Maisie Renault
Maisie Renault (born December 13, 1907 in Vannes ; died April 7, 2003 there ) was a French resistance fighter during the German occupation of France in World War II .
Maisie Renault had eight siblings. Her mother Marie, b. Decker, was a granddaughter of the composer Théodore Decker . The father, a teacher of English and philosophy and later general inspector of an insurance company, died in 1925. After his death, the 17-year-old Maisie decided not to go to university in order to support her mother in caring for her siblings. She began training in accounting at the local branch of the Banque de France , where her eldest brother Gilbert was already working . She accompanied Gilbert to Gabon and on her return worked as an accountant for an agricultural cooperative .
In December 1940 she insisted on joining the Confrérie Notre-Dame (CND) resistance organization founded by Gilbert Renault the previous month against the German occupiers . The CFD was one of the most important communication networks of the Resistance and transmitted the information received to the Forces françaises libres (FFL) in Great Britain . Maisie Renault joined the CND headquarters in Paris in December 1941. She was entrusted with the secretariat of the organization and processed the messages for transmission to London .
On June 13, 1942, she and her sister Isabelle were arrested by the Gestapo at the same time as her sister Madeleine Cestari , who had also joined the resistance . Her brother Gilbert, who had been using the cover name (Colonel) Rémy since 1941, was able to escape and flee to England with documents important to the war effort.
She was initially held in La Santé Prison. There she heard the cries of the tortured and the farewells of the prisoners who were led to the shootings early in the morning . Many of the delinquents sang the Marseillaise before being interrupted by the bullets or guillotine . Renault did not give in to the interrogations and thus ensured the survival of the CND. She was transferred from La Santé to Fresnes , then in March 1943 to the Romainville transit camp and later to Compiègne , where she met the mother of the resistance fighter Germaine Tillion . From February 1944 she was imprisoned again in Romainville until she was deported to Germany on August 15 of that year . On August 21, she arrived at the Ravensbrück concentration camp - of the 550 women on this prisoner transport, only 17 survived the atrocities of being in the camp.
Maisie's sister Madeleine had also been taken to Ravensbrück. On February 13, 1945, the two were brought to the Rechlin test site and on April 13 back to Ravensbrück. There they were liberated by the Red Army on April 22, 1945 . The Red Cross brought the siblings to Sweden via Denmark before they could return to France after the end of the war in July 1945.
From August 1947, Maisie Renault wrote her experiences in the book La Grande Misère (The great misery) , which appeared in 1948 and was honored with the Grand prix Vérité . She was appointed commander of the Legion of Honor and was awarded the Croix de guerre and the Médaille de la Résistance.
Web links
- Les témoins - Renault Maisie at memoiresdesdeportations.org
- Au Pays de la Mort at resistances-morbihan.fr
Individual evidence
- ↑ Les témoins - Renault Maisie at memoiresdesdeportations.org, accessed on February 4, 2020
- ↑ a b c Au Pays de la Mort at resistances-morbihan.fr, accessed on February 4, 2020
- ↑ Madeleine Cestari at peoplepill.com, accessed February 4, 2020
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Renault, Maisie |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French resistance fighter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 13, 1907 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Vannes , Brittany |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 7, 2003 |
| Place of death | Vannes , Brittany |