The bearer of chocolate tried to walk away as fast as her gaunt legs would let her. The whip met the woman’s back and she fell to the ground before the wardess turned on Odette.
“Give it to me,” the wardess demanded, but Odette had already shoved the chocolate into her mouth, relishing the hint of taste the miniscule morsel produced on her tongue.
The wardess raised her whip and Odette’s first reaction was to cower but she steeled her spine. A masculine voice shouted and both of them looked over to see Sühren standing nearby.
“No exercise for three days,” the wardess stated, reluctantly lowering her arm.
That Christmas Eve, Odette could hear the celebrations of the guards, who got rip-roaringly drunk, singing Christmas songs in German until near daylight.
On New Year’s Day, they celebrated by shooting the woman who had given Odette the chocolate. They made sure to do it in the little alleyway directly below Odette’s window, this time in broad daylight. Odette, who had mostly grown immune to trauma in the past year, still jumped at the sound of the shotgun.
Chapter 81
Mathilde
In December, 1944, despite a slight setback with the Nazis’ offensive at the Battle of the Bulge, the Allies were making headway across Europe and planning to invade Germany. The British were convinced the war could not last much longer, and the prisoners at Holloway received a special gift basket that year, which included fresh linen for their beds, honey from California for their bread, soap from Virginia, and even a chocolate bar wrapped in gold foil. The female guard who delivered the goods informed Mathilde that the chocolate had come from liberated Paris.
Mathilde broke the chocolate bar in half. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d appreciate it if you would deliver this to Stella Lonsdale.”
The guard shook her head. “First of all, every prisoner is getting the same basket. And secondly, Mrs. Lonsdale has been released.”
“Released? Where to?”
The guard shrugged. “Now that the war is sure to end in our favor, our government is not so concerned about espionage. I expect you to be gone too, before this new year is out,” she added before closing the cell door.
Mathilde felt numb at the announcement. She’d finished her memoirs and had them sent to Buckmaster at the SOE, but had heard nothing in months.
Normally she didn’t like to think about what would happen in the next few hours, let alone the next few days, but this time she pondered her future, after the war was over and she was released. Obviously they’d send her back to France, to pick up the pieces of what was left of her life. Even though they’d imprisoned her, Mathilde couldn’t help admiring the English for their aloof politeness and calm discretion, which contrasted greatly with the excitability of the French. Would her countrymen and women resent her for the fall of Interallié, or would they come to their senses and respect that she did what she had to do during war-time? Only time will tell, she supposed.
Chapter 82
Didi
In February 1945, Didi was transferred yet again, to a camp outside Leipzig. She had become seriously emaciated and was probably suffering from malnutrition and exhaustion, among a host of other things. Her chest ached so badly she couldn’t take in any more than the shallowest of breaths.
Almost all the women in the new camp wore the familiar red triangle on their uniforms—political prisoners—and the majority of them were also French. Their uniforms were baggy dark-gray overalls and the winter wind constantly swept through the thin material. They were forced to build roads, but they made little headway with the ice-hardened earth.
One day the woman working alongside Didi collapsed.
Didi tried rousing her, to no avail, before a guard shouted at her to get back to digging.
At the end of the day, the woman’s body had frozen to the ground. Didi watched as another prisoner chipped away at it with a shovel before loading it onto the corpse cart. After the macabre job was finished, the woman said to Didi, “The most important thing is maintaining the will to carry on. Don’t let them see that they are winning. It will be over soon, you’ll see.”
“Let’s hope so,” Didi replied.
Slowly the signs of spring appeared. Crocuses, seemingly immune to the suffering around them, sprouted through the warming soil. Though she had now developed a hacking cough, Didi decided to revisit her escape plans. The guards whispered that the Americans were approaching from the west while the Russians were moving east.
One morning in early April, the prisoners had just lined up for Appell when a siren sounded and the loudspeaker crackled to life. “We have just received orders from Berlin to evacuate the camp,” the commandant’s voice squawked. “We are leaving in twenty minutes.”
“You heard him, you filthy bitch.” A guard shoved Didi. “Get moving.”
A few feet away, a woman fainted. “Fetch a cart,” the guard shouted. “Anyone who can’t walk will be carried.”
The sick and dying prisoners, some of them walking, some of them pushed in wheelbarrows, must have made for a pathetic sight. They marched south all through the rest of the day and into the night. Didi overheard a guard telling someone their destination was a camp 80 kilometers away.
There’s no way I can make it that far, Didi decided, trying to catch her breath.
The prisoners travelled much slower than the well-fed, well-rested guards, who marched double time up and down the line. Didi realized that she might be able to leave the procession right after one guard had passed her, while the next was still far behind. To the left of them loomed a heavily wooded forest, and she knew it represented her last chance.
She waited until night had completely fallen and then made her exodus. Luckily her adrenaline kicked in and she found her legs were able to move quickly, even run, toward the woods. She spotted a large tree and ducked behind it, her lungs burning.
She could still hear the stomping of the guards’ jackboots on the road ahead, followed by the softer sound of hundreds of women’s bare feet. But there was no shouting, no gunshots. No one seemed to have noticed her absence.
