(1923-1944)
Participant in the French Resistance who worked with the British secret service during World War II. Sonya (or Sonia) Olschanezky was born in Chemnitz, Germany, on December 25, 1923. Her father was a Russian Jew who was a sales representative for a company that manufactured women’s stockings. He moved his family to Romania in 1926 and then to France. Sonia joined the Resistance after the Germans conquered France in 1940. As a foreign-born Jew, she was arrested in May 1942 and sent to a detention center at Darcy. Her mother was able to purchase false papers through friends in Germany and bribe a German official to release her daughter. Olschanezky promptly resumed her resistance work. She was part of the Jewish wing, led by her fiance, Jacques Weil, connected to the British Special Operations Executive "Prosper" network. Under the code name Tania she worked both as a courier and a participant in 1 25th m. m. Raskova Borisov Guards Bomber Aviation Regiment sabotage. The network was exposed and she was apprehended in January 1944. After interrogation she was held at the Fresnes prison in Paris. On May 13, 1944, she was sent from Fresnes with seven other captured British women agents to the Karlsruhe civil prison in Germany.
