Denise Bloch
Denise Madeleine Bloch (; 21 January 1916 – 5 February 1945) was an agent working with the clandestine British Special Operations Executive (SOE) organization in the Second World War. Captured by the Germans, she was executed at Ravensbrück concentration camp. Early life Bloch was born to a Jewish family (Jacques Henri Bloch and Suzanne Levi-Strauss) in Paris, France in 1916. She had three brothers. Her father and two of her brothers were French soldiers taken prisoner by the German army in 1940. Her mother, her brother Jean-Claude, and Denise then lived a clandestine life avoiding persecution as Jews by using false papers and identities. In July 1942, the Bloch family was smuggled across the border from occupied France to unoccupied Vichy France. In Lyon Denise came into contact with Jean Aron, a Jewish engineer for Citroen who was working with the French Resistance and the SOE network led by Philippe de Vomécourt. Special Operations Executive Bloch was recruited in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ravensbrück Concentration Camp
Ravensbrück () was a German concentration camp exclusively for women from 1939 to 1945, located in northern Germany, north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück (part of Fürstenberg/Havel). The camp memorial's estimated figure of 132,000 women who were in the camp during the war includes about 48,500 from Poland, 28,000 from the Soviet Union, almost 24,000 from Germany and Austria, nearly 8,000 from France, and thousands from other countries including a few from the United Kingdom and the United States. More than 20,000 of the total were Jewish, approximately 15%. 85% were from other races and cultures. More than 80% were political prisoners. Many prisoners were employed as slave labor by Siemens & Halske. From 1942 to 1945, the Nazis undertook medical experiments to test the effectiveness of sulfonamides. In the spring of 1941, the SS established a small adjacent camp for male inmates, who built and managed the camp's gas chambers in 1944. Of some 130,000 fema ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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George Reginald Starr
George Reginald Starr (6 April 1904 – 2 September 1980), code name Hilaire, was a British mining engineer and an agent of the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) organisation in World War II. He was the organiser (leader) of the Wheelwright network in southwestern France from November 1942 until the liberation of France from Nazi German occupation in September 1944. The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe against the Axis powers. SOE agents in France allied themselves with French Resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England. Starr's accomplishments include building up a large network of resistance groups, carrying out a number of sabotage operations in the months leading up to the Normandy invasion on 6 June 1944, rescuing from imprisonment about 50 important resistance leaders and allied airmen shot down over France, and participation as a leade ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lilian Rolfe
Lilian Vera Rolfe, (26 April 1914 – 5 February 1945) was an Allied secret agent in the Second World War. Early life Rolfe and her twin sister Helen Fedora Rolfe were the daughters of George Rolfe, a British chartered accountant working in Paris. Although she grew up in Paris, she and her sister came to England for summer school to learn English when they were about 7 and then again when they were 11, as they spoke French at home. When she was 17 Rolfe came down with rheumatic fever while visiting an English family. In 1930, the family moved to Brazil for "professional reasons" and Lilian and Helen "finished school" there. She worked for the Canadian Embassy but when the war started she changed to the British Embassy. She completed courses in first aid and Morse code. Second World War At the onset of the Second World War, Rolfe worked at the British Embassy in Rio de Janeiro before going to London, England in 1943 to join the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. Because of her fluency ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Crematorium
A crematorium or crematory is a venue for the cremation of the dead. Modern crematoria contain at least one cremator (also known as a crematory, retort or cremation chamber), a purpose-built furnace. In some countries a crematorium can also be a venue for open-air cremation. In many countries, crematoria contain facilities for funeral ceremonies, such as a chapel. Some crematoria also incorporate a columbarium, a place for interring cremation ashes. Ceremonial facilities While a crematorium can be any place containing a cremator, modern crematoria are designed to serve a number of purposes. As well as being a place for the practical but dignified disposal of dead bodies, they must also serve the emotional and spiritual needs of the mourners. The design of a crematorium is often heavily influenced by the funeral customs of its country. For example, crematoria in the United Kingdom are designed with a separation between the funeral and cremation facilities, as it is not ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chojna
Chojna (german: Königsberg in der Neumark; csb, Czińsbarg; la, Regiomontanus Neomarchicus "King's Mountain in the New March") is a small town in northwestern Poland in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship. It lies approximately south of Szczecin. As of December 2021, the town has a population of 7,330. Chojna is located near two border crossings (Hohenwutzen and Schwedt) on the Oder River with Germany. It participates in the EU Douzelage town twinning initiative. History High Middle Ages From the 10th-12th centuries an early Pomeranian fortification, probably with a market, developed at the location of present-day Chojna. It became part of the emerging Polish state in the 10th century under its first historic ruler Mieszko I of Poland. Because of its favorable location on trading routes leading to the principalities of Greater Poland and the duchies of Pomerania, the settlement developed quickly. Duke Bogusław I of Pomerania was entombed in the settlement's ch ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Torgau
