12/12/2025
Norwich, GB 10 C
Researching and reporting on the lives of some really interesting people (RIP)

NOREEN RIOLS, aged 98

Working for the SOE during the war, she helped train spies that went to France to fight the Nazis. Her job was to ensure agents were ready and fit for purpose.

MADELEINE RIFFAUD, aged 100

A French resistance fighter who was tortured by the Gestapo, she played a key role in the liberation. She later served as a journalist in various war zones.

ANNE BEAUMANOIR, aged 98

Active in the French Resistance, she saved a number of children. She was then involved in the Algerian Civil War and eventually became a leading neurologist.

CAPTAIN VYVYAN HOWARD, aged 102

A Second World War bomber, he was shot down over Norway and sent to the notorious POW camp, Stalag Luft 3, where he contributed to the Wooden Horse and the Great Escape – the last survivor of that famous incident.

PIPPA LATOUR, aged 102

The longest surviving female SOE agent working in occupied France, she paved the way for D-Day, but was never acknowledged by her male colleagues.

TRAUTE LAFRENZ, aged 103

A medical student, she joined the White Rose Movement, protesting about the Nazis. Betrayed, she survived the concentration camps to become a doctor and teacher.

JOZEF WALASZCZYK, aged 103

A young factory owner in Poland during the war, he saved many workers from the Nazis at great risk to himself. He also saved his girlfriend and her friends. After the war he was restricted by the Communist regime.

ERNIE HOLMES, aged 100

An RAF pilot at 19 he was a Pathfinder and was then shot down over Holland. A POW in a notorious camp he went on to fly in the Berlin Airlift, survive a terrible crash and reach his 100th birthday.

ANDREE GEULEN-HERSCOVICI, aged 100

A teacher in Belgium when the Nazis invaded in 1940, she joined the CDJ, an organisation dedicated to saving Jewish people. Despite extreme danger to herself she saved the life of many children.