As her breath slowed, she became aware of a rustling in the shrubbery directly in front of her. She stifled a gasp as she saw the whites of two pairs of eyes staring at her.
“Who’s there?” Didi whispered.
Slowly the forms came closer. Didi recognized one of them as the woman who’d spoken to her the other day. “I’m Suzanne,” she said. “And this is Nicole.”
All three of them glanced toward the road and the retreating backs of the guards.
“Are we free?” Nicole asked.
“I think so,” Didi replied, choking up.
All three of them met in a silent hug before proceeding deeper into the forest.
Didi, Suzanne, and Nicole stayed for three days in the remains of a bombed-out house. They only went out at night, slipping through a tiny hole in the wall no bigger than a dog-door, to forage for food. The girls were too worried that they had been discovered missing to venture very far and made due with dandelion leaves washed down with handfuls of melting snow. The lack of food did little to heal Didi’s ailments; her chest still ached and now she had developed a hacking cough. Still, she was no longer a prisoner and no longer being punished at the will of vengeful guards.
Didi’s mental state wasn’t the greatest—she jumped at every little sound, thinking that the guards had sent out a search party. The nights were the worst, but Suzanne tried to soothe the other two’s nerves by telling jokes and stories. She had been in the French Air Force, but, after the Occupation, had joined the Resistance with the Free French. She, too, had been taken to Fresnes but left for Ravensbrück on November 11, 1943.
“November 11th,” Didi repeated. She sat up. “Did you keep a calendar on the wall in your cell?”
“Yes,” Suzanne replied.
“I think we had the same cell at Fresnes. Someone named Lise had done the same thing, but she left in May 1944, a few months before I arr
ived.”
“Probably another woman agent of the SOE.”
Didi voiced the thought that had been bothering her since Torgau. “Do you know what happened to the British women they called, the ‘Little Paratroopers?’ Specifically Violette Szabo?”
“I heard they were taken back to Ravensbrück and killed,” Nicole said softly.
Suzanne reached out to squeeze Didi’s hand. “Someday soon the Allies will win the war and the sacrifice of the Little Paratrooper’s—and that of all the people who supported the Resistance for that matter—will not have been in vain.”
Didi wiped away an errant tear before nodding.
The next morning, Didi was startled awake by the sounds of gunfire. She imagined that the search party had finally found them. I won’t go back to the camps. They’ll have to kill me first. The decision made, Didi rolled over and fell back asleep.
The next time Didi was awakened, it was by the marching of many soldiers. Their uniforms were a darker green than that of the Germans and they spoke English with unfamiliar accents. With a start, Didi realized the Americans had arrived.
They entered their little house, guns pointed. Didi put her arms up. “I am English.” She gestured toward Suzanne and Nicole, who were cowering in the corner. “And they are French.”
The lead soldier lowered his gun. “Come with us,” he told them.
Chapter 83
Odette
The smoke from the crematorium became a constant presence. It was rumored that the Allies were advancing from all sides and Odette figured that the Germans were trying to destroy the proof of their misdeeds by incinerating both paperwork and dead bodies.
Remnants of the charred evidence swept through Odette’s open window, cinders of skin, bone, and the occasional singed hair. Sometimes she heard screaming, which meant they were burning live souls instead of the remains of those shot in the alleyway or hanged on the gallows.
There was increased commotion around her cell as well, and Odette assumed they were cleaning out the Bunker. She could only predict her own death was approaching as quickly as the Allies.
On the eve of her 33rd birthday, Sühren appeared in the doorway of her cell. “You will be leaving tomorrow morning at six.”
“Leaving how?”
He lifted one of his manicured fingers and drew it across his throat.
She spent the night preparing herself, mentally saying farewell to her girls, kissing each in turn. In her imagination, there was someone else waiting for a goodbye: Peter. She embraced his imaginary form, pouring kisses all over his face.
“Be well, my love,” she said aloud.
The sun was high in the sky by the time Sühren sauntered into her cell. He was late.
“Pack your things,” he told her. “Time is short. Schnell, schnell.”
“Why should I bother to pack?” She figured he was taking her out to the woods to shoot her, so that he would leave no trace back at camp. The beasts that haunted her nightmares would finally be able to feed upon her, though she hoped Sühren would have finished the job by the time the wolves got to her.
“I am bringing you to the Americans,” Sühren stated.
Odette didn’t reply—she wouldn’t allow herself hope after all these months in hell.
She followed him outside the Bunker to find chaos. SS guards were running every which way, some of the women dressed in the clothes of those they had murdered. With no one to police them, the prisoners wandered about aimlessly, a few attempting to scale the monstrous wall.
“Our mighty Führer, the great Adolf Hitler, is dead,” Sühren declared, his voice melancholy. “He died a hero’s death in battle.”
“Why don’t you unlock the gates, then?” Odette asked. “The war is over.”
“It’s not over yet.” Sühren nodded to a guard, who opened the gate just enough to let them out. A prisoner rushed forward, only to be shot down.
