Lieutenant Marcus Bloom (1907-1944)

Marcus Bloom was born into an Orthodox Jewish family on 24 September 1907 in the famous Brick Lane area of London. He was the second of four brothers – the others being Alex, Bernard and Jenice. His father, Harry Bloom (1882-1949), was also born in London but his parents were impoverished immigrants from Poland. Marcus Bloom’s mother, Anna Sadie (née Davidoff), had Russian antecedents, but was born in Germany.

During the First World War the Bloom family moved to safer surroundings in Hove, and lived at 13 Medina Villas until 1929. During their stay in Hove, the four Bloom brothers attended Hove High School at 49 Clarendon Villas. Harry Bloom had wide business interests, and one of them was a restaurant in Hove, and after he left school, Marcus helped in the management of this establishment. Harry Bloom was also involved with the Super Palace cinema in Battersea, London, and Marcus also helped in this enterprise.

Another string in Harry’s bow was Sterling Textiles, which was a mail-order company. In 1931 Harry asked Marcus to go to Paris to look after the company’s interests in France. Marcus stayed in Paris for six years and made the most of his situation – he took up riding and shooting, which he listed as favourite hobbies, plus polo and horse racing, and mixed with people of wealth. He also met his future wife, Germaine Bertha Fevrier, and they married in March 1938. Unfortunately, Germaine did not feel happy living in London – she missed France and her friends, and particularly her widowed mother who lived in Normandy. She therefore made frequent trips across the Channel, and when France fell to the Germans in 1940, she was stranded there.

Marcus Bloom volunteered for war service, and thought the authorities might think his knowledge of the French language an advantage. But he was informed bluntly by the War Office that because his mother was born in Germany, he would not be allowed to take up a sensitive post. Frustrated, Bloom decided to become a plain gunner and joined the Royal Artillery in January 1941. He was sent for training but his superior realised he had the ability to become an officer, and so in November 1941 he was despatched to an Officer Training Unit in Wales.

This course was supposed to last until April 1942. but Bloom, impatient as ever, had another shot with the War Office, and on 16 March 1942 he joined the SOE (Special Operations Executive). He had a new identity – Michel Blount (to avoid placing his wife in danger) but by the time he went to France he was Michel Boileau. Initially of course, there was the specialist training to be gone through. It was noted that he was somewhat overweight, and he was not good at field-work, but he was an excellent shot. It is sad to learn that two of his superiors had a prejudice against him because he was Jewish, writing their comments down using language that would not be acceptable today. But Bloom became good friends with another recruit in training called Maurice Pertschuk, although Bloom was aged 35 while Maurice was only 21, but Maurice was also Jewish. This friendship became a double-edged sword.

In November 1942 Bloom arrived in France by sea – he was to serve with the ‘Pimento Circuit’ around Toulouse, and he had the codename ‘Bishop’ and the field name ‘Urbain’. He was in trouble with his superior almost at once. He was supposed to report to Captain Tony Brooks at a warehouse straight away, but instead made a detour to see his friend Maurice Pertschuk – the meeting having been arranged when they were both still in England. That was bad enough, but when Bloom did meet Captain Brooks, he spoke in English. This was too much for Brooks who refused to have him on his team, and sent him off to serve with Pertschuk. At first he was not much use to Pertschuk either because he could not make his wireless transmitter work. Perhaps the trouble lay with inadequate training in its use and maintenance because the solution was simply that the antenna he used was too long. However, Bloom was keen to serve in other ways, and was involved in the destruction of an enemy train in January 1943, and indeed his records states he served with bravery.

When Bloom’s problem with his W/T was sorted out, he began transmitting and receiving some 50 messages between March 1943 and April 1943: he also organised ‘drops’ of weapons on four occasions. By this time Bloom and some others were located in a ‘safe’ house at Esquiré. But they were betrayed. They did not know that Pertschuk had been arrested on 12 April 1943 – on the 13 April the Germans arrived at the country house and took away four people, including Bloom. It was noted that although Bloom was handcuffed to a fellow prisoner, the two managed to jump from a window, and escape. But in seeking help, they were betrayed once again, and Bloom was taken to Toulouse Gestapo headquarters. Meanwhile, the Germans were operating the captured W/T equipment, masquerading as Bloom. But the receivers in London were suspicious, especially when a wrong answer was submitted that the ‘real’ Bloom would have known at once.

Bloom was badly beaten up during questioning, but gave them no information. He was removed to Fresnes prison, outside Paris. Somehow, he managed to alert his wife to his whereabouts, and she ensured he was supplied with food.

Around 1 September 1944 some 47 allied prisoners, including Bloom, were transferred to Mauthausen concentration camp. In Austria. On 6 September these prisoners were divided into two groups and taken to a quarry – one group going in the morning and the second in the afternoon. They were stripped of their outer garments, and wore only underwear and shirts, with no shoes on their feet. At the quarry they were faced with a descent of 180 stone steps. The Germans decided on a bizarre exercise; it is not known if it was a gruesome form of sport, or whether they wanted to justify the killings by saying the prisoners were shot trying to escape – they ordered the prisoners to run back up the steps. Then the machine-guns opened up. As a last act of defiance, Bloom picked up a rock and flung it at a German soldier who fell down the steps. Then Bloom ran up the steps and was shot in the back. His grave is unknown.

Bloom’s parents and wife had to wait until the end of the war before the War Office told them of his death, and returned to his widow his wedding ring and a badge. He left just over £500 and the War Office decided it should be divided between the widow and Bloom’s three brothers. But Bloom’s widow protested because she was left destitute, and she related how she had borrowed 40,000 francs from friends plus 10,000 francs of her savings on making sure her husband had adequate food while in Fresnes prison. The War Office refunded that amount to her.

Lieutenant Bloom received a posthumous Mention in Despatches – he was accorded nothing by the French. This is in marked contrast to Brighton-born Captain Edward Zeff, a fellow SOE Jewish agent who survived the war, and who was awarded an MBE (Military) as well as decorated with the Croix de Guerre. Zeff was also at Mauthausen concentration camp but not at the same time as the 47 allied prisoners just mentioned, or else he might have been added to the total. Zeff was there before and after the killings with an interlude in Zelk. But he was in Mauthausen in May 1945 when Americans liberated the camp. It is interesting to note that after the war he returned to Brighton where his address was at 94 Embassy Court, and he also must have visited his father and step-mother who lived at 80 New Church Road, and other family in Carlisle Road, both in Hove.

In Bloom’s war record it was recorded that there had been a risk in sending the officer into such a dangerous field because of his ‘imperfect French’ - he spoke with an English accent – plus the fact that he did not look like a Frenchman at all but had an ‘Anglo-Saxon appearance’. However, the desperate need for W/T operators in the field overrode such misgivings. Every SOE man or woman knew the dangers they faced. There was also the fact that Bloom was Jewish, and from German records recovered after the war, it is apparent the Germans knew this, which may account for him being beaten up, as was also the case with Zeff. With regards to Bloom, the Germans had his full details, his date of birth, his codename and field name, and even the fact he had been a cinema operator. The Germans also possessed a photograph of Pertschuk wearing a British Army uniform.