Sophie Moss

Sophie Moss (Countess Zofia Roza Maria Jadwiga Elzbieta Katarzyna Aniela Tarnowska, 16 March 1917 - 22 November 2009) was a Polish noblewoman, descended from a notable Szlachta family, and World War II organiser and translator. At the request of General Władysław Sikorski, Poland's wartime leader, she headed up the Cairo branch of the Polish Red Cross.[1]

Sophie Tarnowska Moss

Early life
Rudnik nad Sanem, the Tarnowski palace

She was born, in the throes of the First World War, in Rudnik nad Sanem, a forested estate near Tarnobrzeg, a town in south-eastern Poland founded by her Tarnowski family in 1593.[2][3] She was the daughter of Hieronim, a politician and writer, and Wanda, née Zamoyska. Her paternal grandfather was Count Stanislaw Tarnowski (1837–1917), professor and rector at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. His home, the Szlak, in the past having been the resting place of deceased Polish kings on the night before burial at Wawel, and she was a possible direct descendant of Catherine the Great of Russia. Her family had held some of the highest offices in Poland.[2]

She spent her childhood roaming the freedom of the wide open spaces, the farms and the forests of the estate.

In 1937, she married Andrew Tarnowski, a member of the senior branch of the family. Her first son was under two when he died (on the day she gave birth to her second) in July 1939.

World War II

Escape

At the outbreak of war, relentless bombing obliged Tarnowska and her husband to flee for their lives and leave their home. As a gesture of commitment never to leave Polish soil, she burnt her passport, but events conspired for a different outcome.[2] Tarnowska and her companions, including her brother Stanislaw, determined to join Polish front-line troops confronting the German onslaught. They spent a fortnight criss-crossing Poland by car, in this vain attempt, finally resigned to cross the still open border into Romania, reaching Bucharest, as the Soviet invasion progressed from the East. As sympathy for the Nazi cause grew in Bucharest, they decided to leave and head for Belgrade where the Serbs made them welcome. They travelled through the Balkans, where their second baby son died. They travelled on, stopping in British-occupied Palestine, where their marriage broke down.

Cairo

Separated from her husband, she left Palestine and travelled to Cairo where she and her sister-in-law were looked after by Prince Youssef Kamal ed-Dine (a visitor to Poland before the War) and made welcome by all. She began working for the International Red Cross, tracing missing Allied soldiers. General Sikorski, the Polish Prime Minister-in-Exile and Commander-in-Chief visited Cairo in November 1941. At his request, she set up the Cairo branch of the Polish Red Cross with the help of Lady Lampson, wife of Sir Miles Lampson, the British Ambassador and Sir Duncan Mackenzie of the British Red Cross. She became friends with King Farouk and Queen Farida.[2]

As Rommel advanced into Egypt in June 1942 after the fall to Tobruk, to within 100 km of Alexandria, Cairo was evacuated. She was living at the National Hotel. Many of her contemporaries left for Palestine but she refused to leave and carried on working for the Polish Red Cross until everyone else had left and there was nothing more that she could do. She was ordered to leave for Palestine by the Polish Legation. She refused and instead set off defiantly for the front, to Alexandria, to be near the troops within earshot of First Battle of El Alamein. There she stayed in an hotel, as the only guest, all others having fled. As Rommel's advance was halted, she returned to Cairo in July 1942 to welcome the returning evacuees.

