Louisa Gould

 ( 1891 Births ) 

Louisa Mary Gould (; 7 October 1891 – 13 February 1945)In Another Mother's Son, between the end of the story and the start of the cast list, there are a few frames with photos and details of the main characters and what happened to them after the point at which the story in the film ends. The details for Louisa Gould give her precise date of death: 13 February 1945. (Viewed on DVD, where there was time to note this.) was a Jersey shopkeeper and a member of the resistance in the Channel Islands during World War II. From 1942 until her arrest in 1944, Gould sheltered an escaped Soviet forced labourer known as Fyodor Polycarpovich Buriy on the island of Jersey. Following a trial, she was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp where she was killed in 1945.

Gould was posthumously named a British Hero of the Holocaust in 2010.

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Life Gould was born Louisa Eva Le Druillenec in St Ouen, Jersey, on 7 October 1891. She was one of nine children of the seaman Vincent Le Druillenec.Paul Sanders (2004) The ultimate sacrifice: The Jersey islanders who died in German prisons and concentration camps during the Occupation 1940–1945, pp65–71 For most of her life she ran a grocery store at La Fontaine, Millais in St Ouen.

Barry Turner (2011). 9781845137243, Aurum Press. . ISBN 9781845137243

Gould had two sons, Ralph and Edward, both of whom enlisted in the British armed forces during World War II. Edward, an officer in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, was killed in action on HMS Bonaventure in March 1941.

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Resistance

During World War II and the German occupation of the Channel Islands, the Nazis used captured Soviet servicemen as forced labour.

Both Louisa Gould and her sister Ivy Forster sheltered escaped Soviet forced labourers. Beginning in late 1942, Gould hid an escaped forced labourer, , a pilot captured after his aircraft had been shot down. Aware of the severe penalties for harbouring enemies of the Germans, Gould said simply, "I have to do something for another mother's son."

Glynis Cooper (2026). 9781845630683, Casemate Publishers. . ISBN 9781845630683

Gould hid Buriy inside her St Ouen home for 18 months.

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Arrest, trial and death

In 1944 a letter informing the Germans about Gould sheltering a Russian was intercepted. Buriy, whom she called 'Bill',

Paul Sanders (2026). 9780953885831, Paul Sanders. . ISBN 9780953885831

was moved to the house of her sister Ivy Forster. In June 1944, the German Geheime Feldpolizei searched her house and found evidence of his stay at Gould's home. They found a scrap of paper that had been used as a Christmas gift tag, addressed to Buriy, and a Russian-English dictionary that he had used for practising his English.

Madeline Bunting (2014). 9781473521308, Random House. . ISBN 9781473521308

Peter Tabb (2026). 9780711031135, Ian Allan. . ISBN 9780711031135

Louisa was arrested on 25 May and Ivy a week later. Buriy managed to avoid capture until the liberation of Jersey.

(2014). 9781472508133, Bloomsbury Publishing. . ISBN 9781472508133

Their brother Harold Le Druillenec was later arrested as he had been seen visiting Louisa. All three were convicted. Gould was sentenced to two years in prison for harbouring Buriy, and for the possession of a radio which she had kept despite regulations requiring her to hand it in.

Lyn Smith (2012). 9781448118120, Ebury Publishing. . ISBN 9781448118120

Louisa Gould and her brother Harold were initially jailed in France then sent to Nazi concentration camps. Ivy Forster was spared deportation on health grounds after a doctor pretended that she was suffering from tuberculosis; she instead served her prison sentence of five months and fifteen days in Jersey. Louisa Mary Gould née Le Druillenec Frank Falla Archive

Gould was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Louisa Gould was murdered in the gas chamber at Ravensbrück on 13 February 1945, two months before the camp's liberation.

Harold Le Druillenec was one of only two British survivors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

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Recognition

In 1995 a memorial plaque was unveiled in St Ouen, Jersey; Buriy, the former forced labourer from what had been the USSR, as well as Gould's son, Ralph, attended its unveiling. It was at this event that the two met for the first time.

David W. Moore (2005). 9780786489244, McFarland. . ISBN 9780786489244

On 9 March 2010 the award of British Hero of the Holocaust was made to 25 individuals posthumously, including four Jerseymen, by the United Kingdom government in recognition of UK citizens who assisted in rescuing victims of the Holocaust. The Jersey recipients were Gould, Ivy Forster, Harold Le Druillenec and Albert Bedane. It was, according to historian Freddie Cohen, the first time that the UK Government recognised the heroism of Jersey islanders during the German occupation. Senator is a driving force behind move for international recognition, Jersey Evening Post, 9 March 2010

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Film

Gould's story is depicted in the 2017 film Another Mother's Son, based on a script by Jenny Lecoat, Gould's great-niece. Gould was portrayed by Jenny Seagrove.

Categories: 1891 Births, 1945 Deaths, People From St Ouen, Jersey, British Anti-fascists, British People Who Died In Nazi Concentration Camps, People Who Died In Ravensbrück Concentration Camp, Resistance Members Who Died In Nazi Concentration Camps, British Women In World War Ii, British Civilians Killed In World War Ii, British People Executed In Nazi Concentration Camps, Executed Jersey People, People Killed By Gas Chamber By Nazi Germany, Female Resistance Members Of World War Ii, British Heroes Of The Holocaust

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