Dictionary Thesaurus Word Dynamo Quotes Reference Translator Spanish

Krystyna Skarbek

Krystyna Skarbek (May 1, 1908 – June 15, 1952), George Medal, Order of the British Empire, Croix de guerre, was a Polish-born World War II British SOE agent, also known as Mrs. Krystyna Giżycka and by the nom de guerre, Christine Granville. She was especially celebrated for her exploits in Nazi-occupied Poland and France.

She became a British agent months before the Special Operations Executive was founded in July 1940 and was one of the longest-serving of all Britain's wartime women agents.

Her resourcefulness and success have been credited with influencing the sabotage organization's policy of recruiting increasing numbers of women.

Early life

Krystyna Skarbek was born in Warsaw, Poland, to "Count" Jerzy Skarbek (his line of the Skarbek aristocratic family did not have rights to the title), scion of one of Poland's oldest noble families, and Stefania Goldfeder, daughter of a wealthy assimilated Jewish banker. Krystyna grew up in comfort at the family's estate at Młodziesyn, until her father frittered away the proceeds from his wife's dowry with lavish entertaining. After her father's death, the young woman falteringly entered the worlds of work and matrimony. Her first marriage, at twenty-two, to businessman Karol Getlich, soon ended without rancor.

On 2 November, 1938, at the age of thirty, she married the choleric writer Jerzy Giżycki (1899 – 1970), and the couple soon moved to British East Africa.

Intelligence career

When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, the couple sailed for London, where Skarbek sought to offer her services in the struggle against the common enemy. British authorities showed little interest but were eventually convinced by her acquaintances, including journalist and Secret Intelligence Service contact Frederick Voigt.

Hungary

She left for Hungary, where in December 1939 she persuaded skeptical prewar Polish Olympic skier Jan Marusarz, brother of the more famous Olympian Stanisław Marusarz, to escort her across the snow-covered Tatra Mountains into Poland. Arriving in Warsaw, she vainly pleaded with her mother to leave Nazi-occupied Poland. Stefania Goldfeder eventually died in Warsaw's Pawiak prison. Paradoxically, in the mid-19th century Krystyna's great-great-uncle Fryderyk Florian Skarbek, a prison reformer, had been instrumental in getting the Pawiak built.

Krystyna Skarbek helped organize a system of Polish couriers that brought intelligence reports from Warsaw to Budapest. Her cousin Ludwik Popiel managed to smuggle out of Poland via the Tatra Mountains the unique Polish anti-tank rifle, model 35, the stock and barrel sawed off for easier transport, which Skarbek for a time concealed in her Budapest apartment. However, it never saw wartime service with the Allies, as the designs and specifications had deliberately been destroyed in Poland upon the outbreak of war and there was no time to attempt reverse engineering.

In Hungary, Skarbek met a Polish Army officer, Andrzej Kowerski (1912–1988), who would later use the British nom de guerre "Andrew Kennedy." Kowerski, who had lost part of his leg in a prewar hunting accident, was exfiltrating Polish and other Allied military personnel and collecting intelligence.

Skarbek showed her penchant for stratagem when she and Kowerski ("Kennedy") were arrested by the German Gestapo in January 1941. She managed to win their release by feigning symptoms of pulmonary tuberculosis by biting her tongue until it bled. Skarbek was distantly related to the Hungarian Regent, Miklós Horthy, since a cousin from the Lwów side of the family had married a relative of Horthy. This may or may not have had anything to do with her release from prison. The pair made good their escape from Hungary via the Balkans and Turkey.

Cairo

Upon their arrival at SOE offices in Cairo, Egypt, it came as a shock to them that they were under suspicion due to her contacts with a Polish intelligence organization called the "Musketeers". This group had been formed in October 1939 by engineer-inventor Stefan Witkowski. He was killed in 1942, and it is unclear by whom or for what reason. Several versions exist as to why the Musketeers were viewed by exiled Poles and the British with disfavor.

Another source of suspicion against the pair was the ease — which her accusers might have understood, had they known her better — with which she had managed in Istanbul, Turkey, during their flight from Hungary, to charm transit visas through French-mandated Syria from the pro-Vichy French consul. Only German spies, some Polish intelligence officers believed, could have obtained the visas.

There were also specific suspicions about Kowerski. These were addressed in London by General Colin Gubbins — to be, from 1943, head of SOE — in a letter of 17 June, 1941, to Polish Commander-in-Chief and Premier Władysław Sikorski:

Kowerski eventually cleared up any misunderstandings with General Kopański and was able to resume intelligence work. Similarly, when Krystyna later, on her return from France, visited Polish military headquarters in her British uniform, she was treated by the military chiefs with the highest respect.

It could not but have helped that in the meantime Germany had invaded the Soviet Union (June 22, 1941), as her intelligence obtained from the Musketeers had predicted. It is now known that Operation Barbarossa had also been indicated by a number of other sources, including Ultra.

