During World War II, women operated as spies across occupied Europe, often moving through checkpoints and cities with less suspicion than their male counterparts. Resistance groups relied on them to gather intelligence, coordinate sabotage, and sometimes carry out assassinations. But when these women were captured, they frequently faced some of the most brutal deaths imaginable. Some were beaten to death. Others were executed in front of large crowds as a warning to anyone who dared resist.
Violette Reine Elizabeth Bushell was born in Paris on June 26, 1921. Her father was English and her mother was French, a heritage that would later prove vital when she became a secret agent fluent in both languages. The family eventually moved to London and settled in Stockwell. Violette grew up in a lively working-class household with four siblings. By all accounts, she was a spirited and athletic girl who loved horse riding, cycling, gymnastics, and swimming. Those skills would later help her survive dangerous missions behind enemy lines.
As a teenager, she worked in a perfume shop on Oxford Street and later at Woolworths. She was described as sociable, elegant, and full of energy. Those who knew her remembered a bold young woman with an independent streak. When war broke out in 1939, Violette was just 18. Britain was under threat, and like many young women of her generation, she wanted to help. She joined the Women’s Land Army for a time and later worked in an aircraft factory manufacturing weapons.
In July 1940, she met Etienne Szabo, a handsome officer in the French Foreign Legion who had fled France after the German occupation. They fell in love quickly and married in August of that year. She was 19; he was 31. They did not have much time together. Etienne was soon sent to fight with the Free French Forces. In June 1942, Violette gave birth to a daughter named Tania. Tragically, Etienne was killed in battle just a few months later during the Battle of El Alamein in North Africa.
Violette was devastated. She had lost her husband and now had to raise her daughter alone. But instead of surrendering to grief, she decided to fight in his memory. By 1942, Britain had formed the Special Operations Executive, or SOE, a secret organization tasked by Winston Churchill with setting Europe ablaze. Its agents were trained to sabotage German operations, support local resistance groups, and gather intelligence. It was an extremely dangerous assignment. If captured, agents faced torture and execution.
Violette, with her language skills, fitness, and determination, was an ideal recruit. In 1943, the SOE approached her and she joined. She trained in weapons handling, hand-to-hand combat, parachuting, and wireless communications. She learned how to blow up trains, use disguises, and send coded messages. Her instructors were impressed. Despite her small stature, around 160 centimeters, she was fierce with a submachine gun and unafraid of risk. She also had a photographic memory, which made her an excellent courier.
In April 1944, Violette was sent on her first mission to occupied France. She parachuted into Normandy just weeks before the D-Day landings. Her role was to help organize resistance groups and sabotage German communications. She traveled under the false identity of a French woman named Corinne Leroy. Her courage was evident from the start. She cycled long distances to deliver messages, arrange safe houses, and pass on vital intelligence. At one point, she helped coordinate attacks on German railway lines, disrupting troop movements to the front. The mission was a success, and she returned safely to England after several weeks.
But she barely rested before volunteering for another mission. In June 1944, immediately after D-Day, Violette parachuted back into France, this time near Limoges. Her job was to help local resistance fighters organize sabotage operations against withdrawing German forces. On June 10, 1944, she and another agent were traveling near Salon-la-Tour when they ran into a German roadblock. A fierce gun battle broke out. Violette fought with incredible bravery, holding off German troops with a submachine gun to give her comrade time to escape. She was eventually captured.
The Germans interrogated her brutally. She was then transferred to Paris and finally to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany. Despite repeated torture, she refused to reveal any information. Fellow prisoners later remembered her as defiant, cheerful, and supportive even in terrible conditions. Ravensbrück was located near Berlin and held 132,000 women throughout the war. The conditions were harsh. Prisoners were forced to do hard labor every day, and if they failed to meet expectations, they were severely beaten by the guards.
One former prisoner wrote that the guards did not shoot the women. They were meant to die from misery, hunger, and exhaustion. When they arrived at Ravensbrück, it was the worst. The first thing she saw was a cart loaded with stacked corpses, arms and legs dangling, mouths and eyes wide open. The prisoners were stripped of everything. They did not even feel they had the value of cattle. There was a hut inside the camp that had been converted into a gas chamber, where thousands of women were pushed in before the site was liberated.
