Violette Szabo
|
Violette Szabo GC |
|
|---|---|
Violette Szabo c.1940s
|
|
| Born |
26 June 1921 Paris, France |
| Died | 5 February 1945 (aged 23) KZ Ravensbrück, Germany |
| Allegiance |
 United Kingdom
|
| Service/branch | First Aid Nursing Yeomanry |
| Years of service | 1941–1945 |
| Rank | Ensign |
| Unit |
Special Operations Executive F Section |
| Battles/wars | Second World War |
| Awards |
George Cross Croix de Guerre (France) Medaille de la Resistance (France) |
Violette Reine Elizabeth Szabo GC (née Bushell; 26 June 1921 – c. 5 February 1945) was a French-born British Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent during the Second World War and a posthumous recipient of the George Cross. On her second mission into occupied France, Szabo was captured by the German army, interrogated, tortured and deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany, where she was executed.
Violette Szabo was born Violette Reine Elizabeth Bushell in Paris on 26 June 1921. She was the second child of five and the only daughter of Charles George Bushell, son of a publican from Hampstead Norreys. He was a taxi-driver, car salesman, and, during the Second World War, a storekeeper. Her mother, Reine Blanche Leroy, was a dressmaker originally from Pont-Remy, Somme. The couple moved to London, but because of the Great Depression, Violette and Dickie, her youngest brother, lived with their maternal aunt in Picardy in northern France until the family was reunited in south London when Violette was eleven. She was an active and lively girl, enjoying gymnastics, long-distance bicycling, and ice-skating with four brothers and several male cousins. She was regarded as a tomboy, especially as she was taught by her father to be a good shot. Violette attended school in Brixton, quickly relearning the English she had lost, where she was popular and regarded as exotic, due to her ability to speak fluent French. At the age of fourteen, she went to work at a French corsetière in South Kensington and then at Woolworths in Oxford Street. Her home life was loving, though she often clashed with her strict father and once ran away to France after an argument. The family, except her monolingual father, would often converse in French. At the outbreak of the Second World War, she was working at Le Bon Marché, a Brixton department store.
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