Fermanagh town to honour WWII resistance leader

Blue Plaque in memory of Monica de Wichfeld (nee Massy-Beresford).

A blue plaque is to be erected in member of a World War II Danish resistance leader with Irish roots.

Monica de Wichfeld (nee Massy-Beresford) was born in London in 1894 to John George Massy-Beresford and Alice Elizabeth Mulholland, daughter of John Mulholland, the 1st Baron Dunleath of Ballywalter.

Monica's paternal grandfather was the Rev. John Massy, a native of Co. Limerick who became dean of Kilmore.

Soon after the family moved to Derrylin in Co Fermanagh and Monice was raised on the St. Hubert's estate near Crom Castle.

She would spend her formative years near Derrylin, and was schooled in France and Germany, before becoming involved with the unionist militia Ulster Volunteers during the Home Rule Crisis.

Still in her teens, she participated in the 1914 SS Clyde Valley Larne gun-running operation led by Major Frederick H. Crawford. Monica's father John was a leader of the Ulster Volunteers in Co. Fermanagh, and she accompanied him to pick up a load of the guns and ammunition by car.

After the outbreak of World War I, Monica moved to London and in 1916 she married Danish aristocrat and diplomat Jorgen Wichfeld, the Secretary of the Danish Legation in London.

The couple moved to his Engestofte Estate in Lolland, Denmark, and they had three children, Ivan, Varinka and Viggo.

She became friend and lover of Kurt Heinrich Eberhard Erdmann Georg von Haugwitz-Hardenberg-Reventlow who lived in neighbouring Hardenberg Manor, who would later marry Woolworth heiress Barbara Woolworth Hutton 1935, future wife of actor Cary Grant among others.

For a period Monica embarked upon an international business career, in costume jewellery and cosmetics, rubbing shoulders with the likes of English playwright and composer Noël Coward, Clementine Churchill, wife of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and American actress Tallulah Bankhead.

In 1941 the Wichfields were ordered out of Italy because of their outspoken anti-Fascism, following which they returned to Denmark where Monica joined the resistance movement, becoming one of its leaders, first helping fund the production and distribution of underground newspapers Frit Denmark (Free Denmark) and Land of Folk (Land and People), and later supporting other activities of the Danish Communist Party led resistance.

She was put in charge of the resistance network in Lolland, reporting direct to Flemming Muus, an agent of the British Special Operations Executive, and leader of the Danish resistance who would later marry Monica's daughter Varinka.

During this time the Engestofte estate was often used to store firearms, ammunition and explosives and to accommodate parachute drops of supplies to the resistance, as well as for harbouring RAF paratroopers and refugees.

In late 1942 telephone transmissions between a secret agent and other resistance members were intercepted by Gestapo wiretaps. Under interrogation and torture, the names of 44 resistance fighters and 100 Danish families working with them came to light. Monica was among them.

She was tried before a Nazi court, found guilty, and sentenced to death. Her sentence caused outrage.

While several of her comrades were shot dead, Monica’s sentence was eventually commuted to life following an intervention from the Queen of Denmark, a family friend. She asked the court if the same offer extended to the other defendants, and when it was not, is reported to have turned it down flatly, and then sat down and casually powdered her nose.

Monica was moved from Denmark to Waldheim Prison concentration camp at Cottbus in eastern Germany, where she died from pneumonia brought on by tuberculosis on February 27, 1945, one month before the end of the war and 13 months into captivity.

Her body was never recovered, and her name is listed on the memorial wall in Ryvangen Memorial Park to commemorate fallen members of the Danish resistance.

The upcoming memorial is supported by the Ulster History Circle, Ulster-Scots Agency, and the parishes of Kinawley and Holy Trinity.

There is also a memorial to her in the Engestofte Church in Denmark, and in Derrylin her name is on the Parish Church on the Roll of Honour of those who gave their lives in World War II.

The unveiling of the blue plaque will be unveiled by Lady Dunleath of Ballywalter on November 11 at Kinawley Parish Church in Derrylin.