Jack Agazarian

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Jack Charles Stanmore Agazarian (born December 19, 1916 in London , † March 29, 1945 in the Flossenbürg concentration camp ) was a British agent of Armenian-French origin who worked in France for the Special Operations Executive (SOE). He was captured and killed by the National Socialists .

Life and activity as an agent

The son of an Armenian and a Frenchwoman attended school in both England and France . When World War II broke out, Agazarian joined the Royal Air Force . There he was recruited as a radio operator by the SOE .

In December 1942, Agazarian went to Paris to join the newly formed Prosper Network of the SOE. A short time later he met his wife Francine there. In Paris he occasionally worked for Henri Dericourt , a pilot in the French Air Force , whose job it was to arrange landing sites and meeting points for the SOE agents flying in from England and landing by parachute. After a while, Agazarian became suspicious and questioned Dericourt's loyalty. He reports his suspicions shared by other agents to London.

Meanwhile, the Gestapo got wind of Agazarian's activities and tried to arrest him by all means, with Agazarian barely escaping arrest several times . Meanwhile, SOE team leader Francis Suttill voiced his concerns about the risky, permanent Agazarian presence on enemy territory.

On June 16, 1943, Agazarian returned to England and tried in vain to convince his superiors Nicholas Bodington and Maurice Buckmaster of his suspicions against Dericourt. Still, when agent Noor Inayat Khan lost contact, headquarters were very concerned. Leo Marks , SOE's head for coding and ciphers, was convinced that Gilbert Norman , the group's radio operator, was already controlled by the Germans.

Agazarian and Bodington, who remained skeptical, then decided to put an end to the Prosper Network company. They left England on July 22, 1943 and came to France. Bodington arranged a meeting with Gilbert Norman from headquarters at a pre-arranged address on Rue de Rome near the Saint-Lazare train station in Paris. Although there was a danger that this meeting would be a trap, Agazarian suggested that this meeting be held instead of Bodington himself.

captivity

The fears about the Prosper network ultimately turned out to be true. The Nazis had actually infiltrated the network and Agazarian was captured at the meeting point. Three members of the network, the courier Andrée Borrel , the leader Francis Suttill and the radio operator Gilbert Norman had been in captivity since June 23, and Norman's radio messages were initiated by the Germans. Norman intended to inform the headquarters of his imprisonment by not disclosing the second part of the security check to the Germans, which they initially did not notice. However, when London gave Norman a short reply to correct the missing part, the Germans were quite frustrated. Norman was tortured and later sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp and executed there.

The arrest of Agazarian was a huge coup for the German side. After being subjected to the most brutal torture methods for six months in the Fresnes prison , the Center pénitentiaire de Fresnes , he was taken to Flossenbürg . There he spent the time in miserable conditions in solitary confinement until he was executed on March 29, 1945.

Henri Dericourt's role in the failure of Prosper Network remains unresolved. He was charged as a double agent after the war but acquitted for lack of evidence.

Honor

Jack Agazarian showed great bravery and devotion to his obligations all along, in spite of constant danger. He is honored for his services in World War II at the Runnymede Memorial in Surrey, England . In Valençay in the Indre department in France, the Valençay SOE memorial has been honoring the 50th anniversary of the dispatch of the first F-Section agents to France since May 6, 1991 .

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