Michel Hollard

Michel Hollard, born on July 10, 1897 in Epinay, Eure and dead on July 16, 1993, is a french colonel, who was a famous resistant during the World War II.

[edit] His net

In 1941, he constitute the net AGIR, rattached to the S.I.S. and composed of one hundred of agents. He used his cover of manager of a compagny producing gas generator.

In the summer 1943, one of his agents, an ingeneer of railways of Rouen, signaled that several building-yard of an unusual complexity had appeared in Haute-Normandie. Hollard went to Rouen, in the deguise of parson, and persuaded a local responsible to communicate to him the list of building-yard. They were buildings of ramps of launching of rockets V1.

He communicate the information to the British (MI6) by the Embassy of Great-Britain in Berne, going through himself the swiss border 98 times (49 travels).

In the end of month of december 1943, the 103 sites of launching of V1 in France, that formed an arch of circle going from the Basse-Normandie to Pas-de-Calais, were systematically bombed by the RAF.

In 1944, he was arrested by the Gestapo in Paris, tortured, imprisoned in Fresnes Prison and sentenced to death.
He was deported to the concentration camp of Neuengamme. He was saved from the sinking of SS Cap Arcona by the Count Folke Bernadotte who, informed by the British Intelligence, had saved the lifes of some french-speaker deportees aboard this ship.

Descendant of Jean Monod (1765-1836) parson Jean Monod
His father, Auguste Hollard, professor of nuclear physic of the School of Physic and Chimie of Paris and Sorbonne.
His mother Pauline Monod
Cousin of Théodore Monod (1902-2000) naturalist, explorer, erudite and french humanist.
Cousin of Jacques Monod, biologist (1910-1976), Nobel Prize 1965
His son Florian Hollard, chief of orchestra. Longtime director of symphonic orchestra of Tours and master of chapel of the Oratory of Louvre in Paris.