The Book
Young, Brave and Beautiful: The Missions of Special Operations Executive Agent Lieutenant Violette Szabô, George Cross, Croix de Guerre avec Étoile de Bronze, Tania Szabó, The History Press. 2015.
Background
I have had this book on my shelf for several years (eight in fact). I bought it in 2016 on the recommendation of a friend and fellow author. But buying a book doesn’t always mean I read it right away! Given my recent interest in the Margaret (née Payne) Spencer case, which brushes up against covert operations in occupied France, it seemed like a good time to read Violette’s story.
Summary
The book is written by Tania Szabó, Violette’s daughter, who was only two years old when her mother was captured by the Nazis in France. The copy I have is a second edition, and Tania notes that she made significant modifications for this edition.
Tania has written a very thorough and well-researched account of her mother’s covert adventures as a Special Operations Executive agent. Violette’s first mission was to Rouen in April 1944, to investigate the collapse of the Salesman circuit. Her second mission was in the Sussac area, in June 1944, where she and her team organized various Maquis resistance groups to slow the advance of German panzer regiments racing to counter the Allies D-Day invasion in Normandy.
Review
The book provides a lot of information on various SOE agents, circuits and Maquis groups, all of which I found a bit overwhelming. Although there was a Dramatis Persone section which named key personnel, there were so many names and code names that it was quite difficult to keep track of who was who and what was what.
The book begins with Violette’s first mission in Rouen, and we don’t really learn much about what her early life looked like until much later in the book. Even then, I never really got a strong sense of what Violette’s SOE training looked like, nor what drove her to leave her two year old daughter behind. We learn that her French Legionnaire husband was killed near El Alamein in 1942, and this loss seems to be the driving force behind Violette’s desire to “do her part”. It just doesn’t fully explain her motivations, and perhaps we will never really know.
I did get a good sense of what made a good SOE agent. In Violette’s case, she had a French mother and an English father. She had spent much of her childhood in France, and returned often in her later teens. She spoke French like a native, albeit with a northern accent. She knew French culture and life, and still had relatives in northern France. Violette was also athletic and smart. In other words, she was prime SOE material.
On the whole, the book was informative and gave me a good sense of what an SOE agent would have experienced in the field. I found the first half of the book, on her Rouen mission, quite well-organized. The second part of the book, on her Sussac mission, seemed more disjointed to me. The chapters did not always flow into each other and it appeared as if entire sections had been dropped in without any real attempt to create smooth transitions. This was particularly true of the last portion of the book, after Violette had been captured. Perhaps Tania had received more information or personal accounts that she wanted to include. Unfortunately, these didn’t always mesh well with the existing structure of the book.
On a formatting note, I did appreciate the footnotes at the bottom of the pages. As Tania noted, these are so much more helpful to the reader than endnotes at the end of a chapter or the end of a book. The book would have benefitted from having some maps of the Rouen and Sussac areas to help orient the reader. A list of abbreviations would also have been helpful. The book was indexed which, surprisingly, can be a rare thing in historical non-fiction nowadays, but, to my mind, is absolutely necessary.
The book was written in the style of creative non-fiction, as if the author was there as a third party, observing Violette and reporting on her conversations and actions. I am torn as to the benefit of this. It certainly does make the book more readable, but it also leaves the reader wondering how much is historically accurate, and what is creative reconstruction. That is simply my preference and I do understand why Tania chose to write it the way she did. On the other hand, this style of writing does not provide the reader with any citations to the historical sources for various events, conversations, etc. If the reader wants to look up the primary source documents themselves, they are out of luck. There are no citations in the footnotes, simply explanatory comments.
Finally, there are several points where conversations, or statements are presented in French, without an English translation. While some basic French words might be easily understood by an Anglophone (e.g. Bonjour, Au revoir, Mon Dieu), the average reader is often left wondering what was said and is forced to pull out Google Translate.
Violette’s story is unbearably tragic and her execution at Ravensbrück concentration camp a crime. Her bravery and indomitable spirit deserve to be honoured and extolled.
Rating
4 out of 5 – A very thorough and well-researched book written as creative non-fiction, but lacking cohesion. One does feel that one knows Violette by the end of the book.