Tara
Main article: "Tara", Cairo

Tarnowska's sojourn in North Africa features prominently in a book on the history of the period.[4] In 1943 Tarnowska moved into a squatted villa on Gezira Island,[5] with a group of British SOE officers who included:

The villa was dubbed Tara by its occupants – after Hill of Tara, mythical home of the High Kings of Ireland.[8] It became a centre for entertaining diplomats, officers, writers, lecturers, war correspondents and local party-goers, hosted by Tarnowska, in the guise of "Princess Dneiper-Petrovsk" with:

  • Lt-Col. Neil (Billy) McLean as "Sir Eustace Rapier"
  • Col. David Smiley as "the Marquis of Whipstock"
  • Rowland Winn as "the Hon, Rupert Sabretache"
  • Major Xan Fielding as "Lord Hughe Devildrive"
  • Arnold Breene as "Lord Pintpot"
  • Lt-Col Patrick Leigh-Fermor as "Lord Rakehell"
  • Capt. W. Stanley Moss as "Mr Jack Jargon"[8]

Tarnowska drew on memories of liqueur-making on her father's estates to produce the party drinks.[8] By the winter of 1944 the owner of the damaged property secured the eviction of the occupants who moved into a flat.[8]

Family
Riverstown House, County Cork.

In 1945, she married Moss. He had fought with the 8th Army in the North African Campaign before joining the Special Operations Executive based in Cairo. He is best remembered for the capture and Abduction to Egypt, in April and May 1944, of General Heinrich Kreipe.[9] He became a best-selling author in the 1950s.

They had three children, Christine Isabelle Mercedes, named after their mutual friend and former SOE agent Krystyna Skarbek (Christine Granville),[10] Sebastian (who died in infancy) and Gabriella Zofia. Initially living in London, they moved to Riverstown House, County Cork in Ireland. They later returned to London, Putney, but separated in 1957. Bill Stanley Moss died in 1965 in Kingston, Jamaica.[2]

Historic visit to Poland
The 1654 proporzec of Charles X Gustav of Sweden donated in 1957 by Zofia Tarnowska-Moss and her brother, Stanisław, to the Wawel Royal Castle National Art Collection

When Tarnowska left her father's home at Rudnik at the outbreak of war in 1939, he gave her for safe-keeping the personal seventeenth-century jack, the "proporzec", of King Karl Gustav of Sweden, a trophy won at his army's famous defeat on the Tarnowski estate, during the Deluge. In 1957 she and her brother, Stanislaw also living in London, decided personally to donate the historic flag to the Wawel Art Collection in Krakow, where it remains. The Communist government highlighted the cultural event, and granted the visiting party visas, but Tarnowska declined all offers of expenses-paid travel and hospitality.[11] Sister and brother paid their own expenses and were allowed to revisit Rudnik, where they were given an emotional welcome.

After the fall of communism, Tarnowska's nephew was eventually able to buy back Rudnik - sadly dilapidated, gradually being restored. She and her brother were later able to host several family gatherings on the estate in Poland.[2]

Later years

For much of the latter part of her life, she divided her time between London and spending her summer months returning to Ireland.

Literature
  • Edmund Ordon (1958). 10 Contemporary Polish Stories. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. OCLC 297276. My father joins the fire brigade Bruno Schulz, transl. by W. Stanley Moss and Zofia Tarnowska Moss

References
  1. Holland, James. Together We Stand, Harper Collins, 2005, pp 109-12, 135, 181-2, 499, 720, 728.
  2. "Sophie Moss, Obituaries, Daily Telegraph 3 December 2009". The Daily Telegraph. London. 3 December 2009.
  3. "Lives Remembered: Sophie Moss, Obituaries, The Independent 22 February 2010". London. 22 February 2010.
  4. James Holland, Together We Stand: North Africa 1942-1943: Turning the Tide in the West, 2006
  5. "Davis, Wes. The Ariadne Objective, 2013, Crown".
  6. Moss, W. Stanley, Diary, 1944
  7. Moss, W. Stanley. Ill Met by Moonlight, George G Harrap and Co, 1950. The Folio Society, 2001 pp 19, 43, 57, 186
  8. Cooper, Artemis, Cairo in the War 1939-1945, Hamish Hamilton 1989
  9. "Heinrich Kreipe: Abduction By Greek And British Agents". Serving History. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
  10. Clare Mulley, The Spy Who Loved, 2012, p. 307.
  11. Hickey, William, Daily Express, 20 April 1957
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