BELFAST RB BOOKLET 2020 - Flipbook - Page 107
Ci t y of Belf ast Grand Bl ack Chapt er - Dem onst rat i on Bookl et 2020
ordeal at the hands of the Nazi Gestapo ground of Ravensbrück to be picked up
during WWII .. her name, and remember it by the hands that had great need of it.'
with pride is .. Odette Sansom.
Odette had also found a small piece of lead
A naturalised French citizen, Odette was that she fashioned into a pencil to scribble
already married to British Special Operations down quotes which held special meaning for
Executive Officer (SOE) Peter Churchill, when her and were later published in book form.
she too was recruited to work behind enemy
Then in beautifully neat handwriting she also
lines, acting as a courier for her husband, by wrote down her thoughts in a couple of jotters
delivering messages to resistance cells and given to her by a German priest while being
seeking out remote areas to enable aerial held in Paris' Fresnes prison, where she also
drops and landing zones for British troops.
penned her thoughts about the leaf she had
However in 1942, using Codename Lisé, found ..
she was captured, being interrogated and 'I feel that my love and longing for the
brutally tortured by the Gestapo as a spy, external world, I mean the world of
to the extent that the German secret police nature, has suddenly increased a million
even held a red-hot poker against her bare times. When I think of the little flowers
back and using metal pliers, removed all that grow in grass, and little streams and
her toenails in a bid to force her to talk as places where we can lie and look up at
the Nazis were desperate to uncover the the clouds; oh, I simply ache for them.'
identity and whereabouts of her radio
Odette always felt the leaf was a powerful
operator, codenamed Arnaud, yet Odette symbol of hope for her and she kept it very
still refused to betray her comrades.
close, in a book throughout the rest of her life.
One day as she was being escorted back to
Condemned to death by a Nazi kangaroo
her cell Odette spotted a little
green court on two counts, one of being a British spy
leaf lying on the ground; that one
and the other, working with the resistance
tiny, green sign of life in a
networks, she told her persecutors that
landscape of death and despair.
they must take their own pick of
Having her toenails pulled out, in pain
whatever count for her execution, 'as
she pretended to stumble, then quickly
she can only die once.'
grabbing the leaf, hid it away, later
However due to her married
retrieving it from time to time to hold in her surname, Odette's interrogators believed
hand and give her added strength.
that her husband was related to Winston
Later in freedom, Odette recalled that ..
Churchill, which may explain why the Nazis
'it was just a small leaf and thank God I delayed her execution. Indeed such was
had seen it; my guards paid little his belief of such an 'important' family
attention and were totally oblivious of connection, that the Ravensbrück Prison
the significance of the treasure I had Commander, Fritz Suhren tried to use her
acquired. Little did they know, as the as a bargaining chip to save his own skin
cell door slammed that I held in my when Germany surrendered. However it
fingers a most potent link with the didn’t work and he himself was later found
forces of life and freedom. As one weary guilty and executed as a war criminal.
day followed another the leaf became
For her courageous exploits Odette was
more
and
more
precious
to awarded the George Cross; an MBE and the.
me. Somewhere in the vast spaces of French Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur.
the sky, a godly wind had risen and,
Her life story was later told in the 1950
impelled by a strength and a direction film, simply titled .. 'Odette' .. in which she
beyond human knowledge, stirred the was portrayed by Dame Anna Neagle.
branches of a tree that had lifted a leaf
'B R A V E H E A R T ' O D E T T E S A N S O M
and carried it gently down onto the
P A S S E D A W A Y O N 13 T H M A R C H 1995.
IN MEMORY OF THE FALLEN - 105 - AND THE FUTURE OF THE LIVING