Suzanne Hiltermann-Souloumiac

Suzanne 'Touty' Hiltermann-Souloumiac, née Hiltermann, (17 January 1919 – 2 October 2001) resisted the Nazis as part of the Dutch-Paris escape line during World War II.

She survived Ravensbrück concentration camp.

She received the US Medal of Freedom in recognition of her help to evading Allied airmen.

After the war she wrote children's stories and founded a French school in Hong Kong.

Suzanne Hiltermann was born to a family of Dutch magistrates and industrialists.

She spoke French, English and German fluently - and a little bit of Hebrew and Chinese too.

In 1939, she enrolled in the Sorbonne in Paris to study ethnology.

In the first months of the German Occupation of France, Hiltermann met a Dutch official named Herman Laatsman.

She soon joined him in his resistance work helping Jews to escape to the southern, unoccupied zone and gathering intelligence.

Hiltermann worked closely with Leo Mincowski, who worked as a translator in the German Embassy in Paris.

A German diplomat, Karl-Heinz Gerstner, passed information to Mincowski and Hiltermann.

They shared it with Laatsman and a local French resistance group to which Mincowski belonged.

In November 1943 Laatsman agreed to link his group in Paris to the escape line that Jean Weidner was putting together.

Laatsman, Hiltermann, Mincowski and their colleagues took primary responsibility for taking care of downed Allied aviators coming through Paris for the new escape line, called Dutch-Paris.

Because Hiltermann spoke English, she acted as liaison with the aviators hiding in and around Paris.

Hiltermann found other Allied aviators hiding in the region through her connections with local French resistance groups.

Hiltermann also served as a courier and guide between Paris and Toulouse, escorting aviators on the night train.

Dutch-Paris helped at least 112 Allied aviators and servicemen.

French police arrested a Dutch-Paris courier in Paris on 11 February 1944 and turned her over to the Germans a few days later.

On 26 February 1944, German forces coordinated raids on all Dutch-Paris addresses in Paris that were associated with the aviator escape line.

They raided Hiltermann's apartment on the rue du Laos at 6:30am.

She was interrogated several times and subjected to the “baignoire” torture.

She was deported to the women's concentration camp at Ravensbrück on 18 April 1944.

Hiltermann was kept with the French prisoners in Ravensbruck.

She formed life-long friendships there with Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz, Jacqueline Pery, Simone Souloumiac and Germaine Tillion.

When 17 year-old Simone Souloumiac despaired, Hiltermann encouraged her by saying, “Hold on!

We need to see the end of the movie.”

Hiltermann was liberated from Ravensbrück on 23 April 1945 on the “White Buses” sponsored by the Swedish Red Cross.

After a short recuperation in Sweden, Hiltermann returned to Paris on a special US Army Air Force repatriation flight.

In 1946, Hiltermann married the brother of her friend from Ravensbrück, Captain Pierre Souloumiac of the French Merchant Marine.

The couple had three children: Anne-Geneviève, Irène and Alain Souloumiac.

Pierre Souloumiac died on 3 February 1956.

Hiltermann-Souloumiac published stories for children.

She also became the correspondent in France for the Haagse Post, a Dutch weekly owned by her brother, G.B.J. Hiltermann.

She was elected to the city council of Longjumeau.

She also organized the Festival of Freedom in Balizy on the square where the chapel of a Commandry of the Knights Templar used to stand.

Hiltermann and her friends from Ravensbrück often gathered at her home.

During one of their long discussions about the Algerian War of Independence, the women invented the new concept of "clochardisation" to describe the terrible marginalization that affects a large part of humanity.

They sympathized with the Algerians who were fighting for their freedom.

In 1960 Hiltermann-Souloumiac married a Dutch diplomat, Baron Albrecht van Aerssen.