View source for Simone Michel-Lévy

{{short description|French resistance member}}
[[File:SImone Michele-Levy KL Ravensbrück small.tif|thumb|Simone Michel-Lévy ]]
'''Simone Michel-Lévy''' (19 January 1906 – 13 April 1945) was a [[French Resistance]] worker. She had several pseudonyms – Emma, Françoise, Madame Royale, Mademoiselle Flaubert or Madame Bertrand - and is one of 6 female [[Ordre de la Libération|compagnons de la Libération]] (decreed on 26 September 1945).
==World War II==
Joining the staff of the [[Postes, télégraphes et téléphones (France)|PTT]] in 1924, she was allowed into the rédacteurs course in 1941 and made regional director of telephones, in which role she got involved in the "commutation" of telephonic communication, in Paris. This was a strategic position, which she used to set up a clandestine information network, in particular communication with Normandy, where her activities allowed the establishment of a radio network later used at the time of [[Invasion of Normandy|D-Day]]. Her Resistance activity went further, however - she organised a courier system to get messages to England, diverted telegraph and telephone material to Resistance groups, and sabotaged departures for the [[Service du travail obligatoire|STO]].
She was arrested by the [[Gestapo]] on 5 November 1943 and tortured by [[Georges Delfanne]]. Without having given away even her name, she was deported to [[Ravensbrück concentration camp|Ravensbrück]], then [[Flossenbürg concentration camp|Flossenbürg]], where she managed to organise a rising against the camp guards.  It was for this that she was hanged ten days before the camp was liberated by the Allies.
[[File:Place Simone-Michel-Lévy, Paris 7.jpg|thumbnail|The plaque for the Place Simone Michel-Lévy in [[Paris]], dedicated to her memory in 2006.]]
==Legacy==
Simone Michel-Lévy was one of twenty-six Resistance members to be commemorated in the [[Heroes of the Resistance]] postage stamp series. In 2006, la Place Simone Michel-Lévy was established in Paris to honor her contributions to the French Resistance movement.
==Sources==
* ''Messages des PTT, n° 342'', December 1984: "Quarante ans après l'histoire s'entrouvre. Les agents des PTT et la Résistance."
==External links==
* {{in lang|fr}} [http://www.ordredelaliberation.fr/fr_compagnon/678.html Biography on the Ordre de la Libération site] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090629210717/http://www.ordredelaliberation.fr/fr_compagnon/678.html |date=2009-06-29 }}
* [http://cryptocellar.org/Flossenbuerg/Michel-Levy.html The Execution of Simone Michel-Lévy, Hélène Lignier and Noémie Suchet]
* {{cite journal |last1=Sullivan |first1=Geoff |last2=Weierud |first2=Frode |date=July 2005 |title=Breaking German Army Ciphers |journal=Cryptologia |volume=29 |issue=3 |pages=193&ndash;232 |url=http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/pdf/papers/ucry_06.pdf |doi=10.1080/01611190508951299|s2cid=23474156 }} Page 197 describes deciphered messages ordering execution and reporting result.
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Michel-Levy, Simone}}
[[Category:1906 births]]
[[Category:1945 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Jura (department)]]
[[Category:French Resistance members]]
[[Category:Companions of the Liberation]]
[[Category:French people executed abroad]]
[[Category:People who died in Flossenbürg concentration camp]]
[[Category:Resistance members who died in Nazi concentration camps]]
[[Category:French civilians killed in World War II]]
[[Category:People executed by Nazi Germany by hanging]]
[[Category:French people executed in Nazi concentration camps]]
[[Category:Resistance members killed by Nazi Germany]]