Antonia Lyon-Smith

Antonia Lyon-Smith (20 September 1925 in Toronto, Ontario - 9 October 2010 in Seaton, Devon, England) was an Englishwoman who at age 14 was accidentally left in Brittany in France by her parents, at the start of World War II, when the area was overrun by the German advance in June 1940. She was interned along with her nanny in a camp in Besançon and was released with the help of the Red Cross, and moved to Neuilly. She was able to secure identity papers and moved to Paris where she made several attempts to escape to Spain and Switzerland. She made contact with the playwright Claude Spaak, brother of the Belgian foreign minister Paul-Henri Spaak and member of the French resistance, who was involved with a Soviet espionage group that would later be called the Red Orchestra ("Rote Kapelle"). Unwittingly asked to write a letter of introduction for the Spaaks, for a member of the group to meet a Belgian doctor, who was also working in the resistance, it was eventually discovered by the Gestapo and she was arrested by the Sonderkommando Rote Kapelle and interrogated for several months. She was released and after the war was flown back to Great Britain, where she met her mother. After the war, she was interviewed by MI5 in connection with her release from the Gestapo and Red Orchestra.

Life Lyon-Smith Née Smith, was the daughter of the Canadian housewife Phyllis Alleyne Lyon-Smith née Hellmuth and British Brigadier Tristram Lyon-Smith. On 16 May 1943, Brigadier Lyon-Smith, who fought in the North African campaign, was recommended for a Distinguished Service Order for outstanding courage in the field. It was awarded on 8 July 1943. Lyon-Smith received a second honour in the form of a military CBE on 11 October 1945 for outstanding powers of leadership as Commander Royal Artillery of 7th Armoured Division (CRA 7th Armoured Desert Rats). Her grandfather was Isaac Hellmuth.

When she was six, Lyon-Smith travelled to Egypt with her parents, when her father was stationed there for two years at the British Army garrison in Heliopolis in Cairo. Two years later, her parents were posted to India and the family felt that the place was unsuitable for a child, so Lyon-Smith stayed with her cousins Marcel and Diane Provost, in Menglas, Concarneau in Brittany. The Provosts owned a fish canning business and also two houses, one in Paris and one in Concarneau. Two years later, her parents were posted back to Great Britain and Lyon-Smith joined them at the military base at Catterick Garrison in North Yorkshire when she was thirteen.

Brittany With the start of World War II, Lyon-Smith's father's regiment was sent to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force. Lyon-Smith and her mother were forced to move out of the garrison. Lyon-Smith was sent to boarding school, while her mother stayed with friends. Later in the year, her mother gave Lyon-Smith the choice of spending the war in Brittany at her cousin's or go to stay at her grandmother's house on Lake Simcoe in Ontario for the duration of the war. Phyllis Lyon-Smith's reasoning was based on the belief that the Second World War would be similar to the first and that being in France meant her husband would not need to travel back to Great Britain to see them. She also believed that Brittany would be a safe place for her daughter. In November 1939, both Lyon-Smith and her mother travelled to Concarneau via Calais. After Phyllis received a telegram that her husband was back in Great Britain, she decided to move back. However, believing that Brittany was a safe location for her daughter and as she was under 16 was covered by the provisions of the Geneva Conventions, she left her daughter in the charge of her cousins, in June 1940. She also left her jewellery with Lyon-Smith.

World War II On 21 June 1940, the German Army invaded Concarneau and Marcel and Diana's house was requisitioned. The German Army started the process of moving everybody over the age of sixteen away from the coast, so Lyon-Smith was sent to a convent in Châteauneuf. After an ear infection, Lyon-Smith was taken to hospital in Quimper. In December 1940 and while still in hospital, she was interned along with her nanny and other British subjects to a camp on the outskirts of Quimper, then taken by train and lorry, along with many hundreds of other people to the condemned internment Camp (Konzentrationslager) at Besançon (Frontstalag 142 or Caserne Vauban). At the end of 1940, 2,400 women, mostly British, were interned in the barracks, along with 1600 other nationalities, in a camp suitable for only 2000 people. In March 1941, Lyon-Smith was released after the Red Cross visited the camp. She moved to a pension in Neuilly and told to report to the local police station every morning. During the freezing winter of 1941-1942, Lyon-Smith caught pneumonia. While in Neuilly, Lyon-Smith enrolled in a school under a false name, at Cours Montaigne, where she sat the Pre-Baccalaureate and passed.

Escape from Paris In July 1941, Lyon-Smith's cousin Diana was able to procure false identity papers, the carte d'identité under the name Maria Cormet, Lyon-Smith initially denied being Lyon-Smith, stating that she was Savier, even though her school books had been seized and they were tagged with her real name. She eventually admitted to being Lyon-Smith, as her French was not good enough to maintain the pretense of being a French schoolgirl and was subject to continual interrogation over months. Shortly after her arrest, Lyon-Smith caught a skin disease on her back that was not amenable to normal treatment. it posits the fact that Lyon-Smith was not interned or jailed in a cell, but instead kept in nominal custody in the Sonderkommando offices in Paris.