After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - The Spy Who Fooled The Nazis

Episode Date: August 17, 2026

She was the only person during World War Two to parachute from Britain behind enemy lines into Nazi-occupied Germany, all while wearing a dress.Who was Agent Zo? And what were the incredible missions she was involved in as part of the Polish resistance?Joining Anthony and Maddy to tell her story today is author and historian Clare Mulley, who wrote the book Agent Zo: The Untold Story of a Fearless World War II Resistance Fighter.This episode was edited by Hannah Feodorov. The producer was Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Freddy Chick.UK listeners only: Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards. Click to place your vote on the Spotify mobile app: https://open.spotify.com/s/xhg6PJaSign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards. Click to place your vote on the Spotify mobile app: https://open.spotify.com/s/xhg6PJa Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello After Dark listeners. It is I, Anthony Delaney, one of your co-hosts from, of course, After Dark. Now listen, we have some good news. We have been shortlisted for the top 20 in the Listeners Choice Award category for this year's British Podcast Awards. Now, we made the top, I think it was five last year. So we are greedy historians and we want to make that top five again. This year, things are slightly different though. You can only vote for us in this long list in the Spotify app. And you'll find a link in this week's episode that'll take you to vote for us. As a matter of fact, you can vote for us three times. So if you feel so inclined, please do that. We want to make that top five. We're going to smash it this year. I think we're going to take it, he said, with absolutely no confidence. But lend us your vote and we'll see how well we get on. Heading for the top five, I know we can do it. In Nazi occupied Europe, a single piece of paper had the potential to be more lethal than a weapon. A forged passport, a coded message, a list of names. If discovered, any evidence of defiance could obliterate an entire

resistance network. Yet one woman carried countless of these secret messages through heavily armed enemy territory of Nazi-controlled Europe. She was a teacher by trade, a soldier by choice, and one of the most fearless resistance fighters of World War II. History would remember her simply as Agent Zoe. Welcome to the secret world of After Dark. Hello, I'm Maddie. And I'm Anthony. And in today's episode, we are going into the heart of Nazi occupied Europe, to Poland specifically. And we're looking at the resistance there and a really remarkable woman known as Agent Zoh. Now, joining us to tell her story is the award-winning public historian and author Claire Mully. Claire, welcome to After Dark. It's lovely to be here After Dark.

Very excited to have you. We are After Dark personified. Claire, your work generally has focused on women's experience during World War II, which is so interesting in and of itself. This particular book, Agence O, the Untole Story of a Fearless World War II Resistance Fighter, what was it about this particular story and this particular woman that drew you in? And what's not to love? She was the only person during the war to parachute from Britain, from Bedfordshire, actually,

behind enemy lines into Nazi-occupied Germany while wearing a dress. I mean, what's not to love? Of course, that dress was actually had military significance because she had to disappear as quickly as possible into civilian population, and women in the 1940s tended not to be wearing trousers. She was also one of the very first women to serve in the Second World War. She served the entirety of the war, so one of the longest serving people, male or female during the war, and her achievements are extraordinary. And also, I'm very drawn to these stories.

I mean, it's great to be on After Dark because I felt that with this story I was really bringing something out of the shadows. This is a story that was deliberately kept quiet. I think there are so many people who we encounter from the past on this show and we were talking off Mike about just the broad range of history that we cover.

And Agent So for me is one of those people that you would love to meet. Oh my God, I mean, she is a personal hero of mine having read Claire's book. Claire, let's set the scene a little bit and the stakes, I suppose, of this story before we get into exactly who this woman was. I think if anyone listening knows anything about the Second War, it's the invasion of Poland that really sparks the conflict.

But talk to us about what happens in that land in that state once the Nazis take over. What is the condition like at this moment? Well, if you want to set the context, I think you really have to remember that Poland has this history of centuries of being invaded, occupied, parts of it annexed after its very aggressive neighbours. And centuries, of defiance and resistance and liberation as well. So the Polish people are extremely proud. They've had through generations had to fight for their freedom. And they only were restored to the map of Europe after about 120 years at the end of the First World War. And so Zoe is part of this generation. When she was born in 1909, the part of Poland that she was born in in the Northwest was then actually

part of the Austrian Empire. And so her first language was actually German legally, I've ironically, she was German. And of course, this becomes very useful to her. I mean, when she was growing up, even her name, her name is Elspietta, which is Elizabeth in Polish. But she had to be known as a little girl in public, at least, as Liesel, whereas at home she knew she was this proud pole inside. So she learns to have a double identity as she is growing up. And again, as a special agent, this becomes extremely useful when she has to have a legend. So she is, she is born and she said, I sucked in patriotism with my mother's milk. I love that phrase. Very powerful. powerful. What a great line. So she has grown up knowing and getting all of these skills that would be useful for her. But she is like a stick of rock all the way through. She is Polish hardcore. It's so interesting to me. You talk about how it's really sort of written into Polish culture, I suppose, and certainly Polish history, this idea of the constant invasion and liberation and that this is something that's been going on for centuries and this is very much a contested territory. When the Nazis invade Poland and the Polish government then flees and sort of