In early 1945, with the war drawing to a close in Europe, the Nazis began executing many of their most prominent prisoners, including captured SOE agents. On February 5, 1945, Violette Szabo was dragged from her cell and led to the execution alley with two other prisoners, SOE agents Denise Bloch and Lilian Rolfe. The women were so weakened by torture and conditions that they had to be carried to the execution alley on stretchers. The method of execution was a shot to the neck, known in German as Genickschuss. It was a method by which hundreds of thousands died during the war.
Violette was ordered to kneel. She knelt slowly on the ground. The executioner approached, drew his pistol, and fired a single merciless shot into the back of her head or neck. She fell to the ground lifeless. Her body was then taken to the camp crematorium, where it was burned to ashes. After the war, the courage of the SOE agents was finally revealed. Violette was posthumously awarded the George Cross, Britain’s highest civilian honor for bravery, as well as the French Croix de Guerre and the Resistance Medal. The medals were presented to her daughter Tania at Buckingham Palace by King George VI. She was only four years old at the time.
Violette Szabo’s story is powerful and moving for many reasons. She was not a professional soldier. She was an ordinary young woman, a shop assistant, a wife, and a mother who chose to face extraordinary danger because she believed it was right. Her courage reminds us that heroism is not about age, gender, or background. It is about daring to face fear. She could have stayed safe to raise her daughter, but instead she risked her life to fight tyranny. Her sacrifice also highlights the often-overlooked role of women in World War II. Female agents like Violette were vital to the success of the resistance. They carried weapons, organized sabotage, and endured brutal risks. Their work paved the way for greater recognition of women’s contributions in later generations.
Today, Violette Szabo is remembered as one of the most famous SOE agents. Her name is carved on the SOE memorial at Albert Bridge in London alongside her fellow agents. Schools in Britain and France bear her name, as do streets. In 2009, her image appeared on a series of British postage stamps honoring war heroes. Every year, memorial services are held in her honor.
Another woman met a very different end. She was a famous French athlete driving down a country road. But she was more than just an athlete. Known as the Hyena of the Gestapo, she was infamous as a brutal and cruel collaborator who hunted the resistance against the German occupation. Many of those she helped capture were executed by the Germans, others were sent to camps inside the Reich, and many were tortured. There were even claims that she participated in torture herself. Violette Morris also ran a garage for the German Luftwaffe, and the Nazis viewed her as a useful collaborator. Adolf Hitler even invited her to attend the 1936 Berlin Olympics as a distinguished guest.
But on that fateful day, driving down that road, Violette Morris was killed by a hail of bullets from French resistance members who were determined that she would never collaborate with their enemy again. Her body was torn apart by gunfire and she was later buried in an unmarked grave. Why did the French resistance target her specifically? What made Violette Morris so dangerous?
As a young woman, Violette Morris lived in Paris. During World War I, she learned to drive and drove ambulances that helped evacuate wounded soldiers from the battlefields. She also worked as a courier during the deadly Battle of the Somme and the Battle of Verdun. So how did she turn from this into a traitor to her people? She was highly athletic and played football for the French women’s national team, even winning gold medals. She was involved in many other sports as well. She was a passionate boxer known for defeating men, and she participated in motorcycle and car racing, tennis, shooting, and many other sports, including weightlifting and Greco-Roman wrestling. At the Women’s Olympics in 1924, she won gold medals in discus throw and shot put.
One of her most successful sports was car racing, in which she competed and won many different races. Violette Morris was a woman completely different from what was expected in the 1920s. She often wore men’s clothing, smoked heavily, and swore frequently. This actually led to her being banned from the 1928 Summer Olympics, as she was said to lack morality. Her racing license was also later revoked. This caused great resentment in Violette. She said in one trial, quote: We live in a country corrupted by money and scandals, ruled by conspirators and cowards. This country full of dwarfs is not worthy of its ancestors, nor worthy of survival. One day it will rot. It will sink to the level of slaves. But if I am still here, I will not be one of those slaves. Believe me, that is not in my nature.
