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Two Jewish Heroines of the SOE Part 4

POSTSCRIPT

In 1968, Alan Rolfe, brother of Lilian Rolfe who was murdered with Denise, saw an announcement in 'The Daily Telegraph' of 24 May in memory of Denise Bloch, signed 'Dave'. After enquiries at the newspaper, Dave replied to Alan Rolfe, and turned out to be Flt Lt David Lomas who knew Denise when she was training in England. He was lobbying Lambeth Council to name a block of flats after Denise Bloch, as they had done for Rolfe and Szabo on the Vincennes Estate at Norwood, South London. However, he never succeeded - Lambeth Council claimed all the flats had been named already, and in July, Lomas was killed in an aircraft crash in the Far East, it is thought. The matter was never pursued. Perhaps it was because Denise was French - or Jewish? - or both; we will never know. But Vera Atkins does confirm that perhaps there had been a romance (interview 25.4.98 East Sussex), though she pointed out that the private lives of the agents in their free time on leave from training, was their own.

(Original correspondence in the author's possesion, donated by Alan Rolfe to the AJEX Museum).

Footnotes

1 M Sugarman Jews in the SOE and French Resistance (AJEX Museum files 1998). This is an incomplete but growing list.
2 Nigel West Secret War (Hodder and Stoughton 1992, London) 9
3 J Gleeson They Feared No Evil, (Corgi, 1976, London) Preface
4 Gleeson 57-8
5 Foreign and Commonwealth Office files of the SOE Adviser, Sir Duncan Stuart, un-numbered pages - henceforth F/CO

5(i) The ceremony at Ravensbruck took place on the morning of June 10th 1993, organised and led by Gervase Cowell of the Special Forces Club, with representatives of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, The British Embassy in Berlin and the Ravensbruck Museum. The plaque was unveiled by former agents Odette Hallowes-Sansom, GC, MBE; Eileen Nearne MBE; and Yvonne Baseden MBE. Present were Vera Atkins, Francis Cammaerts DSO (senior SOE officer in France), Brian Stonehouse, Leo Marks (SOE Chef de Codage) with representatives from the FANY (WTS), WAAF (WRAF), the sister of Lillian Rolfe, the daughter of Violette Szabo, Judge John de Cunha (a prosecutor at Nuremburg) and several former members of the French Resistance. There was a large article in the Daily Mail on the following weekend.
6 J D Sainsbury The F Section Memorial (IWM Library, 1991, London)
7 R J Minney Carve Her name With Pride (Portway, London,1988) 160
8 Irene Ward F.A.N.Y. Invicta (Hutchinson 1955 London) 240
9 F/CO photo
10 F/CO de-brief of Denise Bloch
11 PRO (Public Record Office, Kew, London) files HS6 Series
12 Interview 24 April 1998 East Sussex . The charming and forthright Vera Atkins (CBE, Cr. de Gu., Com. de Leg. d'Hon.) kindly agreed to meet me on 24 April 1998 at her home in East Sussex. She was at the time in her nintieth year but her memory as sharp as it ever was. She was Squadron and Intelligence Officer to SOE F Section and Personal Assistant to Buckmaster and had known all the agents over the war years who had passed through the SOE offices in London. Her job was multi-faceted and included briefing agents on the latest rationing regulations in France, obtaining French tailor labels for clothing, supplying bogus travel documents and photos of bogus husbands or wives ( J Tickell Odette (Pan books,London 1949) 60).
13 Letter from Gervase Cowell, Chair of the Special Forces Club Historical Sub-Committee, to author 13 February 1998
14 F/CO
15 F/CO de-brief of Denise Bloch 11 June 1943 - Mendelsohn was arrested 30 October 1942 and imprisoned for a year, during which Denise's father tried to get him, Aron and two others out, by bribing the Germans through a lawyer for one and a half million francs. Eventually, Mendelsohn escaped from France on 31 December 1943 and got to England on 17April 1944 - (F/CO de-brief page 3). It seems the Bloch family were all active in one way or the other in the Resistance!)
16 F/CO
17 F/CO)
18 F/CO
19 PRO file HS6/437, 6 June 1945
20 F/CO
21 F/CO
22 F/CO
23 F/CO
24 F/CO
25 F/CO
26 F/CO
27 B E Escott Mission Improbable (Patrick Stephens, 1991, London) 31-4
28 West 267-69
29 F/CO
30 Interview 24 April 1998 East Sussex
31 A group of German refugee Jewish tailors working from a secret workshop near Oxford Circus produced these items, scouring London's synagogue worshippers for authentic French and German labels and either buying the clothing or borrowing items to copy for SOE agents about to be dropped into France. Vera Atkins named a Captain Ken More who was in charge of procuring items of this kind for SOE and other relevant agencies.The Jewish leader of the tailoring group itself was made an honorary Captain in the SOE! (Gleeson 25)
31a "Between Silk and Cyanide" Leo Marks, Harper Collins,London, 1998 p 474 -
Make the most of it
A coast to coast
Toast of it
For what you think
Has been God-sent to you
Has only been lent to you.

