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8 October 2011

Remember the agents of the Special Operations Executive

The memorial to the members of the Special Operations Executive who worked for the Allies during the Second World War was unveiled on the Albert Embankment in October 2009.


The memorial features a statue of Violette Szabo, who was captured during a mission in occupied France in 1944, executed in early 1945 at Ravensbrück concentration camp at the age of just 23 years.

Alongside the memorial to all the members of the Special Operations Executive, the memorial also features separate plaques to remember the Heroes of Telemark and the Maquis French Resistance Fighters, of which Szabo was a part.

For more information, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8289847.stm

2 comments:

  1. There is a museum in Herefordshire about Violette Szabo.
    http://www.violette-szabo-museum.co.uk/

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  2. I find Szabo's story incredibly moving, but the memorial, less so. Pedants' alert: it is not a statue but a herm. I learnt this word in looking up info on the sculpture of Virginia Woolf in Tavistock Square: "a square pillar of stone topped by a bust or head, originally of Hermes". Two female figures: still rare to have public art depicting real women (as opposed to paintings of allegories). I'm campaigning for a third, to Mary Wollstonecraft, and I'm collecting examples at A Vindication of the Rights of Mary. Help welcome! Especially, but not only, London statues. My favourite recent memorial to a person is John Betjeman in St Pancras Station: friend, if you seek a memorial, look around you.

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