by Larry Loftis
“Quand j’etais”: Tickell, Odette, 211.
“Lise, I am”: Tickell, Odette, 202. For a summary of Odette’s initial days at Fresnes, and her meetings with Henri and distrust of him, see HS 9/648.4.069, UK National Archives.
“You are not the sort”: HS 9/648.4.069, UK National Archives.
“I remember how”: Tickell, Odette, 202.
negotiating with a psychiatrist: HS 9/648.4.069, UK National Archives.
“Does the possibility” . . . “I have no bargain” . . . “You are a mother”: Tickell, Odette, 203–4.
Fresnes version of: It appears that Odette and Peter received the same rations: coffee (Tickell, Odette, 207; Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 43), soup, and bread. Spirit in the Cage, 36–37, 44.
Henri Peulevé . . . shot . . . spoon: Foot, SOE in France, 350; Buckmaster, They Fought Alone, 295.
“What would you say” . . . “I’m sorry to see” . . . “You’ll be interrogated”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 38.
manacled and chained: Pierre de Vomécourt (“Lucas”) and Lily Carré (“La Chatte,” “Victoire”), both of whom Hugo Bleicher arrested and imprisoned at Fresnes, were at times chained by their feet. Vomécourt, who was incarcerated at Fresnes for eighteen months, spent half of that time manacled and chained by his feet. Philippe de Vomécourt, Army of Amateurs, 92. Similarly, after Carré was convicted of treason and sentenced to death by the French, she was chained by her feet. Carré, I Was “the Cat”, 199–200.
“Arrange for me” . . . High Life cigarettes: Ibid., 39.
“But how do you”: Tickell, Odette, 213.
“If you choose” . . . “Tell me”: Ibid., 214.
“Then why do you”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 12: TICK, TICK
“Why don’t you” . . . “I could order”: Tickell, Odette, 215.
Henri asked if there was anything: HS 9/648.4.069, UK National Archives.
“That one means . . . ‘no showers’ ”: Ibid., 216; Imperial War Museum (IWM), Oral History, interview with Odette Marie Céline Sansom, produced October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 3.
no contact with anyone: IWM, interview with Odette Sansom, October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 3.
pangs of hunger . . . measured his cell . . . exercise: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 46.
waves of strength . . . enough for two: Ibid., 47.
Gestapo . . . putting their best man: Ibid.
immaculate . . . suit . . . blouse: Ibid.
Peter looked awful . . . looked pale: HS 9/648.4.070, UK National Archives.
POW: Ibid.
two-hour interlude: Peter recalled that Henri had given them only fifteen minutes (Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 48), but in Odette’s debriefing on May 12, 1945, she indicated that it was two hours. HS 9/648.4.070, UK National Archives.
a precious milestone: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 48.
Rodion Romanovitch: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment, 455.
time to invoke . . . gave thanks . . . Lord’s Prayer: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 49–51.
“Tribunal!”: Tickell, Odette, 218; Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 52.
“Bon courage”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 53.
“You see, Mr. Churchill”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 53–54.
“Reconstruction of offense”: Rigden, intro., How to Be a Spy, 84.
Sonderführer Ernst Vogt: Cookridge, Inside S.O.E., p. 11 of photographs (following p. 304 of main text).
“The Gestapo’s reputation”: Ibid., 85.
“I don’t think you” . . . “Ever seen”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 54.
“Never” . . . “What do you take”: Ibid., 55.
“What’s the idea” . . . “On December 24th”: Ibid., 56.
meat, potatoes, and gravy . . . sleepy: Tickell, Odette, 219.
eau de Cologne: Ibid.
“Tribunal!”: Ibid.
“Lise, you wasted”: Ibid., 221.
“Have a look”: HS 9/648.4.070, UK National Archives. Odette’s report of her interrogations and the order of questions appears to be dischronologized on pages 13 (HS 9/648.4.069) and 14 (HS 9/648.4.070), perhaps due to the interviewing officer’s confusion as to the sequence of events. The report seems to indicate, for example, that Odette was interrogated before she was registered at Fresnes. Likewise, the report suggests that she was tortured before introductory questions were asked.
“My father was killed”: HS 9/648.4.070, UK National Archives (quotation rendered from the interviewing officer’s narrative).
“Are you doing” . . . “A pity”: Ibid.