sets up a free state. Is that something that is sort of done very quickly because they're so used to this because of their history? It's not quite like that. And I would dispute the word flee. I mean, they took a strategic decision. So they are invaded, as you said, on the 1st September 1939, from the West by the Nazi Germans. But just 17 days later, they're invaded a second time, separate invasion from the Russians, the Soviets coming in, the Red Army coming in from the east. And so Poland, it actually is forgotten often that they put up a very good defence in the first couple of weeks of the war, but they know they can't continue to fight on effectively on two fronts simultaneously. So they take the strategic decision to pull out

their armed forces. They evacuate 350,000 Polish troops out through Romania. They regroup in France. They take out their government, which sets up as a government in exile in Angéinier in France, and then after the fall of France in London. They take out the first Enigma codebreakers. And they come through this city that was then called Levovre, which is now Leviv in Ukraine. and Zoe was actually deployed at the start of the war in the defence of Levov. So she's helping to get all of these armed forces and political forces out of the country. So it's not fleeing, it's a political decision and, in fact, imperative at the start of the war that they did so. I love this idea that, well, I say love, it's an unfortunate position to be in, of course,

but that she has this dual identity, even as a child, a German identity and a Polish identity. And we know that Zoe is only one of the names that she goes by in the work that she does. But let's try and get a little bit closer to the person before we get into some of the missions. Tell us about her childhood, the family that she comes from, what her life is like growing up. So she is the seventh of eight children in this family. So even that gives her, you know, she knows how to fight her corner and how to get attention and how to disappear when she wants to. and she is very committed to her family. I have to say at the end of the war, there are three of them, three of the siblings left.

So it's, in some parts of this is a tragic tale as well. But hers is one of great resilience and achievement. So she grows up in what was a German part of historic Polish territory and gains all these skills, language skills. She's never going to be tripped up later by not knowing a German custom or tradition. All of that sort of thing is very vital for her. But she knows as well. I mean, she only learns the Polish language after the end of the First World War when her city is liberated and becomes regrouped Poland again. And one of her formative moments in childhood is at the end of the First World War, she sees her father. He's a big man, a veteran himself. But he has tears coursing down his cheeks because he has heard the Polish national anthem being played openly on the streets of Turun, her hometown, for the first time. And she sort of swears to herself, then that she will fight for the freedom of her country to be Poland, but also for her own freedom to live her life as she wishes as the Polish girl she knows she is, the Polish woman.

It's sort of fascinated to me that from what you're saying, Claire, and what I know of this person is that she quite early on makes this decision that she's going to serve her country and that she is going to fight for it. And even in the 30s, she joins a women's military training program. She becomes a reserve officer, I think, in the training program. So she's more prepared than the average citizen in Poland for when the Nazis do invade. Is she anticipating this invasion from the Nazis on one side and the Soviets on the other? Is it just that simply as we've mentioned, that this history of constant invasion and threat that she feels she needs to prepare herself for a life of unpredictability? What's going on?

She's a senior instructor in the Women's Military Auxiliary, which sits outside of the Polish armed forces. The equivalent in Britain would be the first aid nursing yeomanry, the wonderful acronym the Fanny, because they were outside, they were a uniform military organisation, but not in the British armed forces. And that means they have the unique ability as women to carry weapons, because women in Poland or in Britain at this point weren't allowed. They could join the army and service translators as secretaries or drivers, but they couldn't bear arms. But in this organised body, they could. So she's very highly trained. And Poland is, you have to remember, they're progressive at the end of the First World War, one of the first countries to give women the vote.

LGBT, well, maybe not tea, but rights early on. But of course, it is a sexist society, much as our own was as well, with lots of issues in there and prejudices as well. But there is this body of women and they have this history of women serving. I mean, in the past, women might dress in male clothes to serve, but they also served as female medics with the armed forces. In fact, one of their previous wars is sometimes known as a women's war for the number of people who served, a number of women who served in it. So there is this history for her to be inspired by as well. But all of these generations of Poles have been brought up knowing

that their independence was fragile. They were vulnerable to their very aggressive neighbours. So they all knew they might have to serve. Can I just check with you then? In terms of that relative ease of access for women to serve in Poland or in the Polish context, is she unusual? She is unusual.

All of these women are unusual. They are a significant but small minority. But yes, she is fairly unusual. And even within that group, I mean, she's a senior instructor. She is, you know, she's an uncompronising woman, very charismatic women, particularly rally to her colours. She's a ship in full sail. She pulls people on in her wake. So she is a leader in this movement.

So we have the Germans invading. We have the Soviets invading. And we have so straight away doing things like organising evacuation routes, sorting out communication minds. She's absolutely in the thick of it. Talk to me a little bit about the courier missions that she does. And we're going to talk in more detail later on about some of the more specific work that she does. But what is her role as a courier? What does that mean? What are the dangers that she's facing? Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, the first thing she volunteers to do is to set up a military intelligence gathering network across Silesia, which is a big area. It's about the size of Wales, but at this point more strategically important in the war, it's on the border with Germany disputed territory. So the British, the Allies are desperate to find out how the German armed forces are organising in the first occupied territory in Europe. So she volunteers to do this and they say, okay, good luck. And within a week, she's got 50 people. Within a month, she has 200 people organised in cells of five for security reasons, all of whom are women, actually. And that is...

