Odette Sansom & Krystyna Skarbek: Freedom Fighters

by Linda Harris Sittig

While researching my current work-in-progress, a WWII-set novel, I find myself drawn to stories of strong women during that war.

Although Odette Sansom and Krystyna Skarbek may never have met during the war, they were both engaged as spies for the British Special Operations Executive, the SOE.

They came from different nationalities. Odette was French and the mother of three daughters; Krystyna was Polish by birth, married, but had no children. They were also close in age; Krystyna was born in 1908, and Odette in 1912. Both were athletic and attractive brunettes. And each woman would go on in life to have multiple husbands.

Here are their stories.

ODETTE

Odette married Roy Sansom, an Englishman, and by 1942 had applied for SOE training. She was sent into Nazi-occupied France in late 1942 under the code name Lise. There, she collaborated with Peter Churchill of the French Resistance based in Cannes, acting as his courier, carrying messages back and forth.

Captured by the Gestapo in the French Alps in April 1943, she was sent to prison in Paris, where she claimed she and Peter Churchill were married and that he was Winston Churchill’s nephew. In prison, she was tortured and kept on a starvation diet. When she still refused to reveal names, she was sent to Ravensbrück, the notorious concentration camp for women. She remained there for the rest of the war.

When the war ended and Ravensbrück was liberated, Odette was emaciated, weak, and ill. However, she had survived. She testified at the War Crimes Tribunal, returned to her family, and lived until the age of 82. During her lifetime, she received several awards, including both the British George Cross for bravery and the French Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur.

KRYSTYNA

Krystyna arrived in London with her then husband, Jerzy Gizycki, in 1939. By 1940, she had joined the SOE and was sent to Hungary under the pretense of being a journalist. Her husband, also an intelligence agent, accompanied her.

Working to provide surveillance of all roads, rail, and river traffic in Budapest, Krystyna traveled back and forth between Hungary and Poland. She organized a system of couriers to deliver intelligence reports.

Briefly detained in 1941 by the Hungarian police, Krystyna feigned tuberculosis and fled Hungary with the assistance of a friend who transported her into Yugoslavia. Moving on, she worked in Bulgaria and eventually in Turkey, smuggling microfilms showing the German military buildup along the Soviet border.

From the end of 1941 through 1943, Krystyna was in Egypt, collecting intelligence information and passing it on to various resistance groups. Then, in July 1944, she parachuted into France, where she helped to organize multiple French Resistance groups in Southeast France.

Before the war ended, Krystyna managed to free several resistance fighters from prison, yet she never became captured herself. After the war, she joined the British WAAF as a flight officer and was awarded the George Medal from Britain and the Croix de Geurre from France, among many other distinctions.

Krystyna was most likely one of the most daring spies in the SOE. Tragically, in 1952, she was stabbed to death by a former obsessive lover.

Both these women, Odette Sansom and Krystyna Skarbek risked everything for the sake of achieving freedom.

Thank you to Bucky Schriver and Harley Gamble, two followers of this Strong Women in History blog, for passing me the names of Odette and Krystyna.

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December is traditionally the month when we send holiday cards and messages. My message to all of you is a wish for Peace on Earth.

~ Linda

Author of Cut from Strong Cloth, Last Curtain Call, Counting Crows, B-52 DOWN, and Opening Closed Doors. To be released in 2026 – Chasing the Tides.

WWW.LINDASITTIG.COM