Perhaps the restrictions placed on her began to change her attitude toward her nation and country. But in 1937, Violette became involved in a high-profile murder case. On Christmas Eve 1937, she was having dinner with friends and met a drunk and aggressive man named Joseph Lem. The man argued with one of Violette’s friends, and she managed to calm him down. But the next night, Lem went to Morris’s houseboat and an argument broke out. Lem brandished a knife at Violette. She pushed him back before he lunged at her with his weapon, and she fired four shots at Lem, who later died in the hospital. She was arrested and charged with murder, but she was tried and acquitted when the court accepted her self-defense plea.
During World War II, Violette Morris became notorious for her betrayal of France. For some reason, she was invited to attend the 1936 Summer Olympics hosted by the Nazis in Berlin. Hitler himself insisted that Morris attend, and she was received as a guest of honor. One reason this was strange is that she stood against everything the Nazis believed women should be. Perhaps Hitler invited her to spite the French, who had completely turned their backs on Violette. She watched many events and stayed in luxury hotels, all at Nazi expense.
Years later, after World War II broke out, France found itself under German invasion and soon under occupation. German tanks and military vehicles swept across the land in Blitzkrieg style, bringing the country under Nazi control. The Vichy regime was established under Marshal Philippe Pétain, and this government openly collaborated with the Nazis. The French people faced a difficult choice. Would they join resistance elements fighting in secret, or would they collaborate and support the occupation? Violette Morris chose to collaborate and work with the Nazis and the Vichy regime. It was not casual or one-time collaboration. Her work led to the suffering and destruction of many resisters and resistance networks.
One of the largest operations she was involved in was attempting to track down SOE agents. These were British secret agents working in the shadows to coordinate French resistance operations and ensure they were well armed. Many of these British agents were parachuted behind enemy lines, and Violette Morris tried to track down many of them. She was also alleged to have spied on high-value targets for the Nazis and may have personally participated in brutal Gestapo torture sessions. Alongside all this, she also worked for the Luftwaffe, the German air force. She ran a garage for them and was involved in securing fuel from the black market for their use. This fuel was later used to bomb British cities and towns, bringing death to the Nazis’ enemies.
Because of all this, she earned the nickname the Hyena of the Gestapo. But the resistance was tracking her, and things came to a head on April 26, 1944. Violette Morris was driving her Citroën on a country road near Epernon in Normandy. She was accompanied by another family loyal to the Nazis, but her car suddenly broke down. The engine coughed and stopped, as resistance fighters had tampered with it beforehand. As soon as she got out of the car, resistance members emerged from their hiding place and opened fire directly on her and the vehicle. Five people were killed in the attack, including two children. The resistance tore Violette Morris’s body apart with bullets. Her body was then dragged to the morgue, where it remained unclaimed for several months.
It was a brutal end for a woman who collaborated with the enemy. The French resistance often eliminated high-value targets in public places to strike a strong blow and send a message that no one was safe. Violette Morris was seen as one of the worst enemies of her country. She had betrayed France and was clearly a traitor. In the eyes of the resistance, this was the worst crime one could commit. She was ambushed in a carefully planned attack, showing the harsh reality of the war the resistance was waging. She was also a high-value target. Her famous athletic background made her a well-known figure, and her notorious reputation amplified the impact of her collaboration. Killing such a known collaborator sent a message to other French people that this would not be tolerated and that prominent figures were not above accountability. It also sent a message to the Germans that the resistance had intelligence capabilities and could carry out ruthless attacks.
The attack also helped the resistance deal with potential security risks. By eliminating her, fewer resistance members would be arrested, especially since she held important information about them. Her connections within the Gestapo made her unpredictable, and resistance groups often eliminated targets considered future dangers to them. Many resistance members were also driven by local reports and information they heard on the ground. Civilians knew she was collaborating, and competing networks and informants were also working to bring her down. Occupied France was full of suspicion. Once someone was reported as a collaborator or traitor several times, they were directly in the crosshairs.