Yeah, well, it's because women do have a superpower. Certainly did in the 1940s, I would argue, still does to some extent today, that men don't have. So it is gender-specific. And it's not to be a honey trap. It's not to be a pretty face. In fact, being attractive could be dangerous because it makes your face more memorable. But what women's great strength was that they tended to be underestimated and overlooked.

Yes. no more so than by the very macho, misogynistic Nazi German forces. And so she recruits women who work as secretaries or translators or just cleaners in the occupying authorities offices or women who work in bakeries and look at changing garrison bread orders across an area of the size of Wales. You can see where the troops are going to be posted, where they're prepping for them, or who worked in laundrettes and can look at the different uniforms and see the numbers on the sleeve, work out where people are being posted.

So she does that and she gets, she digested from this group, the information from around her region. Absolutely brilliant military intelligence, but none of it is of any use at all unless she can get it to the Home Army headquarters. The Home Army is the resistance forces in Poland, as opposed to the Polish Armed Forces overseas, those troops they got out. So being a courier, of course, is one of the most dangerous roles at this point. So that is smuggling that information around. So, of course, she puts her hand up to do it herself. And they had, I mean, they were, they were brilliantly innovative. So she's got lots of fantastic hiding places for information inside plaster saints that she would carry on,

inside the shaft of a metal key or she had a little brass cigarette lighter, which is brilliant. You could light a cigarette and it wouldn't burn the microfilm and they started doing microfilming inside. So some really good kit. But even so, and we've still got some of it. We've got a key that her friend Maria used. And we've got her Zoe's clothes brush and the back slips off. So she could put a little slip of paper and aid memoir in the back and put it on.

And I love the fact that women were traveling around Nazi German occupied Poland during the war with a clothesbrush. And that was normal, you know. Obviously, if I did that, I'd be a bit neat here today. This was, and if you haven't read Claire's book, please do go out and go out and go because this is one of the things that sits with me. You know the way there's some scenes from certain books that, and this was one of those for me from your book, where there's this feeling of this invisible network of ordinary women starting to spill out across the map. And I just, I'm getting goosebumps right now actually remembering it because it was so compelling in its extraordinary ordinariness in that sense. And that is definitely one of the things, the images that sticks with me. Right.

We are going to take a break now. But when we come back, we're going to talk all about how we get to this name, Agent Zoh. So, Claire, talk to me about the moniker Agent Zoh. When does this come into play? Because you mentioned at the beginning, you know, this is a woman who has lots of legends who slips through different identities. When does this become the label that she's using? Yeah, I mean, she does. She uses, she's Selma.

She's got lots of different wartime nomadur. But Zoe is the one that sticks, and it's a very heartfelt choice. It's short for Zofia. It's actually Zofia, so Sofia in Polish. And she chooses it because it's the name of two women who are very dear to her. One of them is her elder brother's wife. He died just before the war. and unfortunately his wife took her own life with his service pistol afterwards she couldn't bear it.

And so that is something that obviously is very ingrained in Zoe's psyche. And the other one is her very dear friend who was killed just before the outbreak of war in a train crash, which Zoe put down to the machinations of the Germans, trying to be provocative, trying to do a full flag operation to provoke Poles into war, to give them some excuse for invading. And I don't know, I think actually it may just have been a train crash, but she carried this as one of the first women who were killed in Nazi German aggression. And so what she's doing, she always carries in her heart the courage, bravery and names of the women around her. For her, it's a collective effort. And she feels very strongly that the women aren't getting the credit that they should, the respect that they should. So here is her demonstrating, even in her name, that she is bearing the names of other women serving alongside her. It's so powerful. And it feels it feels vengeful as well. It feels, you know, this is a sort of a secret fuck you to the Germans, really. Is it unusual in terms of spies, male or female, to pick their own names like this? No, not necessarily. I mean, there's lots of sorts of right. There's a man in this book who's Kazimir Zeliske, it's a fantastic character. I love quoting him. He was hilarious. You might have come across that. He calls her a captain in a skirt at one point, you know. I mean, he's a brilliant foil for her in some ways. And he was asked to come up with a codename. And he was, sort of put on the spot. There was his officer asking him. And he looked behind the officer

and there was a bookcase. He was looking for inspiration. He's not much of a reader. Sorry, podcast listeners. But then he sees something he likes on the shelf. So his code name is rum. But there's another woman who served in the Warsaw Upprising. He's actually still with us. She's wonderful. And she wanted to pick. She thought, oh, I'll pick this code name, Star or Ray, you know, something lovely. And her commanding officer of her unit looked at her. She's quite short and he called her Donut. So she's called Donut. That was an object. I give them to her. So, you know, some people had more opportunities than other. Talk to me then about her link to Britain, because this starts to turn a corner in her story,

doesn't it? So how does she end up there and why is she specifically chosen? So she serves as a courier for quite some time doing this intelligence gathering work and then transporting that information to Warsaw. And then, of course, they use land courier route as well. they will radio as much information as they can across to the Polish government in exile, especially in Britain. That's a very fast way to do it. But you can't radio anything that's too sensitive that might be picked up by the enemy. You can't radio maps or documents that need to be forged.

