Daughter of World War II heroine attends Powys VE Day event
THE daughter of a World War II heroine executed by the Nazis officially unveiled a memorial in the Powys village where she lives last weekend, as celebrations to mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day got underway.
Violette Szabo was a British-French secret agent, recruited by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent during the war, having initially joined the Women's Land Army and later enlisting in the Auxiliary Territorial Service – the women's branch of the British Army during World War II.
On just her second mission into occupied France, Violette was captured by the German army, interrogated, tortured and deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she was executed, aged just 23.
She was a posthumous recipient of the George Cross.
Tania Szabo, born to Violette and her French husband Etienne on June 8, 1942, has called the village of Cilmery, near Builth Wells, home for some years; and it was here that she unveiled a bench last weekend, honouring the last native Prince of Wales, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, who was killed near the village, and which houses a monument to him.
The unveiling of the bench was part of a day of celebration at Cilmery's Prince Llewelyn Inn on Sunday, May 4, with the pub hosting a commemorative event celebrating 80 years since VE Day. Refreshments and a buffet was provided by the pub's landlords, Julie and Adrian Beach, along with entertainment for children and rousing 1940's music.
Members of Cilmery Community Council unveiled the 'Cilmery Bench', which sits just across the road from the pub.
It was finely crafted by local blacksmith Kevin Preece, with thanks extended to Jewsons for supplying the materials.
The bench is engraved with ' Llywelyn ap Gruffydd ' and an outline of the village monument to celebrate Llywelyn's connection to Cilmery.
To complete the VE Day Commemorations, Tania recalled the heroic contribution that her late mother made to the Allied effort during World War II.
Violette, as an SOE agent, went into France on June 7, 1944, on just her second mission, but was captured only three days later. She, along with two other SOE agents, Denise Block and Lilian Rolfe, was executed on February 5, 1945.
After she and Etienne were married, Violette became a switchboard operator for the General Post Office in central London, working throughout the Blitz. However, bored by the job, she enlisted in the ATS in September 1941. She was stationed in Cheshire but returned to London in early 1942 when she learned she was pregnant.
After giving birth to Tania, she sent her daughter to childminders while she worked at an aircraft factory. Étienne was killed in action on October 24, 1942, having never seen his daughter.
It was Étienne's death that made Violette accept an offer to train as a field agent in the SOE, as she saw this as her best way of fighting the enemy.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mirror
20 minutes ago
- Daily Mirror
Two killed in holiday hotspot shooting named as infamous Scottish gangsters
The horror shooting of two British men at an Irish bar on the Costa del Sol in Spain this weekend is believed to be linked to an ongoing brutal gang war in Scotland Two Scottish gangsters were killed in a horror shooting at an Irish bar in a popular Costa del Sol holiday resort. Ross Monaghan and Eddie Lyons Jnr were reportedly left dead after masked men stormed the Monaghans bar in Fuengirola on Saturday night in front of horrified tourists. The incident occurred in the busy bar just moments after the end of last night's Champions League final. Daily Record reports the bar is owned by Ross Monaghan, a member of the notorious Lyons Glasgow crime family. Monaghan fled Scotland in 2017 after he was shot at twice while dropping his child off at primary school in Glasgow. Monaghan was cleared of the murder of notorious Glasgow hood Kevin 'Gerbil' Carroll, who was shot dead in a brutal gangland assassination in Asda Robroyston carpark in 2010. Monaghan was tried for the killing, but was acquitted in May 2012 after it emerged there was no evidence which placed him at the Asda store at the time of the shooting. In August 2017 Monaghan was further cleared of being involved in a brutal street attack on three men outside the Campsie bar in Bishopbriggs. The ambush left one of the victims' ears hanging off. He walked free after prosecutors withdrew charges against him and three others. The shooting in Spain comes amid a violent gang war that has ripped through Scotland since March, which is believed to have started over a fallout over drugs. A series of brutal attacks across Scotland, including buildings being firebombed, have been caught in recent months, but this violence has appeared to have gone abroad too. Disturbing images taken at the scene of the shooting in Spain, which happened at around 11.30pm, show a lifeless body on the ground. Authorities in Spain say the first victim was shot in the chest and the second in the chest and abdomen. A third person was injured after being hit by the bullets, but their condition has not been disclosed. Police and paramedics were also pictured surrounding one of the bodies after it was covered under a blanket, while horrified holidaymakers and locals looked on. There are no reports that any arrests have been made yet but cops have setup roadblocks in the area as an investigation continues. Forensic teams have carried out initial enquiries at the scene to gather evidence.
