Sister Laurence
Whilst a prisoner of war recovering from his wounds in Bethune Hospital, Bert Pooley was cared for by a woman he knew as Sister Laurence.
When Bert's wife Connie was told that her husband was "missing believed dead" she refused to believe it, having had dreams that he was being looked after by a "tall woman."
That woman was born Kate McCarthy. She became Sister Marie-Laurence when she took holy orders. She was over 6ft tall. As a nun she nursed soldiers during both the first and second world wars in Bethune - which is only a handful of miles from Le Paradis. During her lifetime she was known variously as Kate McCarthy, Kate Anne McCarthy, Sister Marie-Laurence, Soeur Marie-Laurence, Sister Mary and Sister Laurence.
Sister Laurence was a member of the French Resistance and helped to arrange Bert's repatriation to the United Kingdom. It is also thought that after the war she visited Bert in Southall. She helped 120 allied soldiers to escape. She was arrested in 1941 and sentenced to death but as our timeline below shows, she lived into old age.
After the war Sister Laurence was decorated for bravery by General Charles de Gualle and Winston Churchill. The London Gazette newspaper of January 21st 1947 reported her as receiving the King's Commendation for Brave Conduct Medal for "services during the enemy occupation of North-West Europe." After the war she returned to Ireland where she remained until her death in 1971.
Timeline:
1895 - Born in West Cork, Ireland
1913 - Joined the order of Franciscan Nuns of Calais
1914-1918 - Served as a nurse in Bethune Hospital
1920-1939 - Served at a convent in Louisiana in the USA
1939-1941 - Returned to Bethune Hospital and worked with the Maquis (French Underground Resistance)
18th June 1941 - Arrested and held in Bethune Town Prison
June 1941 - 1942 - Deported to Loss-Les Lille Nord and spent 13 months in solitary confinement.
June 1942 - Court marshalled and sentenced to death
12th August 1942 - Deported to Saint Gille where she was the only female prisoner
August 1942 - Marched through Brussels in lines of three - once again the only female prisoner
August 1942 - Deported on a train with injured German soldiers
September - December 1942 - Spent time as a prisoner in Anrath, Duisburg, Essen, Bremen, Hamburg
December 1942 - January 1943 - Moved to Lubeck and Hamburg for factory work
Summer 1943 - Moved by Rail to Cottbus in Prussia after bombing by the RAF
July 1943 - April 1945 - Prisoner in Ravensbruck Concentration Camp
April 1945 - Liberated by the Swedish Red Cross
April 1945 - Arrived in Malmo, Sweden, from Copenhagen
June 1945 - Travelled from Gothenburg in Sweden to Prestwick in England
June - September 1945 - Transferred to Glasgow and then London
Late 1945 - Returned to Ireland and served in a convent
June 21st 1971 - Died. She is buried in St Finbarr's Cemetery in Cork
The following is taken from the Southern Star Newspaper of West Cork of 29th April, 2015:
ONLY one question remains about the extraordinary heroism of West Cork woman Kate McCarthy – why hasn’t Hollywood made a movie about her life?
A nun who nursed Allied soldiers in WWI, McCarthy worked in the French Resistance during World War Two, was captured by the Gestapo, incarcerated in the notorious Ravensbruck Concentration camp, and later honoured by both the French and British governments.
Born Kate McCarthy in December 1895 in Drominidy, Drimoleague, she was still in her teens when she joined the order of the Franciscans in 1913, where she received the name Sister Marie-Laurence.
McCarthy worked as a religious nurse in WWI, caring for Allied soldiers in a hospital in Bethune, France.
However, when World War Two broke out, nursing was no longer enough – although the nun returned to her nursing post in Bethune during the Battle of France, she also joined the intelligence and escape network of the Musée de l’Homme, a significant organisation within the French Resistance movement.
During this time she helped more than 120 Allied solders to escape Occupied France.
However, after a courier from Béthune was caught by the Gestapo in Paris and informed on her under torture, McCarthy was arrested in June 1941.
She spent a year in solitary confinement before being sentenced to death in 1942 with a Frenchman and fellow resister, called Robert Hennton.
Hennton was shot, but McCarthy escaped execution. However, after sojourns in jails at Dusseldorf Lubeck and Hamburg – during which her body weight dropped from 70 kg to 26kg – she was sent to the Ravensbruck Concentration Camp. Ravensbruck was the only major Nazi concentration camp for women and Sr McCarthy was sent there for refusing to make gas masks.
There, she witnessed women being beaten to death and recalled how she and others were forced to stand in silence for hours in rain and snow as fellow prisoners collapsed around them from exhaustion and hunger. She was forced to do hard labour for 12 hours at a time – her only food a ladle of turnip.
‘Dogs were unleashed on the prisoners if they were not working hard enough.’
