Yolande Beekman
Yolande Elsa Maria Beekman , née Unternährer (born October 28, 1911 in Paris , † September 13, 1944 in Dachau concentration camp ) was an agent of the British special operations executive (SOE).
biography
The daughter of the Swiss businessman Jakob Unternährer and his English wife, Beekman grew up in London . After several years at a London school, her parents sent her to a Swiss boarding school , where she a. a. Learned french.
In 1940 she volunteered for the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and acquired the rank of officer. On February 15, 1943, Beekman was recruited by the SOE for Section "F" because of her knowledge of French under the cover name "Mariette" to support the Resistance in occupied France . During her extensive training, u. a. as a radio operator , she met the Dutchman Jaap Beekman, sergeant of the Dutch troops in exile, and married him in August 1943.
On the night of September 18, 1943, Beekman jumped her parachute near Angers . In St. Quentin she was supposed to keep radio contact with London for Gustave Biéler, the head of the British agent ring "Musician". In mid-January 1944, she was discovered by a German radio detection vehicle, arrested and tortured. A few days later she was transferred to Paris and imprisoned in Fresnes Prison.
On May 12, 1944, a truck brought Beekman and seven other SOE agents held in Fresnes ( Andrée Borrel , Madeleine Damerment , Vera Leigh , Sonia Olschanezky , Eliane Plewman , Diana Rowden and Odette Sansom ) to the prison in Karlsruhe , where they were called "Protective prisoners" were held in solitary confinement.
On the night of September 12, Beekman, Madeleine Damerment and Eliane Plewman as well as Noor Inayat Khan, who had been brought in the day before, were deported to the Dachau concentration camp . On the morning of September 13 - according to official reports - the four women had to kneel down on the sandy floor near the crematorium and were killed one by one with shots in the neck . Their bodies were burned.
Awards
In France, Beekman was posthumously awarded the Croix de guerre and as one of 91 men and 13 women who died in the service of SOE for the freedom of France, she is honored at the SOE Memorial in Valençay in the Indre department. A plaque commemorates her in the crematorium of the Dachau concentration camp .
literature
- MRD Foot: SOE. The Special Operations Executive 1940-1946. London 1984.
- David Stafford: Secret Agent. The True Story of the Special Operations Executive. BBC Worldwide 2000, ISBN 0-563-53734-5 .
- Monika Siedentopf: Jump over enemy territory. Agents in World War II. dtv, 2006, ISBN 3-423-24582-4 .
- Marcus Binney: The Women who lived for Danger: The Agents of the Special Operations Executive. 2003.
- Sarah Helm: A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the lost Agents of SOE. 2006.
- Arne Molfenter, Rüdiger Strempel: Towards the Darkness: The true story of Vera Atkins and her courageous agents in World War II. Dumont, 2015, ISBN 978-3-8321-8887-0 .
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Beekman, Yolande |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Beekman, Yolande Elsa Maria (full name); Unterährer, Yolande (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French agent in the British intelligence service Special Operations Executive (SOE) |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 28, 1911 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Paris |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 13, 1944 |
| Place of death | Dachau concentration camp |