Daily Mail
37 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
The forgotten story of WWII's baby-faced assassins who, aged just 14 and 16, seduced Nazis in bars before luring them to their deaths
Sisters Freddie and Truus Oversteegen blew up bridges and railway tracks with dynamite, smuggled Jewish children out of concentration camps and executed as many Nazis as they could, using a firearm hidden in the basket of their bike. They were only teenagers at the outbreak of World War II, but they soon used their harmless appearance to gain the trust of the officers before luring them to their deaths. Now, their stories are back in the spotlight after being shared on Instagram, with fans calling for their heroic acts against the face of evil to be made into movies, bemoaning the 'seven million Spider-Man or Batman reboots' viewers get instead. Freddie and Truus joined the Dutch resistance at the ages of 14 and 16, respectively, after witnessing horrifying violence by the Nazis, who invaded their home nation, The Netherlands, in 1940. Truus, born on 29 August 1923, in Schoten, had been protecting Jewish children, dissidents and homosexuals in safe houses across Haarlem, near Amsterdam, during the Second World War. But aged 16 she saw a baby battered to death in front of its family by a Nazi - and following the terrifying moment, she and her younger sister Freddie turned to killing all the soldiers they could. Truus recalled in Sophie Poldermans' Seducing and Killing Nazis: Hannie, Truus And Freddie: Dutch Resistance Heroines Of World War II: 'He grabbed the baby and hit it against the wall. 'The father and sister had to watch. They were obviously hysterical. The child was dead,' the resistance fighter said, according to the New York Post. Truus claimed she aimed her gun at him and fired, adding she did not regret slaying the 'cancerous tumours in our society'. Alongside her sister Freddie, born in Haarlem, near Amsterdam on September 6, 1925, and raised by their communist mother, and their law student friend Hannie Schaft, the trio became played a clandestine role in the resistance. The team had a routine: first approach the Nazi men in bars, and, having successfully seduced them, ask if they wanted to 'go for a stroll' in the forest, where, as Freddie herself put it, they would be 'liquidated'. 'We had to do it,' she told one interviewer. 'It was a necessary evil, killing those who betrayed the good people.' When asked how many people she had killed or helped kill, she demurred: 'One should not ask a soldier any of that.' Freddie acted as a courier for the resistance to begin with but was soon drafted into seducing Nazis with bright-red lipstick and pretending to be drunk alongside her sister and a 20-year-old Hannie. The law student, who had red hair and crystal-white teeth, through herself into the role by learning German and perfecting casual conversations with the soldiers. After luring them into the woods, she or a male companion would quickly shoot the unassuming officer. Author Ms Poldermans explained: 'They were killers, but they also tried hard to remain human. They tried to shoot their targets from the back so that they didn't know they were going to die.' The sisters have never revealed how many people they killed and despite Ms Poldermans being friends with them for 20 years, it does not feature in her book. But Truus did confess to breaking down in tears or fainting after killing someone, adding 'I wasn't born to kill.' Freddie - who died on September 5, 2018, one day before her 93rd birthday - was the last surviving member of the Netherlands' most famous female resistance cell, who dedicated their lives to fighting Nazi occupiers and Dutch 'traitors'. The female members of the Dutch resistance are often overlooked, and it was and still is often thought of as a man's effort. However, this kind of thinking proved to be a fatal mistake to many Nazi men, who did not recognise the threat posed by the Oversteegen sisters as they rode their bikes around Haarlem, scouting out targets or acting as lookouts for other executions. Both Oversteegen sisters survived the war. Truus found work as an artist, and was inspired to write a memoir and based on her experiences in the resistance. She died in 2016. Freddie told Vice that she coped with the traumas of the war 'by getting married and having babies.' She married Jan Dekker and their three children survive her, as do her four grandchildren. However, speaking after his mother's death in 2018, Freddie's son Remi Dekker told the Observer: 'If you ask me, the war only ended two weeks ago. 'In her mind it was still going on, and on, and on. It didn't stop, even until the last day... She shot a few people, and these were the real, real bad guys. But she hated it, and she hated herself for doing it.' In the years leading up to her death, Freddie suffered from several heart attacks at the nursing home in Driehuis where she lived - about five miles outside Haarlem. The Oversteegen siblings' friend Hannie Schaft, a onetime law student with fiery red hair, was captured and executed by the Nazis just weeks before they surrendered. 