75 years on from the liberation of Bergen-Belsen this is in memory of one of its prisoners, Lille-born Yvonne Rudellat.

Yvonne was an agent of #SOE, the sabotage organization established on Winston Churchill’s orders when he became wartime prime minister.
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#BergenBelsen75

She was 45, a grandmother, and had been spotted by SOE French section head, Maurice Buckmaster, while she was working in a London hotel.

She landed by felucca – a wooden sailing boat - on France’s Riviera coast under moonlight on July 30, 1942.

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She collected forged papers from American agent, Virginia Hall, & then headed for the demarcation line between Vichy France & the Nazi-controlled north.

Deciding not to risk her false papers, she snuggled down into the coal bunker of a steam train and crossed safely.

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Between August 1942 and June 1943, she worked with resistance leader, Pierre Culioli, to organize parachute drops and sabotage operations.

She helped blow up electricity cables and two locomotives in the station at Le Mans.

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On June 21, 1943, she and Culioli were driving their Citroën toward Beaugency, where they were going to drop two new agents – a wireless operator and a courier, both Canadians – at the railway station.
About 20mins from their destination, they were stopped at a roadblock.
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Rudellat & Culiolo passed inspection but the soldier was suspicious of the Canadians’ papers, and ordered them to the town hall.

Rudellat and Culioli waited, their engine running. They knew any French official would know the men spoke French as Canadians not Frenchmen.

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After a few moments, a soldier came to order them to switch off the engine and walk to the town hall.

Instead, Culioli hit the accelerator and the Citroën leaped forward, careering down the road.

Three German cars set off in pursuit.

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After a chase through the countryside Culioli and Rudellat ran into another roadblock.

Bullets peppered the car, and Rudellat was hit in the head.

Believing his friend to be dead, Culiolo accelerated the car into a wall, hoping to kill himself as well.

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The car rebounded off the wall.

Culioli fired at the Germans but was shot in the leg and forced to give up.

Rudellat was treated at a civilian hospital, where it was decided it was safer to leave the bullet in her skull than to operate.

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The nuns nursing her managed to sedate her every time interrogators arrived to question her.

Eventually, though, the Germans saw through the ruse and Rudellat was transferred to prison in Paris.

The Gestapo was unable to get any information from her.

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Both Yvonne Rudellat and Pierre Culioli were sent to camps. Culioli survived Buchenwald.

Rudellat arrived at Ravensbrück toward the end of August 1944 and was later transferred to Belsen, where starvation, typhus, and dysentery condemned thousands to a terrible death.

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Already weak, Rudellat survived until liberation on April 15, 1945, but died a few weeks later.

After the war Vera Atkins, of SOE, tracked down a Polish prisoner who remembered Yvonne Rudellat.

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The woman told her:

“She arrived morally strong but became very ill and by April 10, she knew she was dying.

"I do hope she lived to know the camp was liberated so she rested quietly knowing her work had been of use and rewarded.”

#YvonneRudellat #BergenBelsen75

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