“No. Except, perhaps”: Ibid. Rendered from the interviewing officer’s narrative.
three questions . . . Arnaud . . . Roger: HS 9/648.4.069, UK National Archives; Tickell, Odette, 221. The Gestapo’s demands for the whereabouts of Arnaud and Roger—and Odette’s refusal to supply such—are confirmed throughout Odette’s SOE file. See, for example, HS 9/648.4.009 and HS 9/648.4.042, UK National Archives. See also Imperial War Museum (IWM), Oral History, interview with Odette Marie Céline Sansom, produced October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 1. In this interview, Odette notes that because of her silence, the Germans never found Arnaud or Roger. [Arnaud was later captured, but only upon returning to France after visiting London.] This statement is confirmed by Cammaerts’s affidavit on 20 November 1945 at HS 9/648.4.042, UK National Archives.
“We will see”: Tickell, Odette, 221.
she was the only one: HS 9/648.4.018 and HS 9/648.4.042, UK National Archives. See also “safe house in Cannes” note in chapter 8 regarding Arnaud’s possible knowledge of Roger’s hideout, as well as HS 9/648.4.027, HS 9/648.4.064, and HS 9/648.4.082, UK National Archives.
“I am aware” . . . “I resent your hands”: Tickell, Odette, 222.
red-hot fire iron scorched her skin: This torture is confirmed throughout Odette’s SOE file. See, for example, HS 9/648.4.009, HS 9/648.4.012, HS 9/648.4.018, and HS 9/648.4.069, UK National Archives. Odette also discussed the burning of her back and ensuing toenail torture in her 1986 interview for the Imperial War Museum. (IWM, interview with Odette Sansom, October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 1.) Her physician after the war, Dr. Markowicz, also bore witness to the scar on her back and her missing and deformed toenails. HS 9/648.4.019, UK National Archives.
L tablet: Tickell, Odette, 96. See also Marks, Between Silk and Cyanide, 60.
“My colleague here . . . There are those”: Tickell, Odette, 223.
standard procedure with torture: Foot, SOE in France, 50.
Cammaerts . . . safe house in Cannes: HS 9/648.4.042, UK National Archives.
French and young—maybe twenty-eight—and exceedingly handsome . . . teeth . . . lashes: HS 9/648.4.069, UK National Archives; IWM, interview with Odette Sansom, October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 1. The Germans were clever, Odette felt, in that they always tried to get someone of the victim’s own nationality to conduct the torture so that Germans could never be charged with abuse. IWM, interview with Odette Sansom, October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 1.
CHAPTER 13: THE BLACK HOLLOW
toenail: This torture is confirmed throughout Odette’s SOE file and medical records. See, for example, HS 9/648.4.009, HS 9/648.4.069, and HS 9/648.4.019, UK National Archives. Odette also discussed this torture in her 1986 interview: Imperial War Museum (IWM), Oral History, interview with Odette Marie Céline Sansom, produced October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 1.
“Now would you”: Tickell, Odette, 223.
the Nazis preferred: IWM, interview with Odette Sansom, October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 1.
“Well, Lise” . . . “Conversationally”: Tickell, Odette, 223–24.
“Nothing of the sort” . . . “finger-tips” . . . “The Major”: Ibid., 225; IWM, interview with Odette Sansom, October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 1.
Father Paul Steinert . . . chaplain:
HS 9/648.4.077, UK National Archives.
“You will please”: Tickell, Odette, 226.
“You’ve been to” . . . “Then there is”: Ibid., 230, 232.
“Can’t you understand” . . . “It’s sufficient”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 63.
“Though the SOE”: Malcolm Muggeridge, The Infernal Grove, 174.
“My dear Henri” . . . “Marsac” . . . “Just give me”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 63–64.
“These are for you”: Ibid., 65.
“I’ve just come” . . . “My profession has”: Ibid., 71–72.
the battle of faith: Ibid., 73.
“How is it, mon Père” . . . . . . “Man’s needs”: Ibid., 83–84.
He who has not: Ibid., 85. Peter mistakenly has this verse within “Mignon,” but it comes from the poem that generally precedes it, “Wer nie sein Brot” (roughly, “Who never gets his bread”).
four guards . . . talking: HS 9/648.4.070, UK National Archives.