So they have a land courier route as well that she's working on. And after the fall of France, they can't continue to go through France. And they find one of the fastest routes is to take information from Warsaw right into the heart of the Nazi Third Reich, into Berlin itself. And Zoe is picked for this work because she's then one of the first. their most experienced couriers. And she, of course, has fluent German and all of these skills. And she's also blonde and blue-eyed. And of course, not all Germans are blonde and blue-eyed. Let's not fall for that trope. But it doesn't hurt her that she fits that stereotype.

So she is doing this one of the most perilous routes as a courier. And then, unfortunately, I mean, we haven't really talked about the peril, but there's a number of times where she has to leap from trains or disappear into crowds. And she has to fingerprint her once. And she manages to just smudge her fingerprint, that idea saved her life on that occasion. There's so many near a hair's breadth of being caught. And eventually her name and face is picked up by the Germans and they're all wanted posters for her. And she knows she can't continue to work on that route. But she is so experienced that the commander of the Home Army, the Polish resistance forces, appoints her as his personal emissary. So I think this is certainly the only woman that I found in the war who was the emissary of the

commander in chief, so personal representative of an allied army. And he appoints her to go take two very important microfilm to Britain and to undertake two missions in his name when she arrives, which sounds great, get out of the war. But to go from Warsaw to London takes going over nearly a thousand miles of enemy occupied territory. I have to say this is one of the most enjoyable chapters to write because it's this incredible daring, you know,

you can see that Indiana Jones map scrolling with palm trees popping up. You know, she gets thrown out of windows and has to hide in water tenders of a train and gets nearly drowned. And she's shot at in the freezing mountain passes of the Pyrenees. It's extraordinary. I mean, it is like an Indiana Jones, only the stakes are so much higher and so much. And the paperwork's all there in the archives. It's just fantastic. Yeah. It's, it really is a remarkable story. And she, she must have had nerves

of steel to do half of what she did. I mean, it's really incredible. Talk to me, Claire, about, in September 1943, when she has come to Britain, she's completed the missions and she needs to get back to Poland. And she is parachuted back in, isn't she? As part of the, is it the silent unseen? I'm not going to attempt the Polish. The Chico Chemni. Yes. Thank you very much. Yeah. So she arrives on the 1st of May, 1943. She undertakes her two missions, both very important, but we don't have time for everything. One of them will save many thousands of lives, the work that she does. But then she helps to train up the elite Polish special forces, which are known as the Chico Chimni, the silent unseen, or sometimes translated as the dark and shadowy, so that's quite nice for your part.

So she's training these people? Yes, not in weapons and explosives or physical fitness things, but on conditions that they will face when they're parachuted back behind enemy lines. Because a lot of these men, they cream off the top sort of 2,000 of the 350,000 that get overseas, put them through training and only a few hundred of them qualify. And then when they're being parachuted back, of course they need to know how to respond to different German uniforms on the same. streets and what's been rationed or what's not been in the shops for two years. You know, if they make a false move, they'll be recognised immediately. So she's training them in that. And she has herself trained in parachuting. Because they say to her, you know, at the end, she's trained these guys at, Audley Endhouse in Essex, actually, at a special training station

43 in the war where they were based. And then she, they say, well, we want to thank you. Would you like an apartment in London or lots of polls are based up in Scotland? Would you like to be up there? And she said, what are you talking about? You know, I've got to go back and serve my country. And they said, well, that's very noble. But unfortunately, you can't. go back because there's only one way to get back and that's to parachute and you know you're a lady. So she is the only one. And that hasn't stopped us so far. No, exactly. She parachutes, she completes the training in parachutes back in September 43. And actually three aircraft went out that night, British four-engine Halifax bombers, but there was incredibly hard flack.

And so two of them returned, but her plane pressed on. And she would have heard that horrible kind of metallic fairground pinging sound of that hitting the fuselage of the plane. Wow. But they pressed on and she returned. And she did it all in a dress. as well I mean she is in a dress she's in a lovely blue silk dress but on top of that of course she has a it's September she has a fullish overcoat on top of that she has her parachute drop suit on top of that with a spade a sort of trowel to dig a hole to hide her parachute if she needs to a flashlight she has two guns of which she says she's very proud and she has a little tiny thing sewn into the hem of her skirt as well

in case it all goes horribly wrong she has a poison pill cyanide tablet yeah so she's very well prepared it's not just a woman in a dress yes before we move on to the Warsaw uprising specifically. I just want to dwell a little bit on the Chicka-Chemne because this is an elite force, right? Tell us a little bit about what they're doing. I mean, obviously, we're getting this idea that they're parachuting in and they're, but just tell us about the types of people that make up this elite force. Yeah. So as I said, they sort of creamed off the top 2000. As I said, they creamed off the top 2000 from the Polish armed forces and put them through this incredibly rigorous training. Now, people might have heard of the British SOE, the Special Operations