Violette Morris was shot dead by the resistance because, in their eyes, she was a dangerous and destructive traitor and collaborator. France suffered for many years under occupation, and she was alleged to have helped the German air force obtain fuel for their planes. She was a woman highly trusted by the Germans for her help, and she may have felt empowered by them. She was a figure invited as Hitler’s personal guest to the Berlin Olympics years before the war. But on a quiet French country road, her body was riddled with bullets from the weapons of French resistance fighters.
Anna Ans van Dijk was born on December 24, 1906. She was the daughter of Jewish parents, Aaron van Dijk and Kaatje Bin. She presumably had a relatively normal upbringing, and in 1927, at the age of 21, she married Bram Querido. However, they separated within eight years. After that, she entered into a relationship with another woman and then opened a shop in Amsterdam. Her shop specialized in headwear, or hats. But dark times were looming for the Netherlands.
On May 10, 1940, the Germans invaded neutral Netherlands. Within five days of the army entering the country, the armed forces surrendered. Rotterdam was heavily bombed during the attack, and the royal family quickly left the country, fleeing to London. The invaders placed the country under direct German occupation, and the rapid invasion shocked many, especially because of the Netherlands’ neutrality. The defending armed forces collapsed quickly because they had old weapons and equipment in small numbers, and they were caught off guard. Their weapons systems dated back to World War I and had not been updated. They had very few armored cars and light tanks and could not stand up to the rapid Wehrmacht attacks. Rotterdam was subjected to intense aerial bombardment from Luftwaffe bombers, and around 25,000 homes were destroyed and hundreds killed. Local residents pressured the city’s garrison commander to surrender. The Dutch high command was shocked by the large-scale bombing and ordered the army to surrender.
Life inside occupied Netherlands became more difficult as the war continued, with severe food shortages. Hitler held the Dutch people in high regard and considered them Aryan. There were attempts to appease the population and convince them of National Socialist ideology, and Dutch leaders softened the suppression of civilian populations. However, Jews were severely persecuted within the country. The Nazis began deporting Jews to various concentration camps early on, and the Dutch people witnessed this and began to strike. Mass deportations continued, with Jews sent to transit camps before being transferred to further concentration camps. Jews were forced to wear the Star of David, and the survival rate of Dutch Jews was around 27 percent.
There was a significant amount of collaboration with the Nazis. For example, between 20,000 and 25,000 Dutch men joined German forces, and entire battalions of Dutch soldiers fought in the ranks of the Nazi troops. Some even participated in battles on the Eastern Front and fought within the Netherlands itself. But there were very shameful aspects of collaboration. Women who collaborated or had relationships with German soldiers were often forced to endure public humiliation, with their heads shaved and swastikas painted on them.
Anna van Dijk was one of the collaborators who sold their souls to the Nazis. The Nazis closed her hat shop in 1941 as part of their effort to seize all Jewish property in Amsterdam. Jews throughout the country were also forbidden from owning businesses and working in retail stores. There were other restrictions imposed on them. Because of the closure, van Dijk became unemployed, and since she was Jewish, she must have feared for her life at some point. It is alleged that to earn money, she began selling goods wherever she could, and it is also said that she helped Jews find hiding places. However, in January 1943, she was forced into hiding from the Nazis to avoid deportation.
On Easter Sunday 1943, she was arrested by the Security Service and investigator Peter Schaap from the Jewish Affairs office of the Amsterdam police after being caught. During her interrogation, to avoid deportation and ensure her freedom, van Dijk decided to change her stance and collaborate. She agreed to help the Security Service find hidden Jews and accepted work for them as a Jew catcher to ensure her safety. She began infiltrating various circles, offering help to Jews in Amsterdam, lying that she could secure safe hiding places for them and provide them with forged papers. She did this several times and succeeded in trapping at least 145 people. Estimates suggest the number was much higher. In a horrifying display of her depravity, she even managed to lure her own brother and other family members, who were then handed over to the Nazis. Of those at least 145 people, it is estimated that at least 85 were killed in concentration camps because of Anna van Dijk’s betrayal. Other estimates raised her betrayal toll, saying she was responsible for handing over around 700 Jews to the Nazis.