Odette paused, wanting to say a prayer over the body, but Sühren pushed her toward an awaiting Mercedes-Benz and told her to get in the passenger’s seat.
Odette had no idea why she’d been singled out, or what Sühren’s destination was. He said nothing and she didn’t bother asking.
They drove for hours before they came across a unit of soldiers in dark-green uniforms blockading the road. One of them shouldered his Tommy gun and waved at them to stop.
Sühren shut the car off and rolled down the window. “This Frau Churchill,” he said in his halting English. “She is related to Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of England.”
So that was Sühren’s ploy. He was using her as a bargaining chip, hoping the Allies would overlook his murderous record if he delivered the prime minister’s supposed relative into their hands.
“I know who Winston Churchill is,” the soldier replied in a strange accent.
Odette rolled down the other window and waved at another soldier. “This is Fritz Sühren, Commandant of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. He has kept me captive against my will for many months. Now it’s your turn to make him a prisoner.”
She turned to see Sühren’s astonished face staring at her. “Give me your pistol,” she commanded. With shaking hands, he handed it to her.
Tucking the gun into her bag, Odette opened the car door and exited. “I’m going to need your help locating another one of Churchill’s relatives,” she told the American soldier. “His first name is Peter.”
Epilogue
The True Fates of the Characters in The Spark of Resistance
Mathilde Carré : After seven years languishing in prison, in England, and then, after the war was over, in France, Mathilde was put on trial for treason, along with Viola (Renée) Borni. Throughout the trial, Mathilde maintained what French newspapers called “an unrepentant air.” One reporter went so far as to declare her mannerisms not that of a cat, but “more a serpent.”
Viola, who managed to win more sympathy from the press, had become so weak from illness that she had to be brought to court on a stretcher.
Notable witnesses for the prosecution included René Aubertin, who had managed to survive Mauthausen concentration camp, Mireille Lejeune, Maître Brault, and Pierre de Vomécourt, AKA ‘Lucas.’
Hugo Bleicher had been arrested by the British Army after the war and briefly imprisoned, but, seeing as no war crimes could be directly attributed to him, had been released. He had opened a tobacconist’s shop in his German hometown, which he was reluctant to leave and was therefore not present at Mathilde’s trail. Nor was Roman Czerniawski (Armand), though he too had survived the war. In fact, Armand had convinced the Germans to release him to London from Fresnes under the guise he would become a double-agent and went on to play an integral role in the purposeful disinformation the Allies provided to the German Army leading up to D-Day.
During his testimony, René Aubertin declared that Mathilde “preferred her own life to that of thirty-five other people.” He also told the story of how Lucien de Roquigny, the Polish aristocrat who had once carried a torch for The Cat before she assisted in his arrest, had become “the whipping-boy of all the Gestapo guards and (had been) literally beaten to death.”
Lucas had been arrested by Bleicher only three weeks after he returned to Paris and spent eighteen months in Fresnes Prison before he was transferred as a prisoner-of-war to Colditz Castle. While on the witness stand, Lucas maintained that Mathilde had worked faithfully for him and that she had been sincere in her desire to plot with him against the Germans to “make amends.” He did point out, however, that Mathilde had not informed him of her association with Bleicher until he relayed his own suspicions over the near arrest of Maître Brault. In a letter he wrote after the war, Lucas declared that Mathilde had distinguished herself from the other Resistance members “by the whole-hearted way she sent her former comrades to death.”
During the trial, it was revealed that Viola, in fact, had been responsible for Mathilde’s arrest. An earlier MI6 report had stated, “It is felt that if
Mme. Borni disclosed the name and address of Mme. Carré to the Germans, she did the (Allies) a disservice, the gravity of which she cannot possibly have realized at the time of the offence. It was, however, a case of consequential damage since the real trouble started only when Mme. Carré allowed herself to be turned immediately into a double agent by the Germans.” The jury found that “extenuating circumstances” had dictated Viola Borni’s actions; she was sentenced to two and a half years of prison and a fine roughly equivalent to $50. She bore out half of those years in a hospital, and was released early.
Though Mathilde was given the death penalty, it was commuted to life in prison in 1949. She was released in 1954 and, unlike many of her Interallié colleagues, managed to live to old age. Her memoirs were eventually turned into a book titled, I was 'The Cat': The Truth about the Most Remarkable Woman Spy Since Mata Hari. She died in Paris in 2007, at the age of 98.
Odette Sansom: After Fresnes, Peter Churchill had been taken to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. As the Allies approached, he was moved to different camps, first to Flossenbürg and then to Dachau. Once Odette and Peter had both returned to England, Vera Atkins was the one responsible for coordinating their reunion.
Someone in the SOE, probably Miss Atkins again, arranged for Odette’s quiet divorce from Roy Sansom in 1946, and she and Peter were married shortly after. However, Odette and Peter’s great love didn’t last long. They divorced ten years later and Odette married Geoffrey Hallowes, another SOE agent, that same year. Peter never remarried and he and Odette remained friendly until his death in 1972, at the age of 63.
The Spark of Resistance: Women Spies in WWII Page 36