Marcus Bloom

Marcus Reginald Bloom (24 September 1907 – 6 September 1944) was a British Special Operations Executive agent during the Second World War.

Early life Bloom was born in 1907 in Brick Lane, Whitechapel (as per his birth certificate) but the family later moved to Tottenham, London, the son of Harry Pizer Bloom and Anna Sadie Davidoff Bloom, in an orthodox Jewish home.

In the 1930s his father sent him Paris to run the mail-order business, and he became fluent in French. The firm closed after five years and he returned to London and married in March 1938. in February 1942. Instead, Bloom became the wireless operator in the PRUNUS network organised by Maurice Pertschuk, with Philippe de Gunzbourg as courier.

Bloom was taken to Fresnes prison and Avenue Foch in Paris and severely beaten but revealed nothing. In August 1944 he was deported to Mauthausen and executed on 6 September 1944.

Recognition

Awards

United Kingdom: Mentioned in Despatches

Monuments

He is honoured at The Valençay SOE Memorial, Indre, as one of the 104 agents of section F who lost their lives for France’s liberation. Brookwood Memorial, Surrey. Panel 21 Column 3. On a plaque on his mother’s grave at Edmonton Federation Synagogue cemetery, Montague Road, London. On the War Memorial of the St John’s Wood Synagogue in Grove End Road, London. Memorial at Mauthausen camp. A memorial plaque at Brownlow Court, Hampstead, erected in 2022 by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation and AJEX -U.K.

Historical Marker on building he lived in before deployment.