There were even insinuations that Anna van Dijk may have been the one who discovered Anne Frank’s secret hiding place and provided the information to the Gestapo to raid it, leading to the arrest of the Frank family and others in hiding. She may have been the person responsible for Anne Frank’s death. She continued handing over Jews to the Germans, but after World War II, she was arrested. She moved from Amsterdam to The Hague and was arrested at a friend’s house on June 20, 1945. Dutch police interrogated her and she faced 23 charges of high treason against her own people.
Anna was brought to trial on February 24, 1947, standing before a judge in a courtroom. During her trial, she claimed she only agreed to help the Germans to save her own life, arguing that if she had not complied with the Nazi Security Service’s orders, she would have been sent to a concentration camp and killed. She said this was the only reason for her actions, denying she was a Nazi. Surprisingly, she confessed to all 23 charges of treason. The verdict was clear. She was an essential element in the deaths of the men, women, and children she handed over. Without her, they would not have been killed. Anna van Dijk was sentenced to death for her actions. She tried to appeal her conviction, arguing that if she had not handed over Jews, she herself would have been killed. However, the case went to the special appeals court. She even requested a royal pardon from Queen Wilhelmina, but her request was again denied, confirming the death sentence.
On January 14, 1948, Anna van Dijk was transferred from her prison to Fort Bijlmer. On the night before her execution, she deliberately joined the Roman Catholic Church. She also wrote a number of farewell letters, including one to a person who had been visiting her in prison. In the early morning, she was taken out to what looked like a moat or pit surrounding a wall. Sandbags were placed against the wall to ensure bullets would not ricochet. When she was led into the ditch, she was tied to a wooden post. Her hands and feet were secured to ensure she could not escape. A black hood was placed over her head so she would not see her final moments. Facing her was a firing squad that had just received the ready signal. Once the signal was given, the firing squad shot directly at Anna van Dijk. Her execution was somewhat controversial. She was of Jewish origin, and clearly, without her collaboration, she would likely have been killed in a concentration camp. But what she did not have to do was take her role as an informer for the German Security Service to that level. Because of her actions, dozens were sent to their deaths inside some of the worst and most horrific places the world has ever seen.
Noor Inayat Khan was born in Moscow on January 1, 1914. Her father was an Indian Muslim, and they belonged to a somewhat noble family. Her father was a pioneer of Sufism in the West, an expression of the Islamic faith. Her family was wealthy on her father’s side, with many skilled musicians. Her mother was an American who met her father while he was traveling. With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the family left Russia for London, and she attended a nursery in a wealthy area called Bloomsbury before the family moved to France when she was six. The family was involved in the Sufi movement, and through that, they obtained a home near Paris.
Noor was a shy girl, and after her father’s death, she took care of her mother and siblings even though she was only 13 at the time. She later studied child psychology and music in Paris and began working as a writer, composing poetry and children’s stories in both French and English. With the outbreak of World War II, Hitler’s sights were likely set on France as he sought to capture the country with lightning speed. On September 3, 1939, France declared war on Germany after the Nazi invasion of Poland. The invasion of France began on May 10, 1940, and lasted six weeks, resulting in France falling under German occupation. Shortly before the invasion, Noor and her family had returned to England, fleeing to Bordeaux before entering England from Cornwall on June 22, 1940.
Noor and her family were pacifists. However, she and her brother wanted to fight the Nazis in some way. They wanted to make India proud, hoped some Indians would receive military honors during the conflict, and wanted to help the Allies against the Germans, thereby bringing the English and Indians closer. For this reason, she joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and was trained as a wireless operator. However, it was clear she was headed for a slightly different career. Noor spoke several languages fluently, and because of that, she seemed like an ideal candidate for the SOE, the group of spies working for the British behind enemy lines. They carried out sabotage operations and worked closely with the resistance to defeat the enemy.
