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.
Between two worlds
Born Charlotte Leitner on 19 December 1907 in New York, into a family of Polish-Jewish textile workers who had emigrated to the United States, “Lotka” was a refugee of Polish origin naturalised French. As a young woman she went to Paris to make a career in fashion: first as an apprentice milliner, then as a leading model at Madeleine Vionnet, one of the most prestigious couture houses in the capital.
A socialist, internationalist and pacifist activist, in March 1940 she married Captain Jacques Trolley de Prévaux, a naval officer from the Catholic aristocracy and a hero of the First World War — a union that caused a scandal in the navy of the time.
The Franco-Polish F2 network
From 1 April 1941, the couple joined the Resistance within the FFC-F2 network, an intelligence network led by Polish officers. Charlotte took the code name “Kalo”; as a P2 agent, she carried mail across the demarcation line and escorted Allied airmen across France.
Within the “Anne” sub-network, covering Toulon, Nice and Marseille, the couple gathered intelligence on the German navy (Kriegsmarine) in the Mediterranean. This information helped prepare the landing in Provence (Operation Anvil-Dragoon) on 15 August 1944.
The sacrifice
Arrested with her husband by the Gestapo on 29 March 1944 in Marseille, she was imprisoned at Les Baumettes, then tortured for several weeks at the Fort Montluc prison in Lyon. She never gave up the addresses she held in secret, thereby saving her network.
Jacques and Charlotte Trolley de Prévaux were shot together at Bron airfield, near Lyon, on 19 August 1944 — just four days after the landing in Provence.
Remembrance
Charlotte Trolley de Prévaux was declared “Died for France”. She holds the Resistance Medal (Official Journal of 17 May 1946) and the Croix de guerre, posthumously. Her husband Jacques was made a Companion of the Liberation.
The memorial of the Order of the Liberation writes of the couple: “United in the action of the Resistance, united in the ordeal of the prisons, they were found united once more in their sacrifice.”
Sources : Sources: Service historique de la Défense, file 16P358232 (Jean Medrala); MémorialGenWeb; Order of the Liberation; Géraud Létang, researcher at the École de guerre.