A woman who played a vital role in Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty’s ‘Rome Escape Line’ during World War II has died.
Gemma Sands (nee Chevalier) passed away peacefully at her home in Aldershot in England.
As a teenager Gemma helped move people, messages and supplies from Rome during World War II as part of Killarney native, Monsignor O’Flaherty’s, escape plan.
Chair of the Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty Memorial Society Jerry O’Grady said it was hard to imagine how much courage it took for a 17-year-old girl to do what she did in the Nazi occupied city of Rome, where escapees and those that were helping them were being mercilessly hunted down by the Gestapo.
Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty was a significant figure in Catholic resistance to Nazism, responsible for saving 6,500 people during World War II.
His ability to evade the traps set by the German Gestapo and Sicherheitsdienst earned O’Flaherty the nickname “The Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican”. He was the first Irishman named Notary of the Holy Office.
