Protest, Defiance and Resistance in the Channel Islands by Gilly Carr Paul Sanders Louise Willmot

Author:Gilly Carr, Paul Sanders, Louise Willmot [Gilly Carr, Paul Sanders, Louise Willmot]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, Modern, 20th Century, Military, World War II
ISBN: 9781472512963
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2014-06-19T04:00:00+00:00

Figure 7.1 Sketch made by Suzanne Malherbe in prison, showing the view through the cell keyhole. Copyright and courtesy Wendy Tipping

Despite their efforts to avoid discovery – Schwob did not register as Jewish and both women reverted to their birth names – their eventual capture was always likely once the Germans focused their attention on the leaflets and placards in St Brelade’s. On 25 July 1944, after they had been distributing leaflets in St Helier, their bus was stopped on the journey home and their bags were searched.52 According to Edward Le Quesne, a fellow-passenger, all the travellers were ‘cross-questioned’, but only those without identity cards were singled out for a police visit.53 It is not clear, therefore, whether Schwob and Malherbe had been targeted or caught in a random raid. Whatever the truth of it, that night the Feldpolizei searched their home and found a suitcase full of leaflets, a typewriter, a radio and a First World War revolver. They were defiant – ‘Too late: Germany has lost the war’54 – but Schwob and Malherbe expected to be tortured and had prepared accordingly. At St Helier’s Gloucester Street prison, they took poison that they had hidden in medicine bottles. Although they survived this and later suicide attempts, Schwob never fully recovered.55

Tried by a military tribunal in November 1944, the two were sentenced to death for inciting the troops through propaganda – deemed to be a ‘spiritual weapon’ more dangerous than a gun – and to six years’ penal servitude for illegal possession of a radio, arms and a camera.56 They took pride in their resistance, asking what their judges would have wanted their own womenfolk to do and refusing to appeal for clemency. As a result they faced the prospect of a firing-squad, although – especially with the war near its end – the military authorities had no wish to execute them.57 The threat of execution was lifted on 20 February 1945, following appeals by the French consul and by Alexander Coutanche, who argued that it would cause considerable distress in the island.58 Schwob and Malherbe were released on 8 May, the day before the Liberation, among the last of the political prisoners to be set free.59 Though anti-Nazi they were never anti-German, and had befriended several German soldiers who were imprisoned with them for desertion and other offences. Two of these men were executed in the days before the surrender, but Schwob and Malherbe subsequently made representations to British officers on behalf of another, an anti-Nazi named Kurt. At the same time, they acknowledged the decent treatment they had received at the hands of their guards.60

In prison their spirits had been sustained by their fellow political prisoners, mostly young locals who were serving sentences for spreading the BBC news, escape attempts or sabotage. These prisoners told Schwob and Malherbe the latest BBC news and, according to Malherbe, ‘did everything to keep our morale up’ with songs, jokes and gifts.61 Schwob, too, praised ‘their impulsive confidence in me, their marvellous gaiety’.

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