"Hold her against the wall!" barked
Kohl, his face contorted with rage. The guards complied, yanking me to my feet and pinning me to the wall.
Kohl pressed the barrel of the gun against my head and fired. My last thought was that my death had not been in vain. Others would live because of what I had done.
* * *
Florence had not only helped
Jacques escape, but the distraction she had created gave
Mathilde the opportunity she needed to escape as well. She would remember
Florence's story, and she would tell it to others.
Florence's parents were devastated to learn of her death. It was
Major Michael Warren who personally broke the news to them. While he did not tell them how she had died or what she had been doing, he assured them that
Florence's work was vital to the war effort, and that she had been killed in action serving her country. He presented them with a medal awarded posthumously to their daughter, the George Cross, the highest honor that could be awarded to a civilian. He would remember her, always knowing that he had helped send her to her death, but that she had saved others in the process.
Jacques managed to escape back to Britain, with help from
Victor and the French Resistance. He was heartbroken to learn of
Florence's death. She had been the love of his life, he owed his life and his freedom to her, and he would never forget her.
Valerie and
Marcel Dubois carried on the fight after
Florence was killed. After the liberation, they built a memorial in her honor and led a campaign to name a street in St. Nazaire after her.
Chantal Deschamps had thought of
Florence as an older sister. She eventually married after the war, and she named her first daughter
Florence.
Victor wrote a report detailing
Florence's key role in doing reconnaissance on the St. Nazaire Naval Base, noting that her work was vital to making the raid possible. That raid had taken the naval base out of action for the entire remainder of the war. He also reported what
Jacques had told him about how she had helped him escape, sacrificing her life in the process. It was
Victor who recommended her for the George Cross.
Walter Freitag would always remember
Florence, who had spared his life out of compassion. He would survive the war, and afterwards he would protect his mother and younger sister during the difficult postwar occupation, helping them get out of the Soviet sector.
Friedrich Kohl would also never forget
Florence, but for different reasons. After his failure which resulted in not one but two prisoners escaping right from under his nose, he was transferred to a combat unit in the German Sixth Army. His unit was sent into Stalingrad, where it would be trapped by the Soviet Army and would ultimately surrender in early 1943.
Kohl was sent to a gulag in Siberia, and he was kept there even after the war. For decades, he suffered far more than the suffering he had inflicted on others. During this time, he blamed
Florence for his plight, and she and her last words to him would haunt him until his eventual agonizing death.