Who refused to reveal his secrets
The Nazis held a number of captured spies at Fresnes during the war, including Peter Churchill and Odette Samson, both famous SOE officers.
Capt Zeff was tortured by the Nazis for information. He was brought to the point of near drowning in an effort to make him talk, as well as being hung from the ceiling and brutally beaten. He was also drugged and subjected to sleep deprivation in efforts to get him to divulge secrets.
Despitethistorture,whichcontinued for three months, Capt Zeff revealed no information regarding his work for the SOE.
After the war he was honoured by both the British and French governments, receiving the military MBE and the Croix de Guerre (with Silver Star) for “loyalty, steadfastness and devotion to duty”.
In the meantime, however, after months of refusing to talk, he was deported to Mauthausen, the infamous Nazi concentration camp.
“He was very badly treated there, because not only was he a spy, but he was Jewish as well”, said Mrs Miller. “Lisa told us that he didn’t really speak much about what he had experienced at Mauthausen, although he would often get depressed.
“Psychologically, he was never the same after his experiences.”
Captain Zeff spent the rest of the war mostly in the Mauthausen complex itself, but also in the satellite camp of Melk, where he and other slave labourers were forced to help dig tunnels to hide V2 rocket-making facilities from air attacks.
He managed to survive in Mauthausen by befriending one of the camp Kommandants. According t o f a mily lore, this mysterious commander repeatedly managed to get Capt Zeff removed from liq- uidation lists.
Capt Zeff’s friends in Melk also managed to hide him when he was scheduled to be taken away and killed.
The Nazi authorities may also have made a rare clerical error.
Mrs Miller explained: “When we vis- Peter Churchill, a fellow SOE spy ited Mauthausen this year, part of the tour was a walk through the memorial.
“My husband was looking through the memorial book and I said he Zeff’s colleague, Odette Sampson wouldn’t be in there because he survived,hewasliberated.Buthewasinthe book as having been executed at Melk.”
Capt Zeff had actually regained his freedom when the Americans liberated the camp in 1945.
He returned to Brighton before moving back to Paris to resume working with his brother, who had also survived the war.
However, the SOE officer’s post-war life was not a happy one. Traumatised by his experiences, he and his wife divorced. He eventually died of cancer in Paris in 1973.
Martin Sugarman, Association of JewishEx-ServicemenandWomenarchivist and historian, was instrumental in the organisation of the plaque.
“Capt Zeff endured the most appalling torture,” he said. “He never gave anything away, and was honoured by both the British and French governments.
“It is fitting that his service is being commemoratedinsuchafashioninthe city of his birth.”
He was in the memorial book as executed’