On Thursday 20th November the 2C1 from the Lycée Michel Rodange, accompanied by their English teacher Ms Elisabeth Heiter and their History teacher Ms Sandra Galli, had the honour of visiting an exhibition based on Dr. Janet Morgan’s book “The Secrets of Rue St. Roch” located in the British Embassy of Luxembourg.
The book tells the true story around the young British military intelligence officer, Captain Bruce, and his mission to successfully set up an espionage network in the, for the Germans of highest importance, logistic nodal point that is Luxembourg, from his office in Paris.
One must add that what made this critical operation finally a success was the selfless aid for her home nation of Madame Rischard, a stout and extraordinarily intelligent and courageous Luxembourgish housewife.
In the operation itself, she was given the most vital task: memorising a code of Byzantine complexity and using it to send detailed messages about troop movements from the heart of the enemy territory.
Though situations occurred during the operation (even right at the beginning, when Madame Rischard had to get from Paris, across the enemy border onto Luxembourgish soil, which took her nearly a year and the nearly fatal encounter with the border police because of her beloved Swiss chocolate) which could have caused a breakdown, the brutal bravery of Madame Rischard introduced the Allies to the win against the German troops in World War I.
At the exhibition, the students and teachers of the class 2C1 were able to admire photographs of the agents, read informative scripts about the mission and closely look at original documents.
The visit ended up as a synthesis of a simple but effective lesson about WWI in English and the admiration of Madame Rischard’s accomplishments for the Ally troops which ultimately led to a win of the war and the powerful statement that a little bourgeoise from Luxembourg was the key to success against the common enemy. National pride has been restored.
Written by Pit Marques de Paiva 2C1+