“Liar”: Tickell, Odette, 233.
slapped Odette twice: Tickell, Odette, 234, has the guard hitting Odette with a brush, but Odette testified at her debriefing on 12 May 1945 that the guard slapped her twice. HS 9/648.4.070, UK National Archives.
fatherly . . . midfifties, grey: HS 9/648.4.071, UK National Archives.
captain apologized . . . anything he could do: HS 9/648.4.070 and HS 9/648.4.071, UK National Archives.
“I am, of course, responsible”: Tickell, Odette, 237.
parcel . . . ginger biscuits: HS 9/648.4.071, UK National Archives; Tickell, Odette, 237.
Trude: HS 9/648.4.071, UK National Archives; Tickell, Odette, 240.
books and more parcels: HS 9/648.4.071 and HS 9/648.4.073, UK National Archives.
summoned to Avenue Foch . . . Miss Herbert and Madame Lechene: HS 9/648.4.071, UK National Archives.
Emile: HS 9/648.4.071 and HS 9/648.4.072, UK National Archives. Emile was SOE agent George Millar. See, generally, Millar, Maquis. See also Buckmaster, They Fought Alone, 294; Foot, SOE in France, 327, 337.
“Yes, we have met”: HS 9/648.4.072, UK National Archives.
“You must understand”: Ibid.
“What about Fresnes”: Ibid.
They’d both be dead: Ibid.
CHAPTER 14: VIENNESE WALTZES
“Can you tell me” . . . “Hess”: HS 9/648.4.072, UK National Archives.
“I went to a beautiful”: Imperial War Museum (IWM), Oral History, interview with Odette Marie Céline Sansom, produced October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 2. See also HS 9/648.4.073, UK National Archives.
“I would be very distressed”: Tickell, Odette, 242.
“Lise, I would very much”: Ibid.
“You asked me that”: Ibid., 242–43.
“Monsieur Fol has”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 90.
“Now, Pierre”: Ibid., 92.
rue Pergolèse . . . apartment 56: KV 2/2127.2 (14B), UK National Archives.
Henri’s flat . . . bathe . . . Suzanne: The entire outing and stop by Bleicher’s flat to freshen up before the Fol luncheon is confirmed in both Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 92–94, and Bleicher, Colonel Henri’s Story, 105–6.
8 bis Chaussée de la Muette: HS 9/648.4.073, UK National Archives; Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 93; Bleicher, Colonel Henri’s Story, 105.
“Now your turn”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 93; Bleicher, Colonel Henri’s Story, 106 (“[W]e sat around . . . playing the piano.”).
Hugo Bleicher’s greatest ambition: Tickell, Odette, 179.
his talent was immense: Bleicher’s personnel file with British Intelligence records that he was a “[v]ery good pianist.” KV 2/2127.1, UK National Archives.
“I’ve got a transmitter” . . . “A pity, Henri”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 95.
“I’ve decided”: IWM, interview with Odette Sansom, October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 2.
gland on the side: HS 9/648.4.076, UK National Archives.
175 grams . . . bread . . . cabbage soup: Tickell, Odette, 243; Christopher Burney, Solitary Confinement, 16 (specifying that it was cabbage soup).
minimum to keep one alive: Burney, Solitary Confinement, 16 (“But it never kept us more than barely alive.”).
On October 15 the captain of the guard . . . two fellow prisoners: HS 9/648.4.073, UK National Archives.
number 337 . . . Simone Hérail: Hérail’s affidavit (French original and English translation) for Odette’s personnel file can be found at HS 9/648.4.035–.041, UK National Archives.
“her health was seriously”: HS 9/648.4.038, UK National Archives.
“at no moment”: Ibid.
Lucienne Delmas: HS 9/648.4.074, UK National Archives.
wireless set . . . news from England: HS 9/648.4.073 and HS 9/648.4.074, UK National Archives.
gland . . . size of a grapefruit . . . pleurisy: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 232.
captain requested . . . Gestapo refused: HS 9/648.4.076, UK National Archives.
“Frau Churchill, I must”: Tickell, Odette, 246.
“Pierre, Pierre” . . . “Can you see”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 102.
Bardet . . . Vera Leigh: Foot, SOE in France, 263–64, 415.
November 11 . . . summoned again to Avenue Foch: HS 9/648.4.074, UK National Archives.
a car: In Odette’s statement on May 12, 1945, she is held at Avenue Foch until evening and taken to the car from there. HS 9/648.4.074, UK National Archives. In her 1986 account, she stated that it was from Fresnes that she was taken to the Arc de Triomphe. IWM, interview with Odette Sansom, October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 1.
