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January |
Three Resistance movements combine to form Mouvements Unis de la Resistance (MUR)
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Spring |
Jacqueline begins work for Resistance leader Jean Moulin’s right-hand man Daniel Cordier in Paris. She is now in touch with all the resistance groups in France.
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May |
National Council of the Resistance (CNR) formed
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September 24 |
As part of her job, Jacqueline finds lodging for agents parachuted in from London. She is obliged to use her real name when signing leases to ward off suspicion. The arrest of any one of these agents will lead the Gestapo (Nazi internal security police) to Jacqueline. The work is so risky she that she is about to be reassigned, when one landlord, on vague suspicions and the hope of collecting a reward, goes to the Gestapo to report the tenant that Jacqueline has placed with her. The Gestapo descends upon the agent in his apartment. He swallows a cyanide pill before they seize him, but does not die immediately. No one in the network learns of his arrest. Finding her name on the lease, the Gestapo arrests Jacqueline the following day.
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October |
Jacqueline spends six months at Fresnes prison in solitary confinement.
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Late April |
Jacqueline is deported to Ravensbruck.
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Women working in Ravensbruck |
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June 6 |
D-day invasion of Normandy
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August 15 |
Allied landing in southern France
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August 25 |
Liberation of Paris
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March |
Near death from exhaustion, starvation and a raging fever, Jacqueline is saved by a friend who steals a pass that allows her to stay in her barracks and rest.
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April 24 |
Jacqueline is liberated by the Swedish Red Cross after being held with 12 others as hostages during the liberation process. She spends her first night of freedom in the woods less than a mile from the camp.
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May 7 |
Unconditional surrender of Germany
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August |
Jacqueline returns to France from Sweden where the former inmates convalesce.
Jacqueline marries Pierre Pery, a survivor of Buchenwald concentration camp, several months later. Together they leave for New York, where Pierre has been offered a job with Air France. JJacqueline has a daughter, but because she is in such poor health from her ordeal in the camps, the family returns to France when she is pregnant with her second child. She pulls through, giving birth to a healthy baby girl. When her daughters are in their early teens, Pierre becomes very ill, a result of his treatment in Buchenwald. Jacqueline supports the family by working at France’s agricultural export commission promoting French products abroad. None of her colleagues are aware of her past. Pierre dies a few years later.
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Newlyweds Jacqueline and Pierre Pery
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