Prisoners were also severely beaten – a fate Sr Kate also suffered.
‘Sr Kate fell ill due to the hard labour and her weight dropped to 27kg – she was merely a skeleton,’ recalls her grand-nephew Tomas Hayes, who along with several other family members and the late Anne O’Suillivan of Drimoleague, has carried out extensive research into her extraordinary life.
Once again the Drimoleague woman was sentenced to death – she and the other prisoners were inspected every morning by the ‘huntsman,’ whose job was to ‘weed out’ the sickliest of the women forced to march past him.
‘Those who were condemned were women who looked tired and ill.
‘They were sent to the crematorium,’ explains Hayes, adding that although Sr Kate was picked out four times, she managed to escape every time.
In April 1945 the camp was liberated by the Swedish Red Cross and a few months later McCarthy arrived in London, where she met her brother Dan for the first time since 1936. After returning to France in 1946, she was personally decorated for her bravery by General de Gaulle and also by Winston Churchill. McCarthy was awarded the ‘Black Cat’ emblem of the Maquis.
Sr Kate returned to Ireland after the war where she remained until she passed away in 1971. She lived in the Honan Home Convent in Cork where she was appointed Mother Superior.
Following her death on June 21, 1971, she was buried in St Finbarr’s Cemetery.
On October 6th 2014, her name was included amongst those Irish people who had worked for the French Resistance and were remembered on a special plaque unveiled at the Irish College in Paris.
The Green Tiger web site has the following to say:
Katherine Anne McCarthy - also known as Sister Marie Laurence
One of the largest evasion groups was known as Musée de l’Homme. One of the group’s earliest members was Katherine Anne McCarthy, an Irish nursing sister from Cork. She had served previously as a nurse during the first World War and in 1940 she was serving as a nurse in the civilian hospital in Bethune.
During the fighting that raged across France in the summer of 1940, she found herself with several wounded British and French soldiers in her care. As these men recovered, she smuggled them out of the hospital and some of her earliest evaders made it through the lines to the beachhead at Dunkirk.
She later passed recovered patients on to one of the fledgling local Resistance groups and it was through this activity that she became involved with the wider work of the Musée de l’Homme movement. She was arrested at the Bethune hospital in June 1941.
At her trial she was condemned to death on the testimony of an informer. This sentence was commuted to deportation. During the next four years she was sent to various camps before being sent to the women’s concentration camp at Ravensbrück in December 1944. Miraculously she survived and was evacuated by the Red Cross in April 1944.
When Bert's wife Connie was told that her husband was "missing believed dead" she refused to believe it, having had dreams that he was being looked after by a "tall woman."
That woman was born Kate McCarthy. She became Sister Marie-Laurence when she took holy orders. She was over 6ft tall. As a nun she nursed soldiers during both the first and second world wars in Bethune - which is only a handful of miles from Le Paradis. During her lifetime she was known variously as Kate McCarthy, Kate Anne McCarthy, Sister Marie-Laurence, Soeur Marie-Laurence, Sister Mary and Sister Laurence.
Sister Laurence was a member of the French Resistance and helped to arrange Bert's repatriation to the United Kingdom. It is also thought that after the war she visited Bert in Southall. She helped 120 allied soldiers to escape. She was arrested in 1941 and sentenced to death but as our timeline below shows, she lived into old age.
After the war Sister Laurence was decorated for bravery by General Charles de Gualle and Winston Churchill. The London Gazette newspaper of January 21st 1947 reported her as receiving the King's Commendation for Brave Conduct Medal for "services during the enemy occupation of North-West Europe." After the war she returned to Ireland where she remained until her death in 1971.
Timeline:
1895 - Born in West Cork, Ireland
1913 - Joined the order of Franciscan Nuns of Calais
1914-1918 - Served as a nurse in Bethune Hospital
1920-1939 - Served at a convent in Louisiana in the USA
1939-1941 - Returned to Bethune Hospital and worked with the Maquis (French Underground Resistance)
18th June 1941 - Arrested and held in Bethune Town Prison
June 1941 - 1942 - Deported to Loss-Les Lille Nord and spent 13 months in solitary confinement.
June 1942 - Court marshalled and sentenced to death
12th August 1942 - Deported to Saint Gille where she was the only female prisoner
August 1942 - Marched through Brussels in lines of three - once again the only female prisoner
August 1942 - Deported on a train with injured German soldiers
September - December 1942 - Spent time as a prisoner in Anrath, Duisburg, Essen, Bremen, Hamburg
December 1942 - January 1943 - Moved to Lubeck and Hamburg for factory work
Summer 1943 - Moved by Rail to Cottbus in Prussia after bombing by the RAF
July 1943 - April 1945 - Prisoner in Ravensbruck Concentration Camp
April 1945 - Liberated by the Swedish Red Cross
April 1945 - Arrived in Malmo, Sweden, from Copenhagen
June 1945 - Travelled from Gothenburg in Sweden to Prestwick in England
June - September 1945 - Transferred to Glasgow and then London
Late 1945 - Returned to Ireland and served in a convent
June 21st 1971 - Died. She is buried in St Finbarr's Cemetery in Cork
The following is taken from the Southern Star Newspaper of West Cork of 29th April, 2015:
ONLY one question remains about the extraordinary heroism of West Cork woman Kate McCarthy – why hasn’t Hollywood made a movie about her life?