“Since you are”: IWM, interview with Odette Sansom, October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 1. See also HS 9/648.4.074, UK National Archives (“You are French and would like to see the Arc de Triomphe.”).
“Look well, Frau Churchill”: Tickell, Odette, 248.
“You like what you”: IWM, interview with Odette Sansom, October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 1.
“Frau Churchill”: Tickell, Odette, 227.
“Madame Churchill”: Ibid., 228; IWM, interview with Odette Sansom, October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 1.
“condemned to death”: HS 9/648.4.012, UK National Archives.
For which country: IWM, interview with Odette Sansom, October 31, 1986, catalogue number 9478, Reel 2.
“Gentlemen, you must”: Tickell, Odette, 228. See also HS 9/648.4.072, UK National Archives.
CHAPTER 15: ALL MY LOVE
“Il est né”: Tickell, Odette, 249.
To Peter: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 108.
About three weeks later: Tickell has the fingerprint episode occurring in September, while Peter Churchill records it as taking place in November. Diana Rowden, however, whom Churchill identifies as being at the event, was not captured until early November. That, coupled with the specific date of 8 February 1944 given by Odette at her debriefing on May 12, 1945 (HS 9/648.4.074, UK National Archives), suggests that her recollection is more accurate.
rue de Saussaies, Gestapo headquarters: HS 9/648.4.074, UK National Archives. See also Burney, Solitary Confinement, 1.
“Frau Churchill, is it”: Tickell, Odette, 242.
“Diana Rowden”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 103; HS 9/648.4.075, UK National Archives.
“Made in England”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 103.
Odette’s morale was: Ibid., 104.
“fourteen times”: Ibid. Odette’s fourteen interrogations are confirmed throughout her SOE file. See, for example, HS 9/648.4.008–.009, UK National Archives, Major General Colin Gubbins’s formal recommendation for Odette’s George Cross.
“What do you mean?” . . . “Oh God!”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 105. Odette’s scheme to deflect the heat off of Peter and onto herself is confirmed by Major General Gubbins’s recommendation for the George Cross: “She also drew Gestapo attention off her Command
ing Officer and on to herself by saying that he was completely incompetent and had only come to FRANCE on her insistence. She took full responsibility and agreed that it should be herself and not her Commanding Officer who should be shot. By this action she caused the Gestapo to cease paying attention to her commanding Officer after only two interrogations.” HS 9/648.4.008–.009, UK National Archives.
message coded in a book: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 107; Tickell, Odette, 249.
“Frau Churchill won’t”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 109.
“I’ve got some” . . . “What do you”: Ibid., 111.
“Erik Hoffmeyer”: Ibid., 118.
“Frau Churchill” . . . “Has he been shot?”: Tickell, Odette, 249–50.
292 pilots . . . Big Week . . . Operation Argument: Dear and Foot, Oxford Companion to World War II, 130–31, 253.
February 27 . . . “Let them all come”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 123.
Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries: Richard Wagner was Adolf Hitler’s favorite composer. As he wrote in Mein Kampf, 18: “My youthful enthusiasm for the Bayreuth Master knew no bounds. Again and again I was drawn to hear his operas.” See also Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich, 71, 107, 297; Charlotte Higgins, “How the Nazis Took Flight from the Valkyries and Rhinemaidens,” Guardian, July 2, 2007; Clemency Burton-Hill, “Is Wagner’s Nazi Stigma Fair?,” BBC.com/culture, October 21, 2014. Ride of the Valkyries was often played at Nazi rallies.
CHAPTER 16: LILY OF THE VALLEY
At midnight came: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, 390–91.
“How goes it?”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 124.
“If you try any”: Ibid.
Mensur, or “academic fencing”: Loftis, Into the Lion’s Mouth, 7–8.
Mark Twain . . . “led away drenched”: Ibid., 7.
Protective Custody Camp: Reinhard Rürup, ed., Topography of Terror: Gestapo, SS and Reichssicherheitshauptamt on the “Prinz-Albrecht-Terrain”: A Documentation, 99. See also Augustino von Hassell and Sigfrid MacRae, Alliance of Enemies: The Untold Story of the Secret American and German Collaboration to End World War II, 37.
“preventive arrest”: Heinz Höhne, The Order of the Death’s Head: The Story of Hitler’s SS, 196–99.