She turned down offers of office work and continued to be sidelined from the kind of dangerous and difficult work she desired. [40], Her assailant was Dennis George Muldowney, the obsessed man who had worked with Skarbek as a steward and was at the time of her murder a Reform Club porter. The microfilm was sent to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, in London, who could scarcely believe it; but by March, with information from other sources, the Prime Minister was persuaded that Skarbek and Kowerski's intelligence was accurate. The Spy Who Loved is the story of Christine Glanville born Maria Krystyna Janina Skarbek, reputedly Churchill's favourite spy from WW2; she was also sometimes dubbed Britain's most beautiful spy, possibly as she had once taken part in a 1930 Polish beauty contest. She introduced herself as Cammaerts' wife and a niece of British General Bernard Montgomery and threatened Schenck with terrible retribution if harm came to the prisoners. Though most of the women in France answered to F Section in London, Skarbek's mission was launched from Algiers, the base of AMF Section. On the 2nd. [61] The job of Cammaerts and his team was to organize the French resistance fighters, the maquis, in southeastern France to weaken the German occupiers prior to the Allied invasion of southern France, Operation Dragoon, which would take place on 15 August. [50] (The couple were formally divorced at the Polish consulate in Berlin on 1 August 1946. She got into the automobile without a nod of recognition and they thought that she too was a prisoner. He responded in kind, confirming that he was within. [36] The prison had been designed in the mid-19th century by Skarbek's great-great-uncle Fryderyk Skarbek, a prison reformer and Frédéric Chopin's godfather, who had been tutored in French language by Chopin's father. [33][34], She persuaded Polish Olympic skier Jan Marusarz, brother of Nordic skier Stanisław Marusarz, to escort her across the snow-covered Tatra Mountains into Nazi-occupied Poland. Sofia's best hotel "was full of Nazis". Above all, she loved freedom and independence: for herself, for Poland, and for all the Allies in the face of the Nazi advance. No respecter of rank, Skarbek was furious and had to be calmed down by an aide to the general. Kowerski/Kennedy died of cancer in Munich, Germany in December 1988. November 1938, at the Evangelical Reform Church in Warsaw, she married Jerzy Gizycki. Encouraged by a speech from the head of the provisional government, Charles de Gaulle, (but discouraged by Cammaerts who opposed large-scale guerrilla operations and pleaded unsuccessfully for artillery and anti-tank weapons for the maquis), a full-scale rebellion against the German occupiers broke out. C. Mulley, In January 1941, when Britain's ambassador to, Horne, Alistair (2012), "Bravest of the Brave,", Garmen, Emma, "World War II's Most Glamorous Spy,". [35] Stefania Skarbek refused; she was determined to stay in Warsaw to continue teaching French to small children. Cammaerts and Skarbek helped her return to her home. [47], There were also specific suspicions about Kowerski. Krystyna Skarbek was in a relationship with Andrzej Kowerski. [37], An incident that probably dates to Skarbek's first visit back to Poland in February 1940 illustrates the hazards she faced while working in her occupied homeland. Maria Krystyna Janina Skarbek, OBE, GM (Polish pronunciation: [krɨˈstɨna ˈskarbɛk]; 1 May 1908[4][5][6] – 15 June 1952), also known as Christine Granville,[7] was a Polish agent of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War. She also had been given the task of attempting to subvert the Polish conscripts in the German army who were stationed along the Franco-Italian border. There were not many women working as spies in the war, and she was the bravest. Her body was identified by her cousin, Andrzej Skarbek. Her body was identified by her cousin, Andrzej Skarbek. The rebellion was premature and quickly crushed by German troops. [79], French recognition of Skarbek's contribution to the liberation of France came with the award of the Croix de Guerre.