A nun who nursed Allied soldiers in WWI, McCarthy worked in the French Resistance during World War Two, was captured by the Gestapo, incarcerated in the notorious Ravensbruck Concentration camp, and later honoured by both the French and British governments.
Born Kate McCarthy in December 1895 in Drominidy, Drimoleague, she was still in her teens when she joined the order of the Franciscans in 1913, where she received the name Sister Marie-Laurence.
McCarthy worked as a religious nurse in WWI, caring for Allied soldiers in a hospital in Bethune, France.
However, when World War Two broke out, nursing was no longer enough – although the nun returned to her nursing post in Bethune during the Battle of France, she also joined the intelligence and escape network of the Musée de l’Homme, a significant organisation within the French Resistance movement.
During this time she helped more than 120 Allied solders to escape Occupied France.
However, after a courier from Béthune was caught by the Gestapo in Paris and informed on her under torture, McCarthy was arrested in June 1941.
She spent a year in solitary confinement before being sentenced to death in 1942 with a Frenchman and fellow resister, called Robert Hennton.
Hennton was shot, but McCarthy escaped execution. However, after sojourns in jails at Dusseldorf Lubeck and Hamburg – during which her body weight dropped from 70 kg to 26kg – she was sent to the Ravensbruck Concentration Camp. Ravensbruck was the only major Nazi concentration camp for women and Sr McCarthy was sent there for refusing to make gas masks.
There, she witnessed women being beaten to death and recalled how she and others were forced to stand in silence for hours in rain and snow as fellow prisoners collapsed around them from exhaustion and hunger. She was forced to do hard labour for 12 hours at a time – her only food a ladle of turnip.
‘Dogs were unleashed on the prisoners if they were not working hard enough.’
Prisoners were also severely beaten – a fate Sr Kate also suffered.
‘Sr Kate fell ill due to the hard labour and her weight dropped to 27kg – she was merely a skeleton,’ recalls her grand-nephew Tomas Hayes, who along with several other family members and the late Anne O’Suillivan of Drimoleague, has carried out extensive research into her extraordinary life.
Once again the Drimoleague woman was sentenced to death – she and the other prisoners were inspected every morning by the ‘huntsman,’ whose job was to ‘weed out’ the sickliest of the women forced to march past him.
‘Those who were condemned were women who looked tired and ill.
‘They were sent to the crematorium,’ explains Hayes, adding that although Sr Kate was picked out four times, she managed to escape every time.
In April 1945 the camp was liberated by the Swedish Red Cross and a few months later McCarthy arrived in London, where she met her brother Dan for the first time since 1936. After returning to France in 1946, she was personally decorated for her bravery by General de Gaulle and also by Winston Churchill. McCarthy was awarded the ‘Black Cat’ emblem of the Maquis.
Sr Kate returned to Ireland after the war where she remained until she passed away in 1971. She lived in the Honan Home Convent in Cork where she was appointed Mother Superior.
Following her death on June 21, 1971, she was buried in St Finbarr’s Cemetery.
On October 6th 2014, her name was included amongst those Irish people who had worked for the French Resistance and were remembered on a special plaque unveiled at the Irish College in Paris.
The Green Tiger web site has the following to say:
Katherine Anne McCarthy - also known as Sister Marie Laurence
One of the largest evasion groups was known as Musée de l’Homme. One of the group’s earliest members was Katherine Anne McCarthy, an Irish nursing sister from Cork. She had served previously as a nurse during the first World War and in 1940 she was serving as a nurse in the civilian hospital in Bethune.
During the fighting that raged across France in the summer of 1940, she found herself with several wounded British and French soldiers in her care. As these men recovered, she smuggled them out of the hospital and some of her earliest evaders made it through the lines to the beachhead at Dunkirk.
She later passed recovered patients on to one of the fledgling local Resistance groups and it was through this activity that she became involved with the wider work of the Musée de l’Homme movement. She was arrested at the Bethune hospital in June 1941.
At her trial she was condemned to death on the testimony of an informer. This sentence was commuted to deportation. During the next four years she was sent to various camps before being sent to the women’s concentration camp at Ravensbrück in December 1944. Miraculously she survived and was evacuated by the Red Cross in April 1944.