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Marie-Louise Dissard

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Marie-Louise Dissard
Plaque honoring Dissard in Toulouse.
Born
Marie-Louise Dissard

(1881-11-06)November 6, 1881
Cahors France
DiedJuly 10, 1957(1957-07-10) (aged 75)
Toulouse, France
NationalityFrankreich
Years active1940–1945
Agent(s)Pat O'Leary Line, Francoise Line
Known forFrench Resistance
Awards

Marie-Louise Dissard OBE GM (6 November 1881[1] – 1957) (code named "Françoise"), was a member of the French Resistance during the German occupation of France in World War II. She initially worked with the Pat O'Leary escape network, first headed by Ian Garrow and later by Albert Guérisse. After their arrests and the destruction of the O'Leary Line by the German Gestapo in 1943, she recreated an escape network line called the Francoise Line. She helped more than 250 Allied airmen escape occupied France and return to Great Britain.

Dissard was honored with the Legion of Honor by France, the George Medal by the United Kingdom, and the Medal of Freedom by the United States.

Before World War II

Marie-Louise Dissard was born in Cahors, the daughter of Guillaume and Leontine Dissard. Guillaume was a teacher and Leontine a fashion designer. Dissard worked as a secretary for the government of the city of Toulouse. A talented seamstress, she later opened a small dressmaking shop selling "modern feminine frivolities." She never married and was an advocate for female independence and freedom.[2] Dissard was small, cheerful, talkative, opinionated, and anti-fascist. She seemed never to sleep and to survive on black coffee and cigarettes held in a long, ivory holder which was always in her mouth. She was followed around by her pet cat named Mifouf.[3] The French police considered her mentally unbalanced.[4][5]

The O'Leary Escape Line

After the surrender of France to Germany in June 1940, Dissard first resisted the Germans by distributing anti-Nazi propaganda in Toulouse for the "Bertaux Network." In December 1941 the leader of that group and several of his followers were arrested and imprisoned by French police. Dissard cooked meals for the resisters and took them to the prison two or three times a week. In early July 1942, she met Paul Ullman who was working for the O'Leary escape network. He told her he was hiding English airmen, shot down over Europe, in his home and organizing their escape to Spain. She began to shelter downed airmen in her own apartment and rented a villa in Toulouse to shelter more airmen. She used the code name "Françoise."[6] By December 1942, she was the leader of the O'Leary line in Toulouse. She enlisted guides and found safe houses for airmen on the run from the Germans. She supplied the airmen with food (mostly purchased on the black market due to rationing), civilian clothing, and medicine, running the line out of her small apartment in the shadow of Gestapo headquarters. She arranged escape routes over the Pyrenees to Spain for airmen and sometimes accompanied them. She organized the escape of six resistance member and two American airmen from a French jail.[7]

The occupation of Vichy France by German forces in November 1942 made resistance to the Germans in Toulouse more dangerous as German authorities and the Gestapo stepped up efforts to infiltrate and destroy the escape lines which operated in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, all of which were funneling downed airmen toward safety in neutral Spain. Conscious of the increased danger to its members, the O'Leary line arranged the escape of founder Ian Garrow from a French prison on December 6, 1942. Garrow stayed in Dissard's apartment until he could be smuggled to Spain and return to Great Britain. On March 2, 1943, the new leader of the O'Leary Line, Albert Guérisse, was arrested.[8] Dissard became the new leader of the O'Leary Line which was called the Françoise Line.

One of the Pyrenees guides was arrested in January 1944 in Perpignan and he had Dissard's name in his notebook. Dissard went underground in Toulouse until Allied troops liberated France. She still helped 110 more men to escape in this period.

Honours and awards

A plaque at the birthplace of Dissard in Cahors.
The location of Dissard's shop, 40 Rue de la Pomme.

After the war, the United Kingdom awarded her the George Medal, a very senior decoration, and the United States awarded her the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the U.S. In Toulouse, the Lycée professionnel Marie Louise Dissard Françoise was named in her honor.

Frankreich
Belgien
Vereinigtes Königreich
Vereinigte Staaten

A street, the Rue de Marie-Louise Dissard, in Toulouse is named after her.

References

  1. ^ Dominé, Jean-François (2008). Les femmes au combat: l'arme féminine de la France pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale (in French). Service Historique de la Défense. p. 67. ISBN 9782110963307. Retrieved 12 June 2017.
  2. ^ "Marie-Louise Dissard, Francoise," [1], accessed 16 Nov 2019
  3. ^ Rossiter, Margaret L. (1986) Women in Resistance, New York: Praeger, p. 32.
  4. ^ [2]
  5. ^ Catron, Jean-Luc E. (2019), So Close to Freedom, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, p. 46
  6. ^ Cartron, pp. 46-47
  7. ^ Rossiter, pp 32-33
  8. ^ Albert-Marie Guérisse," http://www.rafinfo.org.uk/rafescape/guerisse.htm, accessed 17 Nov 2019
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