[80]. When Skarbek's husband, Jerzy Giżycki, was informed that Skarbek and Kowerski's services were being dispensed with, he took umbrage and abruptly bowed out of his own career as a British intelligence agent. She loved action and adrenaline, and she loved men – she had two husbands and many lovers during the perilous war years. Skarbek had promised Waem he would not be arrested by the British, and battled with SOE leaders with some success to protect him. [53] Both she and Kowerski continued to be under suspicion by the British and resented by the Polish government-in-exile because they worked for Britain. The Spy Who Loved is the story of Christine Glanville born Maria Krystyna Janina Skarbek, reputedly Churchill's favourite spy from WW2; she was also sometimes dubbed Britain's most beautiful spy, possibly as she had once taken part in a 1930 Polish beauty contest. They proved incompatible, and the marriage soon ended without rancour. The SOE officer who recruited her, Patrick Howarth, would later say jokingly that "the most useful thing I did in World War II was to reinstate Christine Granville." Charismatic and extremely talented, Krystyna might have been […] Above all, she loved freedom and independence: for herself, forPoland, and for all the Allies in the face of the Nazi advance. O'Malley issued British passports to them. Captured stocks of the rifle were, however, used by the Germans and the Italians. She was born Maria Janina Krystyna Skarbek in Warsaw in 1908, the second child of Count Jerzy Skarbek and Jewish mother, Stefania Goldfeder. After being convicted of her murder, Muldowney was hanged at HMP Pentonville on 30 September 1952. (There was one exception: The EU/P Section, which was formed by Poles in France and remained part of the trans-European Polish Resistance movement, under Polish command. Krystyna Skarbek spent the war intimidating Nazi's and threatening soldiers, but when it came to a jealous lover, she was no match. A British Embassy driver smuggled Skarbek out of Hungary and into Yugoslavia in the trunk of O'Malley's Chrysler. [22], At the family stables Krystyna met Andrzej Kowerski, whose father had brought him over to play with ten-year-old Krystyna while he and her father discussed agricultural matters. [40], In May 2017, a bronze bust, by Ian Wolter, was unveiled at the Polish Hearth Club (Ognisko Polskie) in Kensington, London. We heard that you'd gone abroad!" On her return, she transferred to the WAAF as a flight officer until the end of the war in Europe: 21 November 1944 to 14 May 1945. Maria Krystyna Janina Skarbek, OBE, GM, Croix de guerre (Polish pronunciation: [krɨˈstɨna ˈskarbɛk]; 1 May 1908 – 15 June 1952), also known as Christine Granville, was a Polish agent of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War. Skarbek's cover story for her presence in Hungary was that she was a journalist. [94], In 1999, Polish writer Maria Nurowska published a novel, Miłośnica (The Lover) – an account of a fictional female journalist's attempt to probe Skarbek's story.[95]. Skarbek spoke Polish, French, and English, and had excellent contacts in Warsaw and around the country. She met him in Schenck's apartment at four in the afternoon. Skarbek was 44 years old when she died, on June 15, 1952. On 22 July and under fire, Cammaerts and Skarbek escaped from the plateau, setting up a new base at Seyne-les-Alpes. [66] Skarbek managed to meet with Captain Albert Schenck, an Alsatian who acted as liaison officer between the local French prefecture and the Gestapo. As with another legendary British intelligence agent of an earlier world war. [39], At the request of MI6, she and Kowerski organised surveillance of all the rail, road and river traffic on the borders with Romania and Germany. Most SIS officers and agents were recruited through the ‘old boys’ network’, and Skarbek was neither British nor male. The couple gave Crawley rolls of microfilm which they had received from a Polish intelligence organisation called the "Musketeers". After the woman left, Skarbek, to minimise suspicion, tarried a while before leaving the café. Kowerski became "Anthony Kennedy", and Skarbek became "Christine Granville", a name she used for the rest of her life. One report from the official British files simply states that she showed ‘great presence of mind’ and secured the release of both herself and the Polish officer with whom she had been arrested. As the Red Army advanced across Poland, the British government and Polish government-in-exile worked together to leave a network in place that would report on events in the People's Republic of Poland. Kennedy, drove his Opel across the border. ... this time disguised as an old peasant woman with gray hair. They then entered Mandatory Palestine and proceeded onward to Cairo, Egypt, arriving in May 1941. Repeatedly biting her tongue, she appeared to cough up blood, a well-known symptom of tuberculosis. [62], Vercors Plateau. [28] Soon after he accepted a diplomatic posting to Ethiopia, where he served as Poland's consul general until September 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. [49] Kowerski, who was under less suspicion than Skarbek, eventually cleared up any misunderstandings with General Kopański and was able to resume intelligence work. She was also the longest-serving. Skarbek soon returned to the mountains, alone again, to secure the defection of an entire Nazi-German garrison on a strategic pass. [29] Skarbek