Throughout the Second World War, there were a number of women who were on the wrong side
of history, being evil guards inside of concentration camps.
But there were many women who fought for their country and their beliefs, taking up arms
and bringing the fight to some of the most evil regimes the world has ever seen.
The Partisan resistance fighters for example used women to carry out sabotage and other
operations, and in France the Resistance used women in the same capacities as men.
There were also female spies who were trained by British Special Operations Executive, and
they were then parachuted and dropped off behind enemy lines to conduct espionage and
to help co-ordinate resistance activities.
But a number of these women if caught were subject to brutal torture and they were then
executed.
The Merlinettes was a collection of women who worked in the Women’s Signal Corps of
the French army during the Second World War.
They were involved in most campaigns during the liberation of France, but for Adolf Hitler
and the Nazis they despised the fact women were involved in the armies of their enemies.
They believed it was the place of a woman to be fighting in a conflict, and often they
were dealt with brutally when captured being immediately executed.
But today we look at the executions of four of The Merlinettes, who were parachuted into
France and were then sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp following their capture, and they were
then executed there.
Join us today as we look at the executions of the female spies of Ravensbruck, and as
always make sure to support our channel by subscribing.
The Merlinettes were made up of around 1095 women by April 1944 who served in the Women’s
Signal Corps, and towards the end of the conflict around 2000 were involved.
They are today believed to have been the first female soldiers of the French Army, and the
Women’s Signal corp was formed in November 1942.
It was proposed to use women inside of the communications service, but before they had
been banned by law to serve in the army, and they were not allowed.
But attitudes changed and they were seen as a valuable war time group.
But the CFT as it was known was teamed up and was set up with the 1st French Army and
they were trained heavily.
They would work as telephone operator, radio operators, signals analysts and messengers.
However the fight against the Nazis and the German Army in France did not go very well
as the Germans rampaged throughout the country and they occupied the land, plunging millions
into living under German rule.
They also forced the allies back to Dunkirk, but there were many efforts to continue the
fight.
The women’s group were named after the man who proposed their role in the army, Lucien
Merlin.
But the Free French Forces were continuing to fight inside of France.
Charles de Gaulle the leader of the forces appealed to the French to continue the fight
against the Nazis and to oppose occupation and resist.
They were opposed to an armistice, and to begin with the Free French Army did not have
many men.
Very few French believed that Britain could stand alone against the Nazis, but the French
would fight to defend the colonies they had possession of also.
In 1944 the MErlinettes became part of the Free French Forces, and this would be a very
important year for the French.
The invasion of Normandy would come on D-Day, and the Allies would break out of the bocage
and would liberate a number of towns.
Fierce fighting would take place, and the 500,000 strong French forces would fight alongside
the allies for the capture of their towns and villages.
The women played an important role in this, seeing action in all of the free French campaigns
including in Italy.
They landed as part of the French Expeditionary Corps with the Allied landings of Operation
Dragoon, after the Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine.
But within the detachment of women were a number of special forces who were sent to
London to train further as commandos with Special Operations Executive.
These women were to conduct sabotage and other acts of espionage, and these were given specialist
training to do this.
Despite 30 being trained, 11 Merlinettes were then sent on missions.
But four of these would be captured and they were sent to Ravensbruck Concentration Camp
where they experienced a brutal death.
A call went out for recruits to be involved in these missions, and Suzanne Mertzizen,
Eugenie Djendi, Marie-Louis Cloarec and Pierrette Louin all volunterred.
These women all came from different walks of life, but they had the same belief and
drive to free France from the evils of the Nazis.
When they arrived in London these 4 were given further training in the capital as radio operatives
to give them even more skills.
Then they were sent to St Albans and Manchester for further training which included how to
handle and build explosive, how to fight when unarmed, and also how to safely parachute
out of an aircraft to prepare them for their missions.
It wouldn’t be long before they would be placed on the mission, and the four women
all parachuted into France months before D-Day on the 6th April 1944.
They were sent to the Limoges region of France, and then the women would try to get to Paris
to then stay with a cousin of Pierette Louin.
However within a few weeks of their landing in France things would go wrong.
The Gestapo had been tipped off to the location of the four women, and they were then quickly
arrested and were rounded up being interrogated heavily by the Gestapo.
Female spies were treated brutally by the German army after capture, and they were often
tortured horrifically and were condemned to death for their crimes as they were seen as
very dangerous.
But following their interrogation the four merlinettes were then sent to Ravensbruck
Concentration Camp.
This was an all female concentration camp, and around 132,000 women were imprisoned here
during the conflict.
Many came from different countries including even Britain and America, and there were around
8000 women from France who were held inside of Ravsnebruck.
The camp was opened in May 1939 and as soon as the gates opened the women were being sent
there.
It’s believed that 50,000 women died at the camp from Disease, overwork and starvation
along with at least 2,200 women being killed inside of the gas chambers.
Ravensbruck was a site where many female spies were held inside, and many were brutally executed
there for their work against the Nazis.
Life at the camp was very difficult, and when some arrived they had their heads shaved,
but within years of the camp becoming overcrowded the conditions there deteriorated heavily.
One former inmate of Ravensbruck stated that, ‘They didn't shoot the women.
We were to die of misery, hunger and exhaustion...when we arrived at Ravensbrück, it was the worst.
The first thing I saw was a cart with all the dead piled on it.
Their arms and legs hanging out, and mouths and eyes wide open.
They reduced us to nothing.
We didn't even feel like we had the value of cattle.
You worked and you died.’
There were a number of sick medical experiments that took place there and all inmates were
forced to conduct heavy labour which was very difficult.
Some women were even forced to build parts of the V-2 rocket, and many of the women of
Ravensbruck were forced to help build these destructive weapons that caused slaughter
and death.
As mentioned there was a gas chamber which was established on the site towards the end
of the Second World War.
A small hut near to the crematorium inside the camp was transformed into becoming a gas
chamber, and it was clear that the SS wanted to drive as many women in there as they could
over the following months.
Several thousands of women would be killed inside the gas chambers before the camp was
liberated, and then following the deaths their remains would be burned inside of the crematoria
next door.
But by January 1945 before the camps survivors were liberated, it was believed that there
were 45,000 women prisoners at the camp.
But as the Soviet red army were approaching, the order for the SS was given to evacuate
as many as they could and to not let any prisoner fall alive into the hands of the enemies.
Huge death marches would happen, but for the women who were considered spies they would
not be evacuated.
The four merlinettes who had been in Ravensbruck for some time were forced to conduct heavy
work each day, but as the order to the SS was given to evacuate the camp, and to prepare
for the advancing red army, the order was given to deal with the four French women.
The women as they were considered spies and members of the military were sentenced to
death, and they to be executed also inside of the camp.
The women when they were captured had been asked to be transferred to a prisoner of war
camp as they were members of the military but this was denied, and instead they were
taken into a make shift firing range at Ravensbruck on the 18th January 1945.
There was a group of SS men who had been gathered in the firing range, and then one by one the
women were led out and they were then executed rapidly by the men with their rifles.
Each of the Merlinettes were killed in the same way, and their bodies were then taken
from the range to the crematorium where they were immediately burned and the SS did this
to hope that their stories would be forgotten and that they would be erased from history.
They then buried anything that remained of the women inside a nearby forest.
But these women were then awarded a number of medals for their service, and despite the
fact their work as spies was not the most successful they wanted to take the fight to
the Germans and wanted to help free France from occupation.
But inside of one of the worst concentration camps, they were executed in a brutal manner.
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