32 H Verity We Landed by Moonlight (Ian Allan, 1978, London) 220
33 J O Fuller The German Penetration of SOE (W Kimber, 1975 , London) 137.
34 L Jones A Quiet Courage (Bantam, 1990 London) 127.
35 M R D Foot SOE in France (HMSO 1966 London) 88.
36 F/CO
37 G Cowell Special Forces Club files
38 F/CO
39 Interview 24 April 1998 East Sussex
40 Vera Atkins F/CO - henceforth VA F/CO
41 VA F/CO
42 PRO file HS6/439 (Odette Churchill, GC, in WO/309/282, alleges she saw Denise in cells at Karlsruhe and when seen talking, Denise was badly beaten by woman SS guard Becker - statement to 2nd Lt A W H Nicolson 14.12.46 in Hamburg.
43 Her report in PRO HS6/440
44 Mlle J Rousseau, Sancellemons, Haute Savoie - VA F/CO
45 E H Cookridge Inside SOE (London 1966)
46 PRO file HS6/437 20 June 1945 and 15 June 1945 respectively
47 Minney 168
48 Mme Renee Corjon, Bellve, Nogent sur Vernirsson, Loiret - VA F/CO
49 Mme Renee Rossier, Allegre, Hte. Savoie/3, Villa Montecalme, Paris 18 - VA F/CO
50 Mme Solange Rousseau, St Maur, S and M - VA F/CO
51 VA F/CO
52 L Jones 85
53 PRO HS6/437
54 VA F/CO
55 J Tickell Odette (Pan Books, 1949/55, London) 266-67
56 Peter Churchill The Spirirt in the Cage (Hodder and Stoughton, London 1954 ) 234
57 Cookridge 173
58 PRO HS6/438
59 Minney Chapters 19 and 20
60 F E Cohen The Jews in the Islands of Jersey, Guernsey and Sark during the German Occupation 1940-45 (Journal of Holocaust Education, Vol 6, No 1 , Summer 1997, London, Frank Cass) 34-35. I am indebted to Stephen Stodel, London, (nephew of former Jewish POW Morris Stodel, Royal Signals), for pointing out this article to me.
61 Escott 208
62 PRO file HS6/437
63 In an unsigned leaflet - in the author's possession - apparently produced by the PRO on 20 July 1998 when new SOE papers were released for public scrutiny - and found at the PRO itself, it states that at least 87% of SOE files were deliberately destroyed between 1945 and 1950, some by SOE and some by the SIS; many others have simply not been released. The de-brief document on the fate of Violet Szabo is missing as are many on other operations and of allegedly unfounded allegations of treachery as well as the assassination of alleged traitors in the field. Other documents were lost in a fire at Baker Street HQ, including most of the files from the Polish section.
64 Interview 24 April 1998 East Sussex. After the war ended Vera Atkins felt strongly that she should investigate what had become of all the agents who had disappeared whilst on active service. Against the wishes and advice of her superiors , and indeed facing some hostility, she got herself to Germany in November/December 1945 to assess whether she could begin to discover the truth of the fate of the missing agents and who exactly in the Allied Occupation Forces would or could help her.

65 VA F/CO - After approaching agencies such as the Red Cross, Military Intelligence and others, she finally spoke to the Commanding Officer of the Legal Department. of the British War Crimes Offices in Germany at Bad Oynhausen near Hanover (then HQ, BAOR), Group Captain Tony Somerhough, who allowed her to interview some imprisoned Nazis; she realised after this experience that she may make some headway in her own investigations. Even though she was not legally trained and that there were no vacancies in the War Crimes offices, the CO allowed her to stay. MI5 paid her Army salary and she stoically continued with her work - as a matter of honour - until the end, driven by her determination to get to the truth both for herself and the families of the agents whose whereabouts had not been known after they disappeared - and most of all in memory of the agents themselves.

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