'Hannie was her soulmate friend. Freddie could never understand why the Nazis killed her just before the end of the war. She always took red roses to her grave,' revealed Manon Hoornstra, after the youngest Oversteegen sister shared many of her war time memories with the documentary maker. In Hannie's honour, Truus founded the National Hannie Schaft Foundation in 1996. Freddie served as a board member. 'Schaft became the national icon of female resistance,' said Jeroen Pliester, the foundation's chairman. Her story was taught to Dutch children and retold in a 1981 Dutch film, 'The Girl With the Red Hair'. For the sisters, their work with the resistance wasn't something they would ever regret, but it left its emotional scars. They both dealt with 'post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), enduring severe nightmares, screaming and fighting in their sleep,' revealed human rights activist Ms Poldermans to Time magazine in 2019. The author added: 'These women never saw themselves as heroines. They were extremely dedicated and believed they had no other option but to join the resistance. They never regretted what they did during the war.' 'It was tragic and very difficult and we cried about it afterwards,' Truus said, about the feeling of having killed somebody. 'We did not feel it suited us - it never suits anybody, unless they are real criminals. One loses everything. It poisons the beautiful things in life.' Their mother gave Truus and Freddie only one rule, 'always stay human', the sisters once recalled. The Dutch newspaper IJmuider Courant, reported that Freddie once told an interviewer: 'I've shot a gun myself and I've seen them fall. And what is inside us at such a moment? You want to help them get up.' During the later years of her life, Freddie strived for more acknowledgment of her role, and both sisters eventually received the Dutch Mobilization War Cross in 2014, before a street was named after each of them. 'So many years after doing their work in the shadows, they were glad for the public recognition,' Ms Poldermans told the publication. 'They wanted their stories to be known - to teach people that, as Truus put it, even when the work is hard, 'you must always remain human.''
Glasgow Times
39 minutes ago
- Glasgow Times
Paris St Germain victory parade in Paris to go ahead despite clashes with police
A total of 491 arrests were made in Paris and one fatality recorded after trouble in France's capital city centre following the historic 5-0 thrashing of Inter Milan in Munich. During a press conference on Sunday, Paris Police chief Laurent Nunez revealed 192 civilians were injured in addition to nine police officers suffering 'light injuries', whilst the death of a 24-year-old man following a collision with a car is being investigated. Fans celebrate PSG's victory on the Champs-Elysees (Aurelien Morissard/AP) 'We are not sure yet whether it is linked to celebrations last night, but an investigation is open, Nunez said. 'This is just half time for us because the PSG players are coming to Paris. We have important work this afternoon. 'We have a cap on the amount of people that can come in. There are 100,000 people that can come in. After that, we can't bring any more people in. Paris St Germain celebrate with the trophy (Mike Egerton/PA) 'There will be a celebration around the Parc des Princes as well and the players will be at the Parc des Princes to meet their fans. 'There again we are expecting some clashes, some scuffles and we will be there and we will be very strong in our response against the vandals, against the thieves who have a go at the police officers. 'We will not tolerate any abuse today and the fans who want to enjoy the parade, can do so safely.' Les vrais supporters du PSG sont en train de s'enthousiasmer devant le magnifique match de leur équipe. Pendant ce temps là, des barbares sont venus dans les rues de Paris pour commettre des délits et provoquer les forces de l'ordre. J'ai demandé aux forces de sécurité… — Bruno Retailleau (@BrunoRetailleau) May 31, 2025 The French interior ministry said 559 arrests were made across France during celebrations after Paris Saint Germain's win, whilst a 17-year-old is reported to have died following a stabbing in Dax. 'The true PSG supporters are getting excited watching their team's magnificent match. Meanwhile, barbarians have taken to the streets of Paris to commit crimes and provoke law enforcement,' French interior minister Bruno Retailleau wrote on X. 'I have asked the internal security forces to respond with vigor to these offences. 'I offer my support to the Police Prefect and all the police officers who are ensuring everyone's safety. It is unacceptable that it is not possible to celebrate without fearing the savagery of a minority of thugs who respect nothing.'
