World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseAndrée Marthe Virot was born in France to a civil engineer father in 1905. When Germany occupied France in 1940, she operated a beauty salon in Brest, France. She joined the local resistance efforts shortly after, initially involved in distributing secret newspapers but later became more involved, using torches to guide Allied aircraft to improvised landing strips and assisting downed airmen. She operated under the code names "Agent X" and then "Agent Rose". After a fellow resistance fighter broke under the pressure of torture and divulged her identity, she escaped to Paris, France and assumed another identity, but another similar incident led to her arrest in mid-Jun 1944. After severe torture that would cause health issues for the remainder of her life, she was imprisoned at the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp in Fürstenberg, Germany and the Buchenwald Concentration Camp near Weimar, Germany. At Buchenwald, she and several other prisoners were lined up against a wall for their execution by firing squad when the timely arrival of American troops scattered the German executioners, thus saving her life. After the war, she married Englishman John Peel and took on his surname; the couple moved from Paris to Long Ashton near Bristol, England, United Kingdom. She received honors from France (Croix de Guerre and Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur, among others), Britain (King's Commendation for Brave Conduct), and the United States (Medal of Freedom) for her resistance efforts during WW2. She published her autobiography under the title of Miracles Existent! (English: Miracles Do Happen!) in 1999. She passed away at the Lampton House in the western suburb of Bristol in 2010.

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1.  Alan Chanter says:
4 Dec 2015 12:07:12 AM

I am open to correction but I believe that Buchenwald Camp was for male prisoners only.

2.  C. Peter Chen says:
4 Dec 2015 07:29:33 AM

Alan, there was a small number, less than a thousand, of female prisoners at Buchenwald toward the end of the war. Most or all of them were transferred from Ravensbrück if I recall correctly.