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| Monica de Wichfeld |
Irish
Heroine of the Danish Resistance.
Monica de
Wichfeld (Née
Massey-Beresford) was born in England in 1894 and raised in Northern
Ireland. At the outbreak of World War I,
she moved to London and found work in a Soldier’s Canteen. It was here that she met her husband, Jorgen
de Wichfeld. They went to live in his
native Denmark and had three children together.
One of Monica’s brothers was killed in action during WWI, which led to
her hatred for the Germans.
At the start of World War II, the de
Wichfelds were living in Copenhagen, where Monica soon became an active part of
the Danish Resistance. She raised money
for the underground press, sheltered fugitives and single-handedly carried
explosives across a lake for use by the Danish Resistance. Monica de Wichfeld also became the leader of
resistance groups on islands in south-east of Denmark.
In 1944, Monica was betrayed by a
member of the resistance who had been captured by the Gestapo. She did not break under Gestapo
interrogation, who condemned her to death.
This made her the first women to be condemned to death in Denmark for
centuries. There was an uproar from the
people of Denmark, leading the German authorities to finally back down and
commute her sentence to life imprisonment.
Monica de Wichfeld was sent to
Waldheim Concentration Camp, where she died of Pneumonia in 1945.
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