-
Suzanne Spaak was born on July 6, 1905 in Brussels Belgium. Her mother was a successful Belgian banker and her sister-in-law was a Belgian foreign minister. Because of this, she was accustomed to upscale life. Her husband Claude was successful dramatist/filmmaker.
-
Suzanne and Claude were so rich, they lived in the same building with famous French novelist Colette. Colette was later given the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Her best work was the novel called Gigi.
-
September 3, 1939 - Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declare war on Germany. September 4, 1939 - British Royal Air Force attacks the German Navy. September 5, 1939 - United States proclaims its neutrality; German troops cross the Vistula River in Poland.
-
World War II broke out and and the Nazis soon occupied France. Her world was shattered. She was not Jewish herself but, she felt sorry for all the Jews that were going to be shipped out of their homes and into dreadful camps. She decided to do something about it.
-
Suzanne routinely acted as a courier, concealing in her bodice or girdle a delivery of identity documents or leaflets warning Jews of the next Nazi round-up. Her upper-crust position apparently also deflected doubts as she employed Jewish refugees as “servants” on their way to finding safe passage out of Europe.
-
She contributed her own money to the cause and called upon her wealthy acquaintances for additional funding. She herself provided temporary shelter to Jewish children en route to their new homes. Using her own money did not affect her at all because she was rich.
-
As a catholic, Suzanne would take a train to a small town, and while taking confession at the local church, would matter-of-factly ask the priest if he knew families that might take in endangered children. Sixty-three Jewish children whose parents had already been deported or disappeared were rescued from the barely survivable orphanages where they were being kept in advance of their own transport to Nazi death camps.
-
The Nazis swarmed into Poland. The German's extensively bombing early on to destroy the enemy’s air capacity, railroads, communication lines, and munitions dumps, followed by a massive land invasion with overwhelming numbers of troops, tanks, and artillery. Once the German forces had plowed their way through, devastating a swath of territory, infantry moved in, picking off any remaining resistance. This prompted the war to happen.
-
Nazi Germany begins the London blitzkrieg, also known as the Blitz, in September during World War II. German bombers would attack London, England for 57 consecutive days with consistent bombings during the day and night.
-
Suzanne Joined the French Resistance movement, but when she volunteered to work with the underground National Movement against Racism, she was greeted with doubt by the other members.They wondered how this rich woman was going to survive the dangerous conditions of their organization. At first they just gave her easy simple tasks. She asked for greater challenges though. Mr. Aronson, a fellow member, realized he misjudged her. After that, she started getting bigger assignments.
-
Suzanne walked from hospital to hospital, door to door asking for help. She asked the hospitals to help Jews in hiding who needed urgent medical treatment. Using her influence with the Upper class of the Parisian society, she knocked doors of lawyers, educators, judges, clerics, movie stars, and writers asking for their support.
-
The Red Orchestra group is a Soviet-sponsored organization founded by Leopold Trepper, a Jewish communist from Poland. This group effectively intelligized gatherings in Germany, France, Holland, and in Switzerland. This network became so successful that the Nazis organized the Red Orchestra Special Detachment group to eliminate them.
-
As a loving mother of 2 children, Suzanne felt so overwhelmed by the danger facing the Jewish children it affected her personal life. Working fast to save save the lives of Jewish youngsters about to be sent to the German death camps, she actively participated in a daring operation created by Pastor Paul Vergara and Marcelle Guillemot. They managed to smuggle to safety more than 60 Jewish children, ranging in age from 3 to 18.
-
The Nazis started making their first arrests of the agents. Captured members were so brutally tortured that several divulged names and network secrets. As a result, during the next 18 months, more than 600 people were arrested.
-
Aware of the impending danger, Suzanne, who had already risked her life to save other people’s children, knew it was time for her children to be saved. Her kids were Lucie aged 16 and Louis, 12. There nicknames were Pilette and Bazou. In October 1943, she managed to flee with them to the safety of her sister's home in Belgium.
-
A few days after fleeing to her sister’s home, she was arrested. She’d had the presence of mind to give the lists of Jewish children and their addresses to an underground comrade, saving their lives. Imprisoned for nine horrifying months, she was subjected to torture and sentenced to death by a German military court.
-
The prison, known as Fresnes Prison, housed captured British Special Operations Executive agents and members of the Resistance. When Allied forces neared Paris in the summer of 1944, Gestapo guards reduced the prison population by execution, and then relocated surviving prisoners to various concentration camps east of France.
-
Suzanne Spaak was shot to death in the prison, only 13 days before Paris was liberated by the Allies. All the Jewish children she rescued managed to survive the war. Unlike many Righteous Gentiles who risked their lives to save Jews, Suzanne did not live to a ripe old age, enjoying her grandchildren and seeing the generations she had saved. Only 39 at the time of her death, this heroic woman had written on the wall of her cell: “Alone with my thoughts, there is still freedom.”
-
For months, 5 women were smuggling in gunpowder to try and blow up the gas chambers. The would hide it in there clothes and then take it to there rooms. The SS heard about it and killed the 5 women. Suzanne would have been proud of these women for what they were trying to do.
-
World War 2 ended with the unconditional surrender of the Axis powers. On 8 May 1945, the Allies accepted Germany's surrender, about a week after Adolf Hitler had committed suicide.
