AN ANNUAL celebration of the life of a war hero in Herefordshire has marked 79 years since her arrest.

Special Operations Executive field operative Violette Szabo was executed at Ravensbruck concentration camp aged just 23 alongside her colleagues Lillian Rolfe and Denise Bloch in 1945.

They had been incarcerated since their capture by the Second SS Panzer Division while on a mission in Limoges in June 1944.

After interrogation by the SS in Paris, they were deported to Saarbrucken transit camp in Germany, before being moved on to Ravensbruck and Torgau concentration camps.

They were later returned to Ravensbruck, where they were placed in solitary confinement and later shot, while a fellow SOE agent, Cecily Lefort, was put to death in the gas chambers.

Violette was posthumously awarded the George Cross and the Croix-de-Guerre.

And her memory lives on in Herefordshire at Cartref, in Wormelow, where she would spend her holidays with family. 

The cottage on Tump Lane is now home to a museum dedicated to the WW2 heroine, carefully curated by owner Rosemary Rigby.

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It is also the venue for the annual celebration of Violette’s life, on Bastille Day - the day she met her future husband, Etienne, in 1940.

This year’s event was held on July 9, with a parade led by Herefordshire piper Simon Addison, Wormelow heading to the Violette Szabo museum, where the main event took place at 2pm.

Among the special guests this year was Professor Peter Lantos, author of 'The boy who didn't want to die', and survivor of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, which he entered with his family at just five years old.

Hereford Times: Rosemary Rigby and Mayor of Hereford, Councillor Jacque Carwardine, cut the cakeRosemary Rigby and Mayor of Hereford, Councillor Jacque Carwardine, cut the cake (Image: Rosemary Rigby)

The event was also joined by Sean Rehling, curator of the Imperial War Museum, Duxford, and Councillor Jacqui Carwardine, Mayor of Hereford.

The event next year will be extra special, Miss Rigby said, marking 80 years since Violette's arrest. It will take place on July 7, 2024.

Christmas cards designed by a supporter of the museum are now available to purchase at the museum, while a new sculpture of Violette, created by Anita Lafford, has been unveiled, Miss Rigby said.