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Louisa Eva Gould (7 October 1891 – February 1945) was a Jersey shopkeeper and a member of the British resistance movement in the
Louisa Eva Gould (7 October 1891 – February 1945) was a Jersey shopkeeper and a member of the British resistance movement in the Channel Islands
The Channel Islands ( nrf, Îles d'la Manche; french: îles Anglo-Normandes or ''îles de la Manche'') are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwick of Jersey, ...
during World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
. From 1942 until her arrest in 1944, Gould sheltered an escaped Soviet slave worker known as Feodor Polycarpovitch Burriy on the island of Jersey. Following a trial, she was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp where she was gassed to death in 1945. In 2010 she was posthumously named a British Hero of the Holocaust
The British Hero of the Holocaust award is a special national award given by the government of the United Kingdom in recognition of British citizens who assisted in rescuing victims of the Holocaust. On 9 March 2010, it was awarded to 25 individ ...
.
Life
Gould was born Louisa Eva Le Druillenec in St Ouen, Jersey, on 7 October 1891. For most of her life she ran a grocery store at La Fontaine, Millais in St Ouen. Gould had two sons, Ralph and Edward, both of whom enlisted in the British armed forces during World War II. Edward, an officer in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, was killed in action in 1941.Resistance
During the World War II occupation of the Channel Islands, the Nazis used captured Russian soldiers as slave workers. Beginning in late 1942, Gould hid Fyodr Polycarpovitch Burriy, an escaped Soviet slave and former pilot who had been captured after his aircraft had been shot down. Aware of the severe penalties for harbouring enemies of the Germans, Gould said simply "I have to do something for another mother's son." Gould hid Burriy inside her St. Ouen home for 18 months.Arrest, trial and death
A neighbour later reported that Gould was harbouring Burriy, whom she called "Bill." In June 1944, the German forces searched her house. While they did not find Burriy, they found a scrap of paper that had been used as a Christmas gift tag, addressed to Burriy, and a Russian-English dictionary that he had used for practising his English. Burriy managed to avoid capture during the search and until the end of the war. Gould was arrested by the Nazis and charged. At trial she was sentenced to two years in prison for harbouring Burriy, and for the possession of a radio which she had kept despite regulations requiring her to hand it in. Arrested with her were her brother Harold Le Druillenec, and her sister Ivy Forster. Following her trial, Gould was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Her brother Harold Le Druillenec was sent to theBergen-Belsen concentration camp
Bergen-Belsen , or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concentra ...
, and would be one of only two British survivors. Louisa Gould was gassed to death in February 1945 at Ravensbrück, 2 months before liberation.
Recognition
In 1995 a memorial plaque was unveiled in St Ouen, Jersey; Burriy, the former Russian slave, attended its unveiling. In 2010 she was posthumously named a British Hero of the Holocaust. Gould's story is depicted in the 2017 film ''Another Mother's Son
''Another Mother's Son'' is a 2017 British war drama film directed by Christopher Menaul, written by Jenny Lecoat, and starring Jenny Seagrove, Julian Kostov, Ronan Keating, John Hannah, and Amanda Abbington.
The film is based on a true story ...
'' by Jenny Seagrove
Jennifer Ann Seagrove (born 4 July 1957) is an English actress. She trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and first came to attention playing the lead in a television dramatisation of Barbara Taylor Bradford's '' A Woman of Substance'' ...
.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gould, Louisa 1891 births 1945 deaths People from Saint Ouen, Jersey British people who died in Nazi concentration camps People who died in Ravensbrück concentration camp British women in World War II British civilians killed in World War II People killed by gas chamber by Nazi Germany