executive, the most famous branch of which was F section. So F is for France, are people being sent to France. Thirty-nine women were sent to France alone. 13 did not come back. But there's also P-section, which is Polish section. There's various other Belgium, other sections as well. And so the British might sort of classify these as S-O-E-P section. But the Poles see themselves very much as the Polish elite special forces. And they had their own radio codes. They're very independent in security and so on from the Brits. But they were using British training bases. trainees and so on. So not trainees, they're all poles. And so she is a member of this group. And they're trained in all the things that the special forces are trained in. So you have, they've all got a

minimum standard of fitness and combat experience and so on. But they're trained in silent killing, which is killing just with a rope, a knife, or your bare hands. They're trained in parachuting. And they've got specialism. So wireless transmitting, there are forgery experts, security experts, all these different groups sent back to support the resistance. And mainly the Chico Chemni, the peace section, are being sent back to Poland. But they also went to France, to Italy, what was Yugoslavia and so on as well, to support the resistance. So a hugely important force, actually. And presumably the Nazis are aware that this is happening and are looking out for these people. Very much so, yes. So quite a few of the Chico Chimni were picked up,

did not come back, were executed. Some survived in prison of war camp. Some survived in the open fight and of course post-war, many of them came to a terrible end. Maybe we'll get to that later. We will. And on our way there, I want you to take us now to August, September, 1944 and the Warsaw uprising, because this brings us to, I suppose, not to simplify too much, but the emotional climax of this particular task and what's happening here. And by the way, if you are a producer, TV producer, listening or watching this, you need to come, and a film's not going to cut it, you're going to need to make a TV series. So take us into this episode, then, Claire, that begins with the Warsaw Uprising. So Zoe is desperate to get back to Berlin because she wants to serve in her

national uprising. This is a point of honour for her. And she does parachute back. She's actually ready for the preparations for that. And there's quite a high bit of dramas of betrayal and hiding out in a convent, all sorts goes on. But the Warsaw Uprising, it's very careful. carefully planned. The Poles are desperate to liberate their country from the extremely brutal Nazi German occupiers. I think British people tend to have an idea of what conditions are like inside France. Well, you know, it's that to the nth degree because the Nazis, the Nazi Germans are so racist. They don't consider the Slavs to be fully worthy human beings. You know, they wanted to have their territory and have them as an enslaved population. And so the polls are desperate to rise up,

but they have been bravely harrying the enemy, but doing it from the shadows, a clandestine war. For them, it's honourable to bring the fight out into the open. But they have to wait until August. This is after D-Day, we've got British or allied troops back in continental Europe pushing their way towards them. So it's coordinated. But they're also under pressure because in June 1941,

the Soviet Union changes sides in the war after Hitler betray Stalin. And so they join the Allies. And this is incredibly difficult for the polls. You know, at the start of the war, they are invaded by the Soviet Union. Now they're told you're all friends now. But of course, they don't entirely trust the Soviets correctly. There are many betrayals, many tragedies. And so they want to rise up and liberate their capital city before the Red Army,

for the Eastern Front arrives so they can welcome them as equals and allies, rather than be beholden to them for their liberation. militarily, this is a campaign against the brutal Nazi Germans, but politically it's also to establish themselves as liberators of their own capital before the Soviet Union comes in and takes the credit. So it's very highly coordinated. It launches at 5 o'clock in the afternoon on the 1st of August 1944. The polls know by this point that the Germans are being pushed back. You know, when they first arrived in Poland, they're incredibly cocksure. Now they see the wounded coming I mean, back from the Eastern Front, alcoholic, uniforms in pieces, you know, very depressed and demoralised.

I think this is the moment. They think it'll take them two days to liberate Warsaw. But they are prepared. They've got caches of weapons, food, so on, to keep them going for two weeks. But in fact, the campaign takes two months they are fighting on. And the conditions are appalling. And Zoe is at the heart of this fight. And unfortunately, I mean, it's an incredible story. I've done a podcast one day for every day of that campaign. campaign, in fact. It's incredible courage, resilience, it's harrowing. But it's also, there are more marriages during the Warsaw uprising than at any time in Polish history, because these young people are coming together serving. So you get this sense of really intense

emotions. It's so intense. You know, there's an account in the book of a friend of Zos who gets married in a church. They can hear the fighting on the front 400 yards away. And the church is just scattered with broken glass from its windows. And they're wedding meal is some pigeons they've managed to shoot down. And they've got two gladiola, someone found, growing in the ruins of the city. That's Hope you can. It's just beautiful. So it's this incredibly emotional moment, but also real courage and strategic brilliance as well. And compassion. When they have to retreat, they sometimes have to retreat through the sewers, through the city. And Zoe is helping to haul these people out. And the sewers, obviously,

they're full of sewage, but they're also full of broken glass and dead bodies. And the Germans, when they find out what they're doing, will open up a manhole and chucked down a hand grenade, or just pour in petrol and set it a light. And they bring out the German wounded as well to continue their treatment. It's extraordinary story, but eventually they are forced to capitulate after, I have to say, considerable bravery of pilots flying in to support the resistance, flying in low, into the teeth of machine gun fire. That's British pilots, also, of course, many Poles, but also South Africans, New Zealand, so on. And great betrayal from the Soviet Union, who won't even allow these pilots to land on the lands they've so-called liberated on the far side of Warsaw to refuel.

