in her endeavour. From King George VI on behalf of her decision to sell her 's. 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