Commemorated on the Memorial to the Missing 1939-1945 in Brookwood Military Cemetery, Surrey, Ensign Violette Szabó and Ensign Denise Bloch were murdered, shot, at Ravensbrück concentration camp north of Berlin in the period 25th January to 5th February 1945.
Both were agents of F (French ) Section, Special Operations Executive (SOE) and had been captured in France in 1944.
Though not commemorated at Brookwood, we also remembered Section Officer Lilian Rolfe who was murdered along with Denise and Violette. As a former WAAF, Lilian is commemorated on the Air Forces Memorial at Runnymede, Surrey.
The three women are pictured below, from left to right: Denise, Lillian and Violette.
This photo (below), from the film ‘Carve Her Name With Pride’ shows actresses playing the three agents, depicted L to R as Denise, Lilian and Violette.
A commemoration was held at the Memorial by Secret WW2 at 2.30 pm with a short address by Paul McCue and the Network’s wreath was placed by volunteer Ian Titman. We then went on to remember the same three women at the monthly 3 pm meeting of the Brookwood Last Post Association where Carol Browne, Secret WW2 Info Officer, placed our wreath.
We heard how only Violette was able to walk unaided to her execution. Both Denise and Lilian were ill from their imprisonment and ill-treatment. It was reported that Denise had to be supported to walk to the execution site and that Lilian had to be carried.
