Berty Albrecht

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Berty Albrecht , née Berthe Pauline Mariette Wild (born February 15, 1893 in Marseille ; † May 31, 1943 in the prison of Fresnes , Val-de-Marne department near Paris ) was a French resistance fighter . After the war she was buried in the crypt of the Mémorial de la France combattante on Mont Valérien .

Life

Berty (sometimes spelled Bertie or Berthie ) Albrecht came from a middle-class Protestant family who settled in Marseille. Their ancestors came from Switzerland . She studied in Marseille, then in Lausanne and received her nurse diploma in 1911. She then went to London , where she worked as a supervisor in a boarding school for young girls. At the beginning of the First World War , she returned to Marseille and worked for the Red Cross at several military hospitals.

In 1918 Berty married the Dutch banker Frédéric Albrecht in Rotterdam , with whom she had two children, Frédéric and Mireille. The family lived in the Netherlands and moved to London in 1924 . There Berty Albrecht got to know English feminists and campaigned for equality for women. She separated from her husband and went to Paris in 1931, where she met Victor Basch , professor at the Sorbonne and president of the League for the Defense of Human and Civil Rights. In 1933 she founded the feminist magazine Le Problème sexuel in a country where women had no right to vote , where there was almost no contraception and where abortion was severely punished . In 1937 Berty Albrecht trained at the school Surintendantes d'usine , whose director was Jane Sivadon. She then worked as a social worker in an optical equipment company.

Antifascism and Resistance

Berty Albrecht rejected National Socialism and in 1933 took in German refugees in her villa La Farigoulette in the Beauvallon district of Sainte-Maxime . There she met the later captain Henri Frenay , who at the time belonged to the nationalist right. He was heavily influenced by Berty and a deep relationship developed between the two.

In 1940 Berty Albrecht was manager of the Fulmen plants in Clichy and Vierzon . Berty Albrecht and Henri Frenay, disappointed in Philippe Pétain , founded "le Mouvement de Liberation Nationale" at the end of 1940, from which the Combat resistance group emerged . From December of the same year, Berty Albrecht took part with Henri Frenay in the publication and distribution of the twice-weekly underground magazine le Bulletin . Together they then published two more newspapers: Les Petites Ailes de France , which was then renamed Vérités , and Combat .
Thanks to their contacts with Berty Albrecht, Pierre de Froment and Robert Guédon were able to continue their resistance activities.
At the end of 1941, General Charles de Gaulle was recognized by Berty Albrecht and Henri Frenay as a symbol of the resistance. However, they criticized that they should submit to his authority.

Memorial plaque, 16 rue de l'Université, Paris 7

In 1941 Berty Albrecht worked at the Office for the Unemployed in the city of Lyon . As an official of the French state and a well-known activist before the war, she was monitored by the French police and also by the German authorities there. She set up a social service to help detained activists and their families. In 1942 Berty Albrecht was arrested by the domestic intelligence agency Surveillance du Territoire . She was able to escape and went underground. In November 1942, German troops also occupied the previously unoccupied southern zone of France, which was under the Vichy government , which worsened the situation of the Resistance. On May 28, 1943, Berty Albrecht was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo in Mâcon . She was imprisoned in Fort Montluc , which the Germans used as a prison. On May 31, 1943, Berty Albrecht was transferred to Fresnes Prison, where she committed suicide by hanging that same day . Her body was buried in the prison's vegetable garden, found there in May 1945 and reburied. She rests in grave number 5 of the Mémorial de la France combattante on Mont Valérien. You and Renée Lévy are the only women buried there.

Awards

See also

bibliography

  • Mireille Albrecht: Berty. R. Laffont, 1986, and Vivre au lieu d'exister, Ed. du Rocher, 2002
  • Dominique Missika: Berty Albrecht , Perrin, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-286-01291-1 .
  • Henri Frenay: La nuit finira , R. Laffont, 1973
  • Marie Granet and Henri Michel : "Combat". Histoire d'un mouvement de Résistance , Presses universitaires de France PUF, Paris 1957
  • Michèle Fabien: Claire Lacombe et Berty Albrecht, Actes Sud Papiers, Aix-en-Provence 1987

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Albrecht, Berty
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wild, Berthe Pauline Mariette (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH February 15, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Marseille
DATE OF DEATH May 31, 1943
Place of death Prison Fresnes