Meanwhile Skarbek's husband, Jerzy Giżycki, when informed that Wilkinson had told Skarbek and Kowerski that their services were being dispensed with, took umbrage at their shabby treatment and abruptly bowed out of his own remarkable career as a British intelligence agent. When Skarbek told him she loved Kowerski and would not return to Giżycki, he left for London, eventually emigrating to Canada. They were formally divorced at the Polish consulate in Berlin on 1 August 1946.

Skarbek now apparently experienced a certain hiatus, sidelined from mainstream action. Vera Atkins, assistant to the head of F Section, would later describe Skarbek as a very brave woman, but a law unto herself who, despite her attractive presence, was in many ways a loner. Skarbek was older than the normal recruit to SOE and had both worldly experience and prior clandestine experience: she would not be over-awed, as many were, by the queen-bee of F Section. Perhaps Atkins, whose background was far closer to Skarbek's than Skarbek would ever know and who was in many ways a loner herself, was complimenting a kindred spirit, one she may possibly have recognized as almost an equal.

France

Skarbek's situation changed greatly in 1944, with a turn of events that would lead to some of her most famous exploits. Fluent in French, she was offered to SOE's teams in France, under the nom de guerre "Christine Granville", by which she would perhaps become best known. The offer was timely: SOE was running short of trained operatives to cover the increased demands being placed on it in the run-up to the invasion of France. New operatives were already in training, but the work took time and, if inserted into occupied Europe before they had absorbed the numerous skills, physical and intellectual, required for survival, the operatives could compromise not only themselves but their SOE colleagues already safely established and also any members of the French Resistance with whom they worked. Skarbek, however, had an existing track record of successful courier work in occupied Europe and would need only a little "refresher" work, say, on weapons, and some guidance as to the particular circumstances relating to France. There was one particular need that required urgent attention: the replacement of a lost courier on a busy circuit that would be among the first to meet the proposed Allied landings. Skarbek was therefore chosen to replace the SOE agent Cecily Lefort, who had been captured and brutally tortured, later to be executed, by the Gestapo.

SOE had several branches working in France and though most of the women in France answered to F Section in London, Skarbek's mission was launched from Algiers, in French North Africa, the base of the AMF Section. This factor, combined with Skarbek's absence from the usual SOE training program, sometimes intrigues researchers. While it does not preclude other possibilities, it is not, of itself, particularly remarkable.

AMF Section was only set up in the wake of the Allied landings in North Africa, 'Operation Torch', partly with staff from London (F Section) and partly with staff from Cairo (MO.4). SOE Cairo had been running some of the operations into Poland and it is perhaps this connection that directed Krystyna Skarbek along the unlikely route from Poland to France via Egypt.

AMF Section served three purposes: first, it was simpler and safer to run the resupply operations from Allied North Africa than from London, across German-occupied France; secondly, since the South of France would be liberated by separate Allied landings there ("Operation Dragoon)," SOE units in the area needed to be transferred in order to have links with those headquarters, not with forces for Normandy; thirdly, AMF Section tapped into the skills of the French in North Africa, who did not generally support De Gaulle and who had been linked with opposition in the former "Unoccupied Zone." From personal experience, Skarbek would have understood the political sensitivities of animosities between rival exile groups. After the two invasions, the distinctions became irrelevant and almost all the SOE Sections in France would be united, with the Maquis, into the Forces Francaises de l'Interieur (FFI). There was one exception: the EU/P Section, which was formed by Poles in France and remained part of the trans-European Polish underground, under Polish command. Skarbek would probably not have thrived under this command.

Skarbek — under the assumed identity of "Pauline Armand" — parachuted into southeastern France on 6 July, 1944, and became part of the "Jockey" network directed by a Belgian-British lapsed pacifist, Francis Cammaerts. She assisted Cammaerts by linking Italian partisans and French Maquis for joint operations against the Germans in the Alps, and by inducing non-Germans, especially conscripted Poles, in the German occupation forces to defect to the Allies.

On 13 August, 1944, at Digne, two days before the Allied 'Operation Dragoon' landings in southern France, Cammaerts, Xan Fielding — another SOE agent, who had previously operated in Crete — and a French officer, Christian Sorensen, were arrested at a roadblock by the Gestapo. Learning that they were soon to be executed, Skarbek arranged to meet with a key Gestapo officer, introduced herself as a niece of British General Bernard Montgomery, and threatened the officer with terrible retribution if harm came to the prisoners. She managed to cow him into releasing them; an act assisted by a large bribe from SOE funds.

Denouement

Skarbek's service in France restored her political reputation and greatly enhanced her military reputation. When the SOE teams returned from France (or in some cases, were given 24 hours to depart, by a grateful De Gaulle), some of the British girls sought new missions in the war against Japan, but as a Pole, Skarbek was now ideally placed to serve as a courier for missions to her homeland in the final missions of SOE and the Polish government in exile. As the Red Army advanced across Poland, the British government and Polish government-in-exile worked together to leave some network in place that would report on events in Poland. Kowerski and Skarbek were now fully reconciled with the Polish forces and were preparing to be dropped into Poland in early 1945. In the event, for military or political reasons, the missions were canceled and Skarbek was not to return to Poland.