So they have to bring twice as much fuel. So they're basically flying gasoline tanks and half as many supplies on each of these perilous journeys. And when the Red Army arrives, they don't come to support their comrades, their allies. They just set out camp. The polls can see them from the tops of the last remaining tower blocks in the city, just encamped on the far side of the Vistula River. Just watching it all unfold. Just watching it unfold. Yeah.

So it's extraordinary piece of drama. It's such a claustrophobic moment. And I love Claire that you've found these moments of kind of light and humanity amongst all of this, because it is really brutal. But it does, I mean, the numbers of people who die in this conflict, the civilians, the Polish civilians and also the Home Army fighters. I mean, it's just staggering, isn't it? I have written here that somewhere between 150,000 and 180,000 civilians die

and possibly up to 18,000 of the resistance. fighters as well. I mean, it's hard to imagine in one city, in one place over, you said, a couple of months that this is happening. I mean, the brutality with which this resistance is met is staggering. Yeah, I mean, I did. I've had the honor to interview a number of women who served in the Warsaw Uprising, I mean, wonderful women, 16-year-olds, some of them, who had gone out, volunteered to go out across the city to try and find medical supplies to bring back to the field hospitals or women who helped as scouts to guide people through the sewers, you know, who had prepped and knew the routes to take people out. I'm incredibly brave. And I asked them, you know,

if you'd known about the casualty rate, do you think you would have risen up? And of course, there is no hindsight. They recognised the great tragedy in that. I mean, it's symbolically, it's a hugely important piece of Polish history, but the human cross is recognised. But I think they felt they had no choice. At that moment, it was impossible. You know, they were desperate. to serve, desperate to fight. How are you going to tell these people, no, you can't, you have to sit there and wait for the Red Army to come in? Of course, that's impossible. So there was no choice at that moment. But of course, without the great betrayal of Stalin, I would say it could have had a different outcome. It was impossible to predict that. Well, when we come back, we are going to talk about the outcome of this uprising and we will see you right after this break.

Right, so we know that, as Maddie was saying, some of those stats there about the devastation that's ruled on the civilian population. One of the things that actually struck me when we were looking at those stats as well as that. I just did not know this, that about 85% of Warsaw at the time was destroyed. Like, that's... It's hard to father, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. But talk to us before we start to move out of this episode then about where this leaves Zoe at this particular moment. What is she experiencing after the uprising has taken place?

So at the end of the uprising, the commander, Borke-Komoroski, decided that he would honour or recognise the courage and service of the key leaders of the uprising. So he gave out honours. I mean, obviously, they didn't have physical medals to hand out at this point, but they wrote them one bits of paper. He hid them in cashiers in various places so they could be recognised post-war. And Zoe said, what about the women who have served? And he agreed, but he said there's no legal way he'd do anything because women weren't, recognized soldiers. One of her missions in London had been to secure the status of women as soldiers in the Polish Home Army. And she'd written, she'd drafted the decree. No one was prepared to sign it

because they didn't really agree with this idea. But she'd got it already. She said, well, you know, here you are. So he signs it and they radio it back. And so women get recognized status as legal soldiers in the Home Army. And this means that they can finally have rank and recognition and honors and all of those things. And they also get recognition as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention. So soldiers have protections in times of war, which women had not. So previously, if the Germans had caught women, they had either been shot immediately as commandos or bandits, or they'd been brutally interrogated and then sent to be labour to death in a camp or sent to an extermination camp. So now women have legal status. And the Germans, I mean, they're not, they don't obey all the international rules. But at this point,

they are on the back foot. And so there is some work being done to try and preserve their credibility. And so they, they honour this. They set up prisoner of war camps. It's the only time in the war. They set up prison of war camps for women who had served female soldiers. And there are so many, we believe, around 12,000 women served in the wars or uprising alone. They have to set up two prisoner of war camps just for the women. And so this is, these are what lives are saved because of so. And she, of course, could have gone with the women, you know, with her head held high. But she actually is given last orders by the, commander of the Home Army and she continues fighting beyond. The Warsaw Uprising ends in

October, early October, 1944. And she continues fighting throughout the end of the war. Wow. So we have Germany surrendering in May 1945 and it's the end of the war in Europe. But then at the Yalta conference that happens in February of that year, so just slightly before the war ends, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin sort of agree what's going to happen about Poland, don't they? And it's, do you see this as a betrayal of the Polish people in terms of how the allies carve up that land, what they give to the Soviets who, you know, of course, have really not helped in the uprising? I think it's complicated. I know many Poles see it as a great betrayal. I think it's perhaps wrong to imagine that they carved this land up on a map sitting around a

table there. I mean, theoretically, they did exactly that. But this land is land that has been taken already by the Red Army. This is played out not necessarily just. around the conference table, but in the fighting, in the deaths, in the territory, gained and lost in the situation. And by the time this conference is happening, we talk about the big three, but I always kind of think there's a big two and Churchill, you know. He doesn't have the same authority as Stalin and Roosevelt at this point. He doesn't have the political will behind him. We don't have the economic resources. So really, I mean, Churchill is always, he's a man, he's a very complicated man. There's lots of negative things around him. But at this point,

