Odette Hallowes—Tortured and Starved in Ravensbrück—and Survived

This is one of those amazing stories of resilience and perseverance.

Odette Sansom , aka Odette Churchill and Odette Hallowes, code named Lise, was an agent for the United Kingdom’s clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) in France during World War 2.

She was born on 28 April 1912 in Amiens, France.

She met an Englishman, Roy Patrick Sansom in Boulogne and married him in Boulogne-sur-Mer on 27 October 1931,moving with him to Britain. The couple had three daughters: Françoise Edith, born 1932 in Boulogne; Lili M, born 1934 in Fulham; and Marianne O, born 1936 in Fulham. Mr. Sansom joined the army at the beginning of the Second World War, and Odette Sansom and the children moved to Somerset for their safety.

In the spring of 1942, the Admiralty appealed for postcards or family photographs taken on the French coastline for possible war use. Hearing the broadcast, Odette wrote that…