later said of Giżycki: "He was my Svengali for so many years that he would never believe that I could ever leave him for good. Anglo-Polish Spy. [73], The women of SOE were all given military rank, with honorary commissions in either the Women's Transport Service, the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY), officially part of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) though a very elite and autonomous part, or the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). She later worked on an ocean liner and was murdered by fellow steward Dennis Muldowney while on shore leave in an Earl’s Court hotel. She was preparing to be dropped behind enemy lines in France in the summer of 1944. He eventually became an author and travelled the world in search of material for his books and articles. [72], When the SOE teams returned from France (or in some cases, were given 24 hours to depart by de Gaulle) in autumn 1944, some of the British women sought new missions in the Pacific War, where the war with the Empire of Japan continued; but Skarbek, as a Pole, was ideally placed to serve as a courier for missions to her homeland. Her briefing officer in FANY, Gwendolin Lees, was so impressed by Skarbek (now more commonly known as Granville) that she later named a daughter after her. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); © 2021 Current Publishing. There seemed to be no limit to her courage and ability. Krystyna Skarbek (aka Christine Granville) died 67 years ago, on June 15th 1952. [51] It is now known that advance information about Operation Barbarossa had also been provided by a number of other sources, including Ultra. She became celebrated especially for her daring exploits in intelligence and irregular-warfare missions in Nazi-occupied Poland and France. She did so by meeting (at great personal risk) with the Gestapo commander in Digne-les-Bains, France, telling him she was a British agent, and persuading him with threats, lies, and a two million franc bribe to release the SOE agents. The daughter of a Polish aristocrat and Jewish banking heiress, and a pre-war Polish beauty queen, Skarbek was not an obvious prospect for the British Secret Intelligence Services. Despite her problems with the Poles during the war, in 1945 when Skarbek visited Polish military headquarters in her British WAAF uniform, she was treated by the Polish military chiefs with the highest respect. Among the information that Skarbek smuggled across borders was the first film evidence of Nazi-German preparations for Operation Barbarossa, the planned invasion of their erstwhile ally, the Soviet Union. She feigned symptoms of pulmonary tuberculosis by biting her tongue until it bled and a doctor diagnosed her (incorrectly) with terminal tuberculosis. According to Larecki, her true birthplace was the home of her Goldfeder grandparents at ulica Zielna 45 in Warsaw. She reinforced the threat with a mercenary appeal – an offer of two million francs for the men's release. [87], In 1971, the Shelbourne Hotel was bought by a Polish group; in a storeroom, they found her trunk, containing her clothes, papers, and SOE issue dagger. On the given signal, the conscripted Poles at the garrison deserted, first rendering the heavy weapons useless by removing the breech-block firing pins, and then bringing as many mortars and machine-guns with them as they could carry. Her mother Stefania Goldfeder was the daughter of a Jewish banker. When she died in 2002 (at age 94), she was buried with honors at Arlington Cemetery. In September Skarbek took a military flight to London. The event is fictionalized in the last episode of the British television show Wish Me Luck. On 17 August she was back in Schenck's office, money in hand. She studied coding (including Morse), wireless transmission, parachuting, weapons and explosives, and – the subject in which she excelled – silent killing. [67], Skarbek informed SOE in London and two million francs were air-dropped to her. Several hundred Poles, conscripted soldiers in the German army, were among the captured Germans. [75][76] Several years after the Digne incident, in London, she told another Pole and fellow World War II veteran that, during her negotiations with the Gestapo, she had been unaware of any danger to herself. [10] Her resourcefulness and success have been credited with influencing the organisation's decision to recruit more women as agents in Nazi-occupied countries. [24] In 1930, when Krystyna was 22, Count Jerzy died. Leaving the American army behind, the two proceeded to Gap where the maquis had captured the German garrison. The microfilm contained photos of a German military buildup near the border with the Soviet Union, indicating that a German invasion of the Soviet Union was being planned. In