Khan found her work in the Air Force boring, so she was recruited to join the French section of the SOE and began receiving special training as a wireless operator to work in occupied territory. She became the first woman to be sent as a wireless operator to occupied territory, as women were usually only sent as couriers. She developed her training and received the best education on how to work within the city, sending messages without being detected. She was given a training mission designed to simulate a Gestapo interrogation, to show what she might face if captured. Agents underwent harsh tests, and it was noted that Khan seemed so terrified she almost lost her voice. Her final report stated she was not highly intelligent but worked hard, and that her personality was unstable and moody, with her suitability questioned. However, her section head said this was nonsense and supported her.
She was questioned about her ability for covert operations, and her quiet, gentle personality worried her SOE trainers. Reports also noted her poor physical fitness and her fear of weapons. However, she was skilled and adept as a wireless and signals operator, and eventually, she was selected for the mission. Her mission would be extremely dangerous. As mentioned, she became the first female wireless operator sent behind enemy lines. Her job was to link the field with London, receiving and sending messages about sabotage operations and relaying information about weapons needed by the French resistance. Vera Atkins, the intelligence officer for F Section, embraced her and supported her, believing she would succeed. During a meeting with Atkins, Noor felt resentful at the questioning of her suitability and had no doubts herself. She wanted to get into the field.
Khan was then flown by a Westland Lysander aircraft to France, landing in a field near Angers where she was met by a committee of other SOE agents. After landing, she made her way to Paris to contact members of the French resistance and other SOE agents. She was known by the codename Madeleine and worked skillfully within France, her language fluency making her an ideal candidate for work inside Nazi-occupied territory. She was flown in on June 16, 1943. At that time in the war, the Germans still had the upper hand. She belonged to the Prosper network, which was established then. However, within 10 days of her landing in France, the spy network began to suffer arrests and pursuits. Something had gone terribly wrong, but she remained in contact with Britain and was told she would be flown home. Noor said she was the only wireless operator in Paris and believed she could continue working in secret, but it was not long before things went wrong.
Eventually, Noor Inayat Khan was handed over to the Germans. It is believed this was done either by Henri Déricourt, a prominent French SOE agent, or someone else. Suspicion fell on Déricourt, who was suspected of being a double agent working for Nazi intelligence. Rumors also circulated that another agent received 100,000 francs for information that led to the capture of SOE agents. Khan managed to hold out in France for a few months before falling into captivity on October 13, 1943. More F Section agents were captured and arrested, and many had learned of Noor’s capture. They managed to warn Britain to ignore any transmissions coming from the codename Madeleine, and this message had indeed arrived.
On November 25, 1943, Noor, along with fellow SOE agents and local resistance leaders, managed to escape from the German Security Service headquarters during an air raid. However, after being recaptured, she was transferred to Germany and considered so dangerous that she was kept in complete solitary confinement. Her hands and feet were chained for 10 continuous months, as she was seen as extremely dangerous. Throughout her imprisonment, she continued to give no information at all, although she found it very difficult. Other prisoners noted how she cried loudly in her cell every evening. Because of her escape attempts and as the tide of World War II turned against the Germans, they kept her detained inside Germany for months.
By September 1944, she had been transferred to Dachau concentration camp with other female SOE agents. Dachau was a camp through whose gates 188,000 people passed, and over 40,000 prisoners were killed there. When the Allies liberated the camp, tens of thousands were sick at that time. In Dachau, prisoners lived in constant fear due to the sadistic torture culture used in the camp. Sometimes many feared the standing cells and flogging, as well as execution by hanging, where prisoners were suspended for hours. The camp was also a site of medical experiments. It was here that Noor Inayat Khan was executed.
The clearest account of what happened during her execution comes from Gestapo records, recounted by members of the secret police to the United States after the war. One investigator was told by another Gestapo agent about the execution of Noor Inayat Khan and three of her fellow SOE agents. He said the four female prisoners came from the camp barracks where they had spent the night to the yard where the execution would take place. Here, the camp commandant announced the death sentence. Only the camp commandant and two SS men were present. The English woman who spoke German, the major, informed her companions of the death sentence. The faces of the four prisoners turned very pale and they cried. The major asked if they could object to the death sentence. The commandant declared that no one could object to the sentence. The major then asked to see a priest. The camp commandant refused the major’s request, saying there was no priest in the camp.
