Mourning her own son, the mother who hid a Russian PoW from Nazi occupiers, and made the ultimate sacrifice
When Feodor Burriy, a Russian pilot in his early twenties, was brought down by German fire in 1942, he counted himself very lucky indeed. The plane’s only survivor, he was promptly taken prisoner and transported to Jersey – the Channel Islands being the only part of the Britain Isles to have been occupied by the Nazis during the Second World War – and detained at Immelman, the island’s prison camp.
Some months later, on his third attempt, he managed to escape. But perhaps his greatest stroke of luck came during his frantic search for a suitable place to hide on the island, when he was introduced to a widowed general storekeeper, Louisa Gould.
Brought to her front door by a neighbour who hoped she would be sympathetic, Gould took pity on the boy. Still reeling from the loss of her own son, Edward, who had been killed while serving with the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean a year earlier, Gould took in the young Russian prisoner-of-war and, in a barefaced act of defiance against the Nazi occupation, hid him in her house in Millais, in the northwest of the island, for almost two years.
She gave Burriy a room, changed his name to Bill and altered her son’s clothes to fit him. She taught him English, but with a French accent, so the occupying forces would not think he was Russian. They settled on a cover story that Bill was a nephew, or friend of the family. “I have to do something to help another mother’s son,” she reasoned.
Her heroism would cost her dearly: shortly before the end of the war, her secret was revealed and she was sent to a Nazi concentration camp outside Berlin. She was put to death in a gas chamber.
While Gould’s acts of bravery are widely known on Jersey, her story has now been immortalised in a new film, starring Jenny Seagrove – and written by her great-niece, Jenny Lecoat.
Others who sheltered people moved them on. She just loved him too much to let him go
“Initially, she must have been terrified of every knock at the door,” says Lecoat. “But time went by and everything seemed fine. She didn’t want to keep him cooped up in house. He’d already gone through so much and was probably mentally quite damaged. Presumably, it started with getting a breath of fresh air. Then she became a little braver. It snowballed. By the end, there are reports of her taking him to church and going into town on the bus together.”
Months passed, and ‘Bill’ became accustomed to his double life. Ralph, Gould’s remaining son who was away, studying at Oxford, when war broke out, joined the RAF, and her brother, Harold (played in the film by Ronan Keating), sister Ivy (Amanda Abbington) and many of those in the close-knit village were in on the deception. Armed with a fake ID, life – though not without fear – fell into a well-practised routine.
But 20 months after his arrival, with rationing escalating and tensions intensifying, the solidarity cracked and someone informed the Germans that Gould was harbouring a Russian untermensch. The family still do not know who gave her up, though a rumour abounded that the letter had at first been mistakenly sent to a local college, whose principal steamed it open, read its contents and promptly forwarded it on. His one concession was to warn Gould of the fate about to befall her.
She had just enough time to move Bill to a safe house. But during a search of Gould’s property a Russian-English dictionary, a Christmas gift tag bearing his Russian name and a wireless were found; she was sentenced to two years in prison, and taken by cattle truck to Germany’s Ravensbrück concentration camp – a place from which she would not return. In February 1945, she was sent to a gas chamber, aged 53. The camp would be liberated eight weeks later.
Lecoat recognises some familiar traits in her great aunt, whose bravery she had long been aware of. “It was one of those things that was like wallpaper in the family,” she says.
However, Lecoat’s maternal grandfather had passed away when Lecoat was just 13, leaving her too young to question him about Gould’s past.
“It was always known about, but wasn’t a big deal. As a kid, I wasn’t told a lot of detail. It’s not the kind of stuff you share with a child.” For her part, she was happy enough with her childhood, playing in neglected bunkers and on anti-tank walls along the beaches.
“There is certainly a family streak of obstinacy, knowing best and not listening,” she says. “The fact that Louisa was so courageous probably comes from that place, but it also meant that she didn’t listen when they were warned to be more careful. It became her fatal flaw. She liked sticking two fingers up to the Germans.
“There was an aspect of enjoyment of playing the game and thinking she was getting one over on them. But the other side was this trusting nature that didn’t consider anyone in the parish would betray her.”
Lecoat believes that Gould “held onto Bill for too long”. She takes a breath. “Others who sheltered people moved them on. She just loved him too much to let him go.”
The fact that Louisa was so courageous...became her fatal flaw. She liked sticking two fingers up to the Germans
Bill was never recaptured, and returned to Russia after the war. He married and kept in touch with some Jersey residents, publishing a letter of thanks for their kindness in the local paper 20 years after the war ended and later visiting in 1995 to unveil a plaque dedicated to Gould. He described his heart as being “wrung with pain” at the prospect of never being able to shake hands with his “second mother” again. He has since died.
According to Lecoat, “the island was divided into people who kept their heads down and didn’t want any kind of trouble, and those who said to hell with it”.
Following the Allied defeat in France in June 1940, Winston Churchill decided that the Channel Islands were of little strategic value to the defence of the British Isles, and therefore not worth supporting militarily. A month after declaring them neutral territory, the first German troops arrived in St Peter Port, the main town of Guernsey. The islands were occupied until the end of the war.
Throughout her research for her screenplay, it has been the spirit of resistance in ordinary people that most impressed Lecoat. Small, extraordinary acts of bravery that took place every day without hope of recognition. The paternal side of her family, also from Jersey, made crystal radio sets and traded them on the black market for eggs.
“My grandmother would tell stories of hiding radio sets under the baby’s mattress in the pram and taking them for a walk while the Germans searched the house. These are just incredible acts, which will never be well-known.”
Lecoat learnt from testimonies of survivors that, before her great aunt was killed, she had befriended people in the camp, teaching them English and trying to lift their spirits.
“When you think about what she’d been going through at that point, you do look yourself in the mirror and think, how would I have measured up to any of this? Our generation has never been tested in anything like that way, although plenty of people in the world are right now.”
She hopes those who watch her film will gain “an awareness of what people are capable of and the importance of courage and defiance”.
“An act of kindness can be small,” she adds, “but the consequences enormous.”