I would say he is very pro-Poland. He admires the Polish fight. He was a strong supporter and friend of Sikorski, the Polish leader, who is dead by this point. And he is unable to secure a better deal for them. I think, you know, one of the great issues here is that the lack of communications, the lack of understanding of what is happening. For people like Zoe and others who have come to Britain in the war, I think they have a clearer-eyed understanding of what priorities are in Europe. You know, Roosevelt, is about, I know he's not Europe, sorry, but he is up for re-election. He cannot keep pressing. He doesn't have the will of the people to support continuing this. But inside Poland, there is this feeling that the war isn't over. They are the first country invaded. They do take up the fight. They never capitulate, unlike other country leaders, you know, Norway, France. They keep fighting throughout the war. Their record is extraordinary. The amount of military intelligence and the intelligence war that they provide. Their service in the RAF, you know, during the battle, you know, during the battle, of Britain, the two squadrons with the highest number of kills or victories were the Polish squadrons

three and three and so on. They fight at Montecisina. They fight at Tobruk. This isn't recognised in the outcomes of the war because after the war, Poland, the first of the Allies really with Britain is left with a Soviet-imposed communist regime. They swap one occupier really for another and they're again very oppressive and aggressive. And what is the feeling then of people who fought in the Home Army, people like so, who've been in the resistance? People who have you seen their friends, family give their lives, they've seen the devastation, and have sworn their allegiance to the Polish government in exile at this moment.

And then now suddenly they're being told you're under Soviet control. Well, it's appalling, of course. I mean, there is, the Polish government exile continues on all the way through until 1989 when Poland finally gets a democratically elected government and then they hand over the seals of state that they're taken out. And there's this wonderful symbolic moment. But that government is no longer recognized after the war. So all of the allies, all the world, recognizes this Soviet-imposed communist Polish regime.

And that's the one that, you know, that is the government that is seen to be operating internationally. And it is absolutely appalling for the polls. And I think for many people in the West, the Second World War ends in 1945. five and we think of, you know, last year it was the anniversary and we think of bunting and freedom and jammed hearts and parades. It's all very wrapped up in a little bow. It continues. The fight continues.

And for people like Zoe, they are incredibly torn between do we continue to resist? There are many organisations like me, which is an acronym, but it means no as well in Polish, that continue the fight against this Soviet regime. And there are many who think, well, we have to face realities here. We have to work towards the reconstruction of our country. You talked about the devastation of Warsaw. Warsaw, that needs rebuilding. And the social infrastructure as well needs rebuilding.

Zoe was a teacher before the war, and she throws herself into teaching because there is a generation who have lost their education. Even if you're going to continue the fight, you need to continue it through these means as well. So it's this incredibly difficult period. One of the things that always strikes me, particularly around women's histories in this period, is that there's almost this expectation that post the surrender in the, the surrender in, 1945. Women are just going to go back to what they did before and life, they have to re-assume those roles. And you've already hinted there that Zoh goes back to teaching. But she also, being the trailblazer that she is, can't just disappear into the shadows and doesn't just

meld back into everyday life. Talk to us a little bit about life in the 1950s, particularly for Zos, because this is still, as you're saying, there's a lot going on. still. But this is a very troublesome time for her as well. Yes. Well, I mean, so immediately after the war, one of the first things this new communist regime does is they extend a sort of hand of friendship or they guarantee safe passage for, I think it was 14 leaders of the resistance to meet, to talk about the transitionary phase, how things are going to work. And so these guys turn up in Warsaw and they are immediately arrested. They are sent to Moscow for a show trial and they don't come back. And so immediately the Soviets are, through this Polish communist regime,

are clamping down, arresting potential resistance leaders who might continue the fight against their imposed regime. And once they've dealt with a top leash, they work down and they arrest tens of thousands of senior resistance fighters, including quite a few of the Chico Chiemni who had survived the war, but other resistance leaders who's remained in country through the war. So people like Zoha are looking over their shoulders the rest of our lives? Everyone is looking over their shoulders. And in the 1950s, you said the 50s decade. I mean, this is the decade where in Britain we begin to realize that some women played a senior role. And you get films rather romantic, but wonderful in some sense, like Odette and carve her name with pride that recognize the role played by women behind enemy lines.

And in Poland, they realized that women started to play a role. So the great irony of Zoe's story is that she says from 5 o'clock in the morning on the 1st of September, 1939, very first moments of the war all the way through. she is so often a hair's breadth from being caught by the Nazi Germans, but she always manages to evade arrest, unbelievably at some points. The irony is that she is then arrested in 1951 by the communist Polish government, her own government, although she recognises the government in exile in London still. And they sentence her to 10 years in prison. And they torture her horrifically to try and get the names of other people

who had served in the resistance who they might need to arrest. But she doesn't speak. And one of the most extraordinary interviews I did was with a woman who shared her prison cell, who said that Zoe gave them all the strength to keep going. And suicide rates that had been fairly high in the women's prisons began to come down and so on. She was secretly educating them and giving them this sort of sense of ongoing defiance and the importance of resistance and continuing the fight and continuing to live. And she did actually get out four years early as part of a thaw. But she was arrested again later on in life.

