← Back to Forgotten Heroes
Violet Szabo
SOE Operative • Britain • 1921–1945
SOE agent who held off a German patrol alone while covering resistance fighters' escape, then survived torture and execution at Ravensbruck at age 23.
Violette Szabo was an SOE agent recruited in 1943 and sent to occupied France twice. On her second mission, she engaged a German patrol alone while covering the escape of two French resistance fighters, firing her Sten gun from a kneeling position until it jammed. Captured and held at Fresnes Prison and then Ravensbruck concentration camp, she was executed at age 23. She was posthumously awarded the George Cross, the highest British civilian decoration for gallantry.