Istanbul, the couple met with exiled Poles and Skarbek tried to ensure that the courier routes from Istanbul to Poland remained functional. Countess Krystyna Skarbek (aka Christine Granville) arguably influenced the Second World War in Britain’s favour more than any other woman – as such she was later regarded as Churchill’s Favourite Spy. Short Biography. [59], With the two invasions in Normandy and southern France in summer 1944, these distinctions became irrelevant, and almost all the SOE Sections in France were united with the Maquis into the Forces Francaises de l'Interieur (FFI). Increasingly alarmed by the thought of what might befall him when the Allies and the Resistance decided to avenge the many murders he had committed, Waem struck the butt end of his revolver on the table and said, 'If I do get them out of prison, what will you do to protect me? [65], In Digne on 15 August, Skarbek circled the walls of the prison humming "Frankie and Johnny", a favourite tune of hers and Cammaerts. The Allied invasion of southern France had occurred on 15 August, and Allied soldiers were 60 kilometres (37 mi) distant and advancing rapidly toward Digne, a fact that was apparent to the Germans and their French collaborators. Languages. She became part of the Jockey network headed by Francis Cammaerts, Belgian-British in nationality and a former pacifist. Krystyna Skarbek Krystyna Skarbek (1 May 1915 – 15 June 1952) was a Polish Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent who became a legend in her own time for her daring exploits in intelligence and sabotage missions to Nazi-occupied Poland and France. When her death was recorded at the Royal Borough of Kensington’s register office, her age was given as 37; over the course of her life she lost seven years. It was when working as a spy that she adopted the code name of Christine Granville. Only after she and her comrades had made good their escape did it hit home: "What have I done! However, the mission, called Operation Freston, was cancelled because the first party to enter Poland were captured by the Red Army (they were released in February 1945). In June 1941, Peter Wilkinson of SOE came to Cairo and officially dismissed Skarbek and Kowerski, although keeping them on the SOE payroll with a small retainer that forced them to live in near poverty. [56], SOE's original plan to parachute Skarbek into Hungary was cancelled because the mission was deemed "little short of homicide." [55] Despite Skarbek's experience in clandestine work, she was given SOE training for prospective agents. She had begun work as steward some six weeks earlier with the Union-Castle Line and had booked into the hotel on 14 June, having returned from a working voyage out of Durban, South Africa, on Winchester Castle. Author Madeleine Masson said that 'twelve men who all loved Christine...banded together to make sure that no-one wrote rubbish about her," the "rubbish" apparently being stories of her active and diverse sex life. "[93], As her life became so wildly reported, Kowerski/Kennedy asked their mutual friend, W. Stanley Moss, to write something definitive; a series of four illustrated articles by Moss were published in Picture Post in 1952. This dagger, her medals, and some of her papers are now held in the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum at 20 Prince's Gate, Kensington, London. Maria Krystyna Janina Skarbek was born in Warsaw in 1908, the second child of Count Jerzy Skarbek and Stephania Goldfeder, the daughter of a wealthy Jewish banker. Cammaerts and Skarbek met the American commander, Brigadier General Frederic B. Butler, at Sisteron on 20 August. She became celebrated especially for her daring exploits in intelligence and irregular-warfare missions in Nazi-occupied Poland and France. But the naturalization papers […] were delayed in the normal bureaucratic manner. She was the first female agent of the British to serve in the field and the longest-serving of all Britain's wartime women agents. Skarbek was sent to France to serve as courier for Special Operations Executive agent Francis Cammaerts, coordinating supplies and training, and providing international and local communications for the French Resistance in the run-up to D-Day in the south of France. Among other achievements, she established the first communications between units of the French Resistance and the Italian partisans, on opposite sides of the Alps. Live Statistics. The couple's next destinations in the Opel were Syria and Lebanon, which were under the control of Vichy France. After a two-day hike to the Col de Larche, a prominent mountain pass on the Franco-Italian border, she approached a formidable fortress, manned by 150 soldiers, at the head of the pass.
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