A beautiful service was held at Cartref House, home to the Violette Szabo Museum in Wormelow on Sunday, June 24th.

The annual event celebrates the life of Violette Szabo, a French-born British Special Operations Executive (SOE) who undertook a number of daring undercover missions in France before being captured by German troops and sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she was executed aged 23.

Although she was born in France she made a dramatic contribution to British war-time history. Violette also spent her childhood in England, often visiting cousins at their home at Cartref, in Wormelow.

Rosemary Rigby MBE created the unique museum after discovering her cottage was once Violette Szabo’s holiday home.

While in Ravensbrück concentration camp, Violette had a fleeting friendship with 16-year-old Hortense Daman from Belgium. Hortense was responsible for saving the lives of 20 British airmen, by taking food to them in their hiding places on her bicycle, at the age of 14.

At Ravensbrück, Hortense had been experimented on by the German soldiers, injected with gangrene into her thigh, and was very poorly with nowhere to sleep. Violette gave her bed to Hortense and slept on the floor herself.

Hortense survived her treatment and always felt that Violette saved her life. Hortense attended the opening of the Museum back in 2000, and this year the Mayor of Stoke-on-Trent attended in her honour.

The service began with a welcome from Rosemary Rigby MBE, who thanked both visitors and honoured guests for their attendance.

Members of the RAF also attended the memorial gathering, as well as the Mayor of Ross-on-Wye and his consort Maria Ward, Tania Szabo (Violette’s daughter) and British actress and author Virginia Anne McKenna OBE, best known for playing Violette in the film ‘Carve Her Name with Pride’. See the full story in this week’s edition of the Ross Gazette, or subscribe to our online edition here

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