About

Suzanne Spaak (1905-1944)

In June 1940, Nazi Germany conquered France. Northern France, including Paris, was controlled by the German military while the southern portion, known as Vichy France, was led by the collaborator Marshal Philippe Petain. Jews from both zones were arrested, detained and deported to Nazi concentration camps.

Suzanne Spaak was born in Belgium in 1905 to a Catholic family. In 1940, she lived in Paris with her French husband Claude, and their two children.

Suzanne lived a privileged life, but that did not prevent her from actively resisting the Nazi occupation. In 1942, she worked with the underground National Movement Against Racism. When Spaak joined them, she stated, “Tell me what to do… so I’ll know that I am serving in the struggle against Nazism.”

She found hospitals to provide care for Jews living under assumed names. And used her connections to induce clerics, judges, and authors to help Jews in various ways - while always ready to do the “ordinary” tasks of typing and distributing leaflets. She was given a position in the Red Orchestra intelligence network and devised daring solutions to intelligence agents’ challenges.

In early 1943, it became known that Jewish children were about to be deported from France to concentration camps. Spaak focused on saving the lives of these children. She helped smuggle more than sixty of them to safety, sheltering some in her home until more permanent places could be found.

In October 1943, Spaak was arrested. After ten months in prison, she was shot, less than one week before the liberation of Paris by the French Resistance aided by the American Army.