Violette Szabo
Violette was born in France but grew up in London. At the outbreak of the Second World War she joined the Women’s Land Army and later the Auxiliary Territorial Services.
In July 1940, she met Etienne Szabo, an officer in the French Foreign Legion. They were married after just five weeks and they had a daughter, Tania, born in June 1942. Four months later Etienne was killed in North Africa.
VIOLETTE SZABO © IWM HU 16541
Shortly after, Violette was recruited into the Special Operations Executive or SOE, whose agents went to occupied France to work against German forces. After a successful mission in the spring of 1944 she was sent back in June, just after D-Day.
Just three days into this mission she was in a car with a number of French resistance fighters when it was stopped by a German patrol. She fought off the Germans, allowing the others to escape, but was captured when she ran out of ammunition.
She was first taken to Paris and then to Germany. She was continuously and atrociously tortured by the Gestapo and the SS, but never gave away any of her companions or told the Germans anything of any value.
In August 1944, she was sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp. Finally, on 25 January 1945, after months of forced labour in horrific conditions and with the Allied liberation Armies closing in, the Germans executed her, and burnt her body.
For her courage and selflessness, she was awarded the George Cross. Violette has no known grave and is commemorated on the CWGC Brookwood 1939-1945 Memorial in Surrey.
SOE agents often used codes within poems to disguise messages. This was one of Violette’s code poems given to her just before leaving for France the second time.
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
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