By this point, she's getting on here. She's wearing bamboo tights and she's got, you know, that she's still a hazard, a danger to that regime. So they arrest her again in 1976. But she continues the fight. So she fights against martial law. She supports the solidarity movement. And again, I was lucky enough to interview Lech Faowenza, the first elected president in Poland. And he knew the importance that she had continued the fight all the way through.

She lived in Turu, which is quite close to Godin's the heart of solidarity and played a campaigning role there. And so afterwards, he honoured her. He gave her Poland's highest award for valour, the order of the White Eagle. But he actually said she wasn't that bothered. She's got a lot of badges by then. She's one of Poland's most highly decorated women. And then he realised what she'd really appreciate. And he promoted her in rank from sort of honorary captain to Brigadier General retired.

I loved this. So she's only the second woman in Polish history to be a general. And I think as well, even with Second World War histories or histories from the first half of the 20th century, they do feel distant to us. and yet so many of the people who played a role in that moment do come almost into our own time. They are an artie. I mean, one of the stories I really liked, I was talking to a woman who had been a kind of a carer,

you know, helped cook for her. And she remembered this time when she was in the kitchen cooking a meal and she suddenly heard this gasp from Zoe who was in her armchair. And she came rushing out and there was Zoe sort of glassy-eyed staring at television. She thought, oh my goodness. And Zoe was perfectly fine, but she was in shock because she had seen.

seen these images on the screen of towers collapsing and dust and debris floating through the air. And she was immediately transported back to the Warsaw Uprising. But it was 9-11. It was the Twin Towers. And you have this moment of history. You know, we're really holding hands. We're still in touching distance of this story. And it is part of our story as well. And we need to learn that to understand. Yeah. Absolutely. She died on 10th of January 2009. She was 99 years old. And I mean, just her life is so, is so extraordinary, Claire. I just, before, before we go, I can see why you would want to write about someone like this and the absolute joy as well as the horror of researching her story and her adventures, her service, her bravery. But how did you come to this story? What was

the first spark? Well, I'd written, so I've got, I'm working on my sixth book now, and I had written a previous book called The Spy Who Loved about a woman, Christina, Garbeck, better known in this country as Christine Granville, who was the first woman to serve Britain as a special agent, who served for the British throughout the war. So it's a very British story. I mean, she serves in three different theatres of the war. It's not based in Britain, but she was serving the British crown. But she was born Polish, and she was a Polish countess. And when that book came out, I was very honoured because I received the Polish National Cultural Award, the Bené Marita, which I went to collect at an event at the Polish embassy. It was just great.

And there were four men getting the award at the same time. They were all quite tall and very competent and confident, I'm sure. And at the back of the room, there was an elderly lady on her own. So I just made a beeline for her, you know. And I said, oh, excuse me, my name's Claire. And are you with one of these gentlemen? She said, oh, no, dear, no. I'm always invited at embassy events because I served.

I'm a veteran at the Second World War. I was like, oh, my goodness. And she said, I always come because the wine here is very good. And I knew then that I was going to get on with that. I was going to get on with her. And I said, oh, may I ask about your service? And she had been that 16-year-old girl who had gone across the city looking for medical supplies. And she said, one day, it was a good day.

She got to the university and she found 10 glass bottles of metalated spirits in the labs, which could be used as antiseptic, put them in her rucksack, started going back to the field hospital in a basement somewhere. And she heard the hum of the Luftwaffe coming in. And she was caught an incendiary bombing raid. So it's a fire bombing raid. And she started running, but then she felt something smash into her back, shrapnel from a falling building. But she was protected by these bottles, just one broke. So she kept going, but then she suddenly felt freezing in this burning street because the meths had soaked through the bag, soaked through her shirt, and it was evaporating off her back.

And she looked me straight in the eye. And she said, I knew then that I was going to die because I was a petrol bomb. But she just kept going. And she made it. She made it back to this basement, handed over the bottles. and all they said was, huh, you've broken one of these. That's what conditions were like in the uprising.

And I was like, oh my goodness, amazing. She said, what are you doing here? And, you know, I felt about this big. He was like, I'm about the first of interest. I don't have any sense of direction. You know, I'm no good at that. But I said, oh, I wrote this book about Christina Scarbeck. She said, oh, yes, an incredible woman.

But for goodness, I, why didn't you write about Zoe? And I had to say, I'm sorry, who's Zoe? And that was the first time I heard her name. So that's how I came to the story. That was incredible. It just is one of the, of those stories that will stick with you. And I know you've got a bit of an insight from listening to today's episode, but... There's so much more in the book. Honestly, the details are just

so incredible and unbelievable at many turns in the story. So do pick up Claire's book. You will not regret it. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of After Dark. If you would like to give us any more ideas for other Second World War topics that we might cover, then let us know. you can get in touch at after dark at historyhit.com. And until then, happy listening.