Torgau () is a town on the banks of the Elbe in northwestern Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district Nordsachsen. Outside Germany, the town is best known as where on 25 April 1945, the United States and Soviet Armies forces first met near the end of the World War II. History The settlement goes back to a Slavonic settlement named Turguo in the shire of Neletici. There was presumably a wooden Slavonic castle located on the site of the present-day Hartenfels castle. In the 10th century it fell under the rule of the Holy Roman Emperors, and a stone castle was built, around which the settlement congregated. A market is attested in 1119. The town was located on the important trade-road, the via regia Lusatiae inferioris, between Leipzig and Frankfurt an der Oder that crossed the river Elbe at a ford east of Torgau. Torgau belonged to the duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg, which in 1356 was raised to be the Electorate of Saxony. After the last Ascanian duke died withou ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sicherheitsdienst
' (, ''Security Service''), full title ' (Security Service of the '' Reichsführer-SS''), or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Established in 1931, the SD was the first Nazi intelligence organization and the Gestapo (formed in 1933) was considered its sister organization through the integration of SS members and operational procedures. The SD was administered as an independent SS office between 1933 and 1939. That year, the SD was transferred over to the Reich Security Main Office (''Reichssicherheitshauptamt''; RSHA), as one of its seven departments. Its first director, Reinhard Heydrich, intended for the SD to bring every single individual within the Third Reich's reach under "continuous supervision". Following Germany's defeat in World War II, the tribunal at the Nuremberg trials officially declared that the SD was a criminal organisation, along with the rest of Heydrich's RSHA (including the Gestapo) both individually and as br ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jean-Pierre Wimille
Jean-Pierre Wimille (26 February 1908 – 28 January 1949) was a Grand Prix motor racing driver and a member of the French Resistance during World War II. Biography Born in Paris, France to a father who loved motor sports and was employed as the motoring correspondent for the Petit Parisien newspaper, Jean-Pierre Wimille developed a fascination with racing cars at a young age. He was 22 years old when he made his Grand Prix debut, driving a Bugatti 37A at the 1930 French Grand Prix in Pau. Career Driving a Bugatti T51, in 1932 he won the La Turbie hill climb, the Grand Prix de Lorraine and the Grand Prix d'Oran. In 1934 he was the victor at the Algerian Grand Prix in Algiers driving a Bugatti T59 and in January 1936 he finished second in the South African Grand Prix held at the Prince George Circuit in East London, South Africa then won the French Grand Prix in his home country. Still in France, that same year he won the Deauville Grand Prix, a race held on the city's st ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nantes
Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabitants (2018). With Saint-Nazaire, a seaport on the Loire estuary, Nantes forms one of the main north-western French metropolitan agglomerations. It is the administrative seat of the Loire-Atlantique department and the Pays de la Loire region, one of 18 regions of France. Nantes belongs historically and culturally to Brittany, a former duchy and province, and its omission from the modern administrative region of Brittany is controversial. Nantes was identified during classical antiquity as a port on the Loire. It was the seat of a bishopric at the end of the Roman era before it was conquered by the Bretons in 851. Although Nantes was the primary residence of the 15th-century dukes of Brittany, Rennes became the provincial capital aft ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Robert Benoist
Robert Marcel Charles Benoist (20 March 1895 – 14 September 1944) was a French Grand Prix motor racing driver and war hero. Early life Born near Rambouillet, Île-de-France, France, Robert Benoist was the son of Baron Henri de Rothschild's gamekeeper. As a young man, Benoist served during World War I in the French infantry, then as a fighter pilot in the new ''Armée de l'Air'' and ultimately as a flying instructor. Grand Prix driver Looking for excitement in the post-war world, Benoist joined the '' de Marçay'' car company as a test driver. He then moved on to Salmson and was very successful in cyclecar races before being signed to drive for Delage in 1924. The next year, teamed with Albert Divo, he won the French Grand Prix in the race that claimed the life of Italian racing star Antonio Ascari. In 1927, driving a Delage 15-S-8, he won the French, Spanish, Italian and British Grand Prix races, earning the season championship title for the French manufacturer. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gibraltar
) , anthem = " God Save the King" , song = " Gibraltar Anthem" , image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg , map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe , map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green , mapsize = , image_map2 = Gibraltar map-en-edit2.svg , map_alt2 = Map of Gibraltar , map_caption2 = Map of Gibraltar , mapsize2 = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = , established_title = British capture , established_date = 4 August 1704 , established_title2 = , established_date2 = 11 April 1713 , established_title3 = National Day , established_date3 = 10 September 1967 , established_title4 = Accession to EEC , established_date4 = 1 January 1973 , established_title5 = Withdrawal from the EU , established_date5 = 31 January 2020 , official_languages = English , languages_type = Spoken languages , languages = , capital = Westside, Gibraltar (de facto) , coordinates = , largest_settlement_type = largest district , larg ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pyrenees
The Pyrenees (; es, Pirineos ; french: Pyrénées ; ca, Pirineu ; eu, Pirinioak ; oc, Pirenèus ; an, Pirineus) is a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. It extends nearly from its union with the Cantabrian Mountains to Cap de Creus on the Mediterranean coast. It reaches a maximum altitude of at the peak of Aneto. For the most part, the main crest forms a divide between Spain and France, with the microstate of Andorra sandwiched in between. Historically, the Crown of Aragon and the Kingdom of Navarre extended on both sides of the mountain range. Etymology In Greek mythology, Pyrene is a princess who gave her name to the Pyrenees. The Greek historian Herodotus says Pyrene is the name of a town in Celtic Europe. According to Silius Italicus, she was the virgin daughter of Bebryx, a king in Mediterranean Gaul by whom the hero Hercules was given hospitality during his quest to steal the cattle of Geryon during his famous Labours. Hercules, chara ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |