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Oral history interview with Odette Hallowes

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1995.A.1285.16 | RG Number: RG-50.149.0016

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    Oral history interview with Odette Hallowes

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Odette Hallowes (born in 1912 in France) describes her enlistment and training with the Special Operations Executive in Great Britain; being married to an English man and offering to help the War Office; her motivation for enlistment and her attitudes towards Germans; her impressions of Colonel Maurice Buckmaster; details about the training she received; her acceptance of the risks of service and feeling prepared for what was to come; wearing the same suit during all of her imprisonment; going to France in 1943 as an agent with Special Operations Executive; the journey to France on a fishing boat; going to Cannes, France; the Réseau in Cannes; being an inmate of Fresnes Prison, Paris, France, in 1943; resisting Gestapo questions; attitude towards torture and her methods for getting through it; her religious beliefs; her torturer who was a Frenchman; reasons for attitude of defiance in captivity; using the name Churchill in the prison and attributing her survival to it; further details of her defiant attitude in captivity; her contact with other F Section prisoners and befriending another female prisoner; the importance of secrecy for her while she was imprisoned; her attitude towards the Germans at that time; her views on those who gave up information to the enemy; the difficulty of being separated from her children; controlling a female SS guard who wrote to her after the war; her conversations with other imprisoned British female agents; her arrival in Ravensbrück; being put in an isolated cell next to the punishment cell; conditions in the camp; being moved to a cell next to the crematorium; witnessing the cannibalism of a woman who was shot; punishment in the camp; going to several different camps north of Ravensbrück after Hitler’s death; her physical condition upon release from the camp; her feelings when she returned to England and experience of wartime service; her reflections on her captivity from 1943 to 1945; her attitude to her biography and film; being awarded the George Cross; and further details on Fresnes Prison.
    Interviewee
    Odette Hallowes
    Date
    interview:  1986 October 31

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    2 sound cassettes (90 min.).

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Access
    There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
    Conditions on Use
    Restrictions on use. Permission to copy and/or use recordings in any production must be granted by the Imperial War Museums.

    Keywords & Subjects

    Administrative Notes

    Holder of Originals
    Imperial War Museum
    Provenance
    The interview was conducted by the Imperial War Museum as part of their retrospective oral history interview program. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum acquired a copy of the interview with Odette Hallowes from the Imperial War Museum in February 1995.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:17:21
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn510824

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