Bloch, Denise Madeleine, 1916-1945

Denise Madeleine Bloch (French pronunciation: [dəniz blɔʃ] ⓘ; 21 January 1916 – 5 February 1945) was a French citizen who worked as an agent with the clandestine British Special Operations Executive (SOE) organization in the Second World War. The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in countries occupied by the Axis powers, especially those occupied by Nazi Germany. SOE agents allied themselves with resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England. Bloch was born to a Jewish family (Jacques Henri Bloch and Suzanne Levi-Strauss) in Paris, France in 1916 Her mother, her brother Jean-Claude, and Denise then lived a clandestine life avoiding persecution as Jews by using false papers and identities. In the summer of 1942, the family was smuggled across the border from occupied to unoccupied Vichy France arriving in Lyon on 17 July. In Lyon Bloch became a secretary for Jean-Maxime Aron, a Jewish engineer for Citroen who was working with the French Resistance and the SOE network led by Philippe de Vomécourt. Bloch began working for Aron as a courier, delivering messages to agents around the region. Through her work with Aron, Bloch met several Jews working in the French Resistance and SOE agents sent from London to help the Resistance. As a cover she fabricated an engagement to Dominique Mendelsohn, also involved in the resistance. She helped SOE radio operator Brian Stonehouse and courier Blanche Charlet. Bloch was interrogated at SD headquarters at 84 Avenue Foch in Paris and imprisoned at Fresnes Prison. On 8 August 1944, with the allies advancing on Paris, Bloch and other captured SOE agents was sent by train to Germany. In late August she reached Ravensbrück concentration camp for women. Along with SOE agents Violette Szabo and Lilian Rolfe she volunteered for a work party at Torgau in Saxony, where conditions were better than at Ravensbrūck. They attempted, but failed to escape. Sent back to Ravensbrück, they were beaten and put in an underground bunker. On 19 October, they were sent to Königsberg in Brandenburg where they were forced to do heavy labor in winter conditions. Recalled to Ravensbrück in late January 1945, they were in pitiful condition. Rolfe was no longer able to walk and Bloch was "suffering from gangrene." A few days later they were taken to the courtyard by the crematorium. Camp commandant Fritz Suhren read the order for their execution and they were each shot in the back of the head with a small caliber pistol. Their bodies were cremated. An eyewitness said the women were "very brave" and that Commandant Suhren was annoyed that the Gestapo "did not themselves carry out the execution."[13][3]

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/daughters-of-yael-two-jewish-heroines-of-the-soe

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C8995522