The women and men

Soldiers, civilians, prisoners of war and resistance fighters — French and Polish figures whose paths linked France and Poland. Discover their lives.

The Free French women, female volunteers of the Free French Forces (FFL), marching in uniform. Photograph: Lebrecht Music & Arts / Alamy.

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  Polish officer, commander of the 35th FTP-MOI Brigade

  Victor Bardach, dit Jan Gerhard

  1921–1971 ·Second World War

  A Polish officer who joined the Polish army being reconstituted in France, Victor Bardach — Jan Gerhard — became one of the leaders of the FTP-MOI Resistance in south-western France, before commanding a Polish unit within the 1st French Army.

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• Agent of the Franco-Polish F2 intelligence network (“Kalo”)

  Charlotte “Lotka” Trolley de Prévaux, née Leitner

  1907–1944 ·Second World War

  A Jewish refugee of Polish origin naturalised French, a fashion model turned agent of the Franco-Polish F2 network, Charlotte “Kalo” Trolley de Prévaux was tortured without talking and then shot by the Germans in 1944, alongside her husband, for her work in the Resistance.

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  Polish general, commander of the Blue Army formed in France

  General Józef Haller

  1873–1960 ·First World War

  Born on 13 August 1873 in Jurczyce, near Kraków, Józef Haller — an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army who then joined the Polish military formations — took command in 1918 of the Polish Army in France, the "Blue Army", which he brought back to Poland in 1919. He became one of the leading military figures of the reborn Poland.

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  Polish photographer and resistance fighter (FTP-MOI of Marseille)

  Julia Pirotte

  1907–2000 ·Second World War

  A Polish photographer and photojournalist, Julia Pirotte is known for the work she produced in Marseille during the Second World War, where she documented life under the Occupation, the Resistance and the Liberation of the city. A member of the FTP-MOI Resistance, her life was also marked by exile and, after the war, by an important body of photographic work in Poland.

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