The women of SOE were all given military rank, with honorary commissions in either the Women's Transport Service (FANY), officially part of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), though a very elite and very autonomous part, or the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). Skarbek, as ever a separate case, appears to have been a member of both. In preparation for her service in France, she appears to have been with FANY. On her return, she seems to have transferred to the WAAF as an officer until the end of the war in Europe: 21 November, 1944 - 14 May, 1945. The reason might be connected with the proposed mission to Poland: other women already operating in Central Europe were members of the WAAF and, when actually wearing uniform, WAAF dress was more anonymous than British Army dress, which can be surprisingly informative, but which clearly also stands out too much on an RAF base, during the inevitable waiting-period prior to the mission.

Skarbek was one of the few SOE female field agents promoted beyond subaltern rank to Captain, or Air Force equivalent: Flight Officer, the WAAF counterpart of the Flight Lieutenant rank for male officers. Skarbek ended the war as an Honorary Flight Officer. The others who likewise did were Pearl Witherington, a courier who had taken command of a group when the designated commander was captured, a role normally performed by a Captain, at least, and Yvonne Cormeau, the most successful wireless operator.

Awards

For her work in conjunction with the British authorities, Krystyna was awarded the Order of the British Empire. Her award was in the rank of Officer (OBE), an award normally associated with officers around the rank of Colonel and a level notably a rank above the "standard" award of Member (MBE), given to the other women of SOE. This would appear to be recognition of rather more than the few months in France in 1944.

The remarkable exploit at Digne was recognized with an additional award specifically for gallantry, marking it as a separate action in its own right, not already covered by the OBE awarded for the exemplary "general service." The recommendation indeed suggested the possibility of a George Cross, but this award is the highest possible decoration from the British Commonwealth and was perhaps a little too high-profile to succeed, particularly for one around whom, as described above, some "political sensitivities" had to be addressed. She received, nevertheless, the next award down and still an exceptional decoration: the George Medal. Several years after the Digne incident, in London, Skarbek told another Polish World War II veteran that, during her negotiations with the Gestapo, she had been unaware of danger to herself. Only after she and her comrades had made good their escape did it hit home: "What have I done! They could have shot me as well."

French recognition of her contribution to the liberation of France came with the award of the Croix de Guerre.

After the war

After the war, Skarbek was left without financial reserves or a native country to return to. Xan Fielding, whom she had saved at Digne, wrote in his 1954 book, Hide and Seek, dedicated "To the memory of Christine Granville":

In that latter period of her life, she met Ian Fleming, with whom she had a year-long relationship.

She was stabbed to death on June 15, 1952, at the age of 44, by an obsessed fellow merchant-marine steward whose advances she had declined. The exact circumstances of her death and the swiftness of her killer's execution have not been fully explained.

Krystyna was interred in St. Mary's Roman Catholic Cemetery at Kensal Green, northwest London. Buried next to her in 1988 was her comrade-in-arms and chief partner in life, Andrzej Kowerski.

In popular culture

Krystyna Skarbek had become a legend in her lifetime. Soon after her death, she entered the realm of popular culture. It has been said that Ian Fleming, in his first James Bond novel, Casino Royale (1953), to some extent modeled Vesper Lynd on her. According to William F. Nolan, Fleming also based Tatiana Romanova of From Russia With Love on her. Nearly half a century later (1999), Polish writer Maria Nurowska published a novel, Miłośnica (The Lover), an account of a fictional female journalist's attempt to probe Krystyna Skarbek's story.

A forthcoming biography by Ronald Nowicki is expected to provide new documentation of Skarbek's prewar life in Poland and Africa and of her World War II SOE work, and may elucidate some enigmas left unaddressed in earlier studies.

Agnieszka Holland is preparing a movie based on Skarbek's life. A TV series has also been announced by the Polish public broadcasting corporation, TVP.

Notes

References

Xan Fielding, Hide and Seek: the Story of a War-Time Agent, London, Secker & Warburg, 1954. (Dedicated to Krystyna Skarbek; includes the Digne incident.)
Madeleine Masson, Christine: a Search for Christine Granville, G.M., O.B.E., Croix de Guerre, with a Foreword by Francis Cammaerts, D.S.O., Légion d'Honneur, Croix de Guerre, U.S. Medal of Freedom, London, Hamish Hamilton, 1975. (Republished by Virago, 2005.)
Marcus Binney, The Women Who Lived for Danger: The Women Agents of SOE in the Second World War, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 2002. (A fifth of the book is devoted to Krystyna Skarbek; includes a few more recently available documents, but largely draws on Masson's work.)
Christopher Kasparek, "Krystyna Skarbek: Re-viewing Britain's Legendary Polish Agent," The Polish Review, vol. XLIX, no. 3, 2004, pp. 945–53.