Sonia Olschanesky

Sonia Olschanesky (1923-1944) was, during the Second world war an agent of the British secret service Special Operations Executive, Section F.

Genealogy

His/her father: Eli Olschanesky, Russian, Jew, originating in Odessa, come to make studies of chemical engineer in Chemnitz, are married there. It then created a manufacturing plant of silk stocking in Romania, then came to be established in Paris in 1930 as commercial representative of a factory of bottom.

His/her brothers: Énoch and Serge.

Biography

Youth

1923 . - On December 25th, birth of Sonia Olschanesky with Chemnitz, Germany.

1930 . - The family settles with Paris, and his/her father opens a store of linen room there.

It is a good coed, but its principal ambition is to become dancer.

After having left the school, it works like young person-girl with the par.

War

1940 .

*Mai. France is invaded by the German army. Sonia joined the Résistance.

1942 .

*Mai. The Jews must carry yellow star.

*Juin. It is stopped and sent to the camp of Drancy. It goes there voluntary to deal with the separate children their parents.

When his/her mother learns what arrived to him, it contacts friends in Germany who arrange themselves to manufacture attesting false paper of his professional competences in the field of the fur, field useful for the effort of war on the face of the east.

Fall 1942. Thanks to these papers and with the payment of a sum to the adequate German person in charge, it is released.

1943 .

*Sonia is presented to Jacques Weil by his brother Énoch Olschanesky, volunteer, captive fact in May 1940, escaped prisoner of a stalag, and become member of the network JUGGLER, sub-network of the network Prosper - PHYSICIAN. At Jacques Worms, the chief of the network, and Jacques Weil, his assistant, it becomes secretary and mail (or liaison officer) in the triangle consisted Paris, Saint-Quentin towards North and Châlons-sur-Marne towards the East. It adopts the pseudo “ Tania ”.

*Le network organizes ten groups of sabotage in the sector of Châlons-sur-Marne and Vitry-le-François.

*Elle takes part in the dynamiting of a train of ammunition in Melun.

*Juin. Collapse of the network: the majority of the leaders of the network are stopped.

* July 1st. Jean Worms is stopped in a restaurant, street Pergolèse. Jacques Weil and it remain free. They leave for Switzerland. But Annecy, it gives up, and returns to continue its activity of resistant: it takes the direction of the network, but instructions of the SOE.

1944 .

* January 20th. She is contacted by the agent “ Clothaire ”, which is claimed sent by London to help it to restore the connection with the SOE.

* January 21st. She is stopped with the Sun of gold , place of the Trinity. After a interrogation of the Gestapo, she is imprisoned with the prison of Fresnes.

* May 13rd. The Germans transfer to Karlsruhe, Germany eight women agents of the SOE, of which Sonia.

* July 6th. Sonia, at the same time as Diana Rowden, Andree Borrel and Vera Leigh, is taken along to the concentration camp of Struthof- Natzweiler, to Alsace. In the course of the day, one makes them a lethal injection of Phénol and one throws them in the crematorium.

Recognition

Its name does not appear in the Memorial of Valençay, Indre, France, which honors the 104 agents with the Section F of the SOE died for France.

Sources

M.R.D. Foot, SOE in France , 1966.
Jean Cathelin and Gabrielle Gray, Crimes and traffics of Gestapo Frenchwoman , 2 volumes, Historama, 1972. The case of Sonia is treated to the vol. 2, ch. XVIII In Memoriam. Sonia Olschanesky, dancer and agent of the SOE. Memories of his/her Serge brother.

Charles Wighton, Pine-Stripe Saboteur . This book is a biography, fictionalized and deformed, of Jacques Weil.

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