Cecily Lefort

Cecily Margot Lefort, nee MacKenzie ( born April 30, 1900 in London, † in February 1945 in the Ravensbruck concentration camp ) was an agent of British intelligence special unit " Special Operations Executive " (SOE ).

Life

1925 MacKenzie married the French doctor Alex Lefort, with whom she lived in Paris. The enthusiastic sailors had a summer house on the Brittany coast west of Dinard, which she, as a hiding set 1940 friends and acquaintances who were persecuted by the Germans available after the German occupation of France in the summer. At the urging of her husband Lefort eventually taught himself to safety in England, where she volunteered for the Women's Auxiliary Air Force ( WAAF ) came forward and an officer rank earned. The end of 1942 Lefort was because of their good knowledge of French by SOE, Section F, under the code name "Alice" enlisted to support the Resistance in France. As a courier, they should work for the spy ring " Jockey " and its director, the Belgian Francis Cammaerts, in the area around Montelimar. On the night of June 17, 1943, she landed together with the SOE agents of Noor Inayat Khan and Diana Rowden with parachutes near Le Mans then traveled on alone in the south of France. But in September, she was arrested at a meeting with a Resistance member, but despite brutal mistreatment at the Paris headquarters of the Gestapo betrayed anyone. Finally, she was imprisoned in Fresnes prison in Paris. From there she was she was probably deported in January 1944 in the Ravensbruck concentration camp. A year later she was as a result of prison conditions so weakened that they "selected" and was moved into the kill zone of the so-called youth protection camp. She died after a short time in unexplained circumstances.

Honors

Posthumously honored UK Lefort as Royal Air Force officer on a plaque of the Runnymede Memorial in Surrey. From France, she was 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, they will be honored on the SOE Memorial in Valençay in the Indre.