After that, the four prisoners were ordered to kneel with their heads facing a small pile of earth before two SS men killed them, one after another, with a shot to the back of the head. During the shooting, the two English women held each other’s hands, as did the two French women. For three of the prisoners, the first shot caused their deaths. For the English woman who spoke German, a second shot was required because she still showed signs of life after the first shot. After the execution of these prisoners, the camp commandant told the two SS men that he was personally interested in the women’s jewelry and ordered it taken to his office. Other accounts from prisoners recall how Noor was brutally beaten by an SS officer before being taken out and shot from behind. Her last words were alleged to be Liberty. In retaliation, the man who beat her was executed after the war for his involvement in the executions.
Noor Khan’s story is that of a brave woman who wanted to fight with the Allies against the Germans. She was a pioneer as the first female wireless operator for the SOE behind enemy lines. Her capture remains shrouded in mystery and controversy over who betrayed her. But what is undeniable is what happened inside Dachau, where Khan was executed and killed by gunfire. She was awarded the George Cross in 1949, and her memory has been honored in many ways over the decades.
The Americans, during and after the conflict, executed a number of German teenagers convicted of espionage. They showed little remorse, and the Germans displayed this cruelty, especially when capturing female spies who worked with the British SOE. There were accounts of these women being subjected to severe torture and horrific brutality. One group of spies was even taken to a concentration camp and burned alive. One of these women who faced this brutal fate was Vera Leigh, who was thrown alive at the age of 41 into the ovens of the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp and its crematorium. It was a horrific end for a woman who dreamed of participating in the liberation of France from the tyranny of Nazi occupation.
Vera Leigh was born in March 1903 and was from Yorkshire, England. As a child, she was abandoned by her family and adopted by an American racehorse trainer who renamed her Vera Leigh. Vera grew up in an environment of horses and stables, working near Paris at a training center and racecourse. She aspired to become a jockey, then worked in fashion, entering several fashion houses in Paris and becoming known in social circles in the French capital. But during World War II, France suffered greatly and Paris fell in 1940. After that, Vera left for Lyon, where she joined her fiancé, who was the manager of a Portuguese film company. Vera wanted to return to England and help others escape the tyranny of the Nazis, so she helped escape lines and smuggled wanted Allied personnel out of France. She helped them escape across the Pyrenees to Spain, where they returned to England. Eventually, she took that route herself to flee the Germans.
Vera arrived in England in 1942 and wanted to help the war effort. As a French speaker, she was recruited by the SOE to become a spy. She passed the interviews and was considered a good student who was brave and willing to try any work. She was particularly skilled with demolition explosives and wires. She was 40 years old, older than some other recruits, but she returned to France and worked with the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry to help wounded Allied soldiers. Then the SOE assigned her a mission to fly and land behind enemy lines near the city of Tours. She arrived in France to work as a courier of information between different resistance networks. She had to work with the Prosper network in Paris, and her role was to link other resistance groups. Her role was central and dangerous. She took on a different identity and began reporting to her superiors in London before starting work in Paris and settling into an apartment there.
Vera worked in various cafés and blended into the life of the French capital, but the city was suffering under German occupation. Many people lived in an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust. She almost had her cover blown when she accidentally met her sister’s husband. But while hiding in the capital and sending reports, Vera continued to help Allied soldiers return to Britain, with some staying in safe houses under her supervision. It was not long before her true identity was exposed. She worked with another SOE agent and ran her husband’s business, and Vera would meet other agents at a nearby café in Paris. But the spy network was betrayed, and Vera was soon arrested and taken to Fresnes prison outside Paris. She gave a false identity to the Gestapo and revealed no information, but she did not need to, as the German prisoners knew everything about her and her work.
