Helene Moszkiewiez

 Helene Moszkiewiez

Helene Moszkiewiez worked within the Belgian Resistance during World War II, and maintained three identities, Jewish, Belgian and German, working for two years as a Clerk in Gestapo Headquarters in Brussels.

She was born on December 20, 1920 and was 19 when the Germans occupied Belgium in May1940.

Before the War she met a young Belgian Soldier named Francois at a Library in Brussels and after the German Occupation she met him again, wearing a German Uniform and working for the Belgian Resistance.

She accepted his offer to be his Secretary inside German Gestapo Headquarters.  She was Jewish and so had even more to fear from the Germans yet she continued to work with the Resistance.

 In her work she heard the screams of the Gestapo Victims being beaten and tortured, she stole information to rescue Jews scheduled for Transport to the Death Camps, she helped a truckload of Allied POWs escape by driving them to the Swiss Border and she killed a Senior Gestapo Officer in cold blood in a public park.

Helene was married to her First Husband, Albert, for just 1 week before the Germans sent him to the Auschwitz Death Camp where he was murdered.

Helene’s Parents were also deported to Auschwitz (on the last Transport leaving Belgium) where they were murdered in 1944.

After the Liberation of Belgium Helene was nearly hung as a German Collaborator for having worked the Gestapo until her work with the Belgian Resistance became known.

In 1946 she received a Certificate of Service, signed by British Field Marshall Montgomery.

Francois, who recruited Helene, had turned into a Double Agent and denounced several Resistance Fighters to the Germans. He was tried for Treason in London and hanged.

Helene married a Englishman, Albert Abraham Celmaster, a Member of the Intelligence Service and moved to Vancouver, Canada where they had 2 Children.

Her Husband also encouraged her to wrote a Memoir which she did called “Inside the Gestapo: A Jewish Woman’s Secret War.”

Her Memoir was turned into the 1991 Film “A Woman At War” starring Martha Plimpton as Helene.

Hélène Moszkiewiez died on June 18, 1998 in Southampton. She was 78 years old.