Vera was tortured. On May 13, 1944, she was transferred with three other female SOE agents to Gestapo headquarters in Paris on Avenue Foch, along with four other women from F Section. The women were taken to the train station under guard and began a journey by train. One of the women who was captured and survived the war said: We began this journey together in fear, but we all hoped for one thing above all, that we would stay together. We had all already tasted what things could be like. None of us expected much. We all knew they might sentence us to death. I was the only one officially sentenced to death. The others were not. But there is always a small glimmer of hope that a miracle might happen.
The women were sent to Germany and held in separate cells in a prison in Karlsruhe. The agents were treated the same as other prisoners. They could hear Allied bombers flying overhead every night to bomb German targets, and they thought the war was coming to an end. But Vera did not live to see the end of World War II. On July 6, 1944, she and three other female spies were taken to the reception room of the prison and their belongings were returned to them before they were handed over to two Gestapo men. They were taken to Natzweiler-Struthof camp in France and arrived around 3:30 in the afternoon. The appearance of the women in the camp shocked the other prisoners. It was rare for four women to be sent together, and they were led through the main camp to cells at the bottom of the camp, where they were held until evening.
One prisoner said you could tell from their appearance that they had not come from a concentration camp. They were young women. They were somewhat well-groomed. Their clothes were not shabby, and their hair was styled. Each of them carried a bag in her hand. Vera Leigh was one of these four women placed in a cell. She spoke with the others and with other prisoners, but what followed was utterly barbaric. The women were taken to a concentration camp to be executed. Prisoners at Natzweiler commented on what they saw and heard. That evening, SS guards took the four women, one by one, including Vera, to the crematorium at intervals of about three minutes. Inside the crematorium, the women were ordered to undress for a medical examination. Then a doctor tried to inject the women with what he claimed was a typhus vaccine, but it was actually a lethal injection of phenol, which they thought would end the women’s lives. The spies lost consciousness and were then thrown into the crematorium oven.
But according to prisoner accounts, it was clear the injection did not kill all the women. One prisoner stated: The next morning, the German prisoner in charge of the crematorium explained to me that each time the oven door was opened, flames came out of the chimney, which meant a body had been placed in the oven. I saw the flames four times. He would later testify about the execution of the women, saying they had already heard faint voices in the next room and the sound of a body being dragged across the floor. He whispered that he could see people being dragged on the floor through his line of sight through a ventilation window. At the same time, this body was being passed in front of us. We heard heavy breathing and a faint moan, and we heard the same sounds and regular groans again as two unconscious women were dragged away. But the fourth resisted in the hallway. I heard her say: Poor Kay. Then I heard a voice and recognized the doctor, who was wearing civilian clothes, saying: Poor typhus. We then heard the sound of a struggle and muffled screams from the woman. I assumed someone had put a hand over her mouth. I heard the woman being dragged away too. She was groaning louder than the others. From the sound of the crematorium oven doors I heard, I can be sure that the women who were groaning were all immediately placed in the crematorium oven. When the officials left, we went to the crematorium oven and opened the door and saw four charred bodies inside. The next morning, as part of my duties, I had to remove the ashes from the crematorium oven. I found a pink garter on the floor near it.
Other witnesses came forward to talk about the executions and confirmed a struggle occurred, with at least one woman pushed into the oven. An SS doctor said that when the last woman was halfway into the oven, she was inserted feet first. She had regained consciousness and resisted, and because there were enough men there, they managed to push her into the oven, but not before she fought back and scratched the face of Peter Straub. The next day, Schultz noticed that the camp executioner Straub’s face was badly scratched. There were few retaliatory reactions to the massacre of these spies. But after the war, Vera was awarded the King’s Commendation for Brave Conduct along with the other female spies. She was a woman who sacrificed her life to try to save others and liberate France. She was 41 years old when she was brutally killed inside the ovens of a concentration camp. She endured a bloody and brutal ordeal after her capture. Her role in the war was to try to link different spy networks. Despite her return to life in Paris and her skillful work under a secret cover, she was captured. Her tragic end inside a concentration camp embodied the evil of the Nazis during World War II.