by Paul Kix
92“our main mission”: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
92Prémery: Conversations with Claude Delasselle. La Rochefoucauld thought this sabotage took place in Avallon, and though there were sabotages in that town, the sort he described in his memoir, and in the time he said it took place, occurred in Prémery.
93Groupe Roche: Robert de La Rochefoucauld’s military records.
93“Chance is the most extraordinary thing”: La Rochefoucauld recording.
93“Everything went perfectly well”: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
93simply because they felt like it: Ibid. Though I should note that Delasselle does not describe any of La Rochefoucauld’s sabotages in his historical works. That said, Delasselle, in Un Département, does note that more than sixty sabotages occurred in September 1943 in the Yonne. He doesn’t list each one in the book.
93wrote in September 1943: The words of the sous-prefect were dug up and published on the historical website http://www.lesormes89.fr/resistance.html.
94reported nineteen injuries and twenty-seven deaths: Delasselle, Un Département.
94“special brigade”: Ibid.
94Kurt Merck: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark.
94“Captain Kaiser”: I found this nickname in Central Intelligence Agency archives, a working paper titled “An SD agent of Rare Importance.” You can read the declassified account online at https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA%20AND%20NAZI%20WARCRIM.%20AND%20COL.%20CHAP.%201–10,%20DRAFT%20WORKING%20PAPER_0003.pdf.
94who favored a silk scarf: This comes from more declassified CIA reports on Merck. You can read this one online at https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/NEBEL,%20LUDWIG%20%20%20VOL.%202_0111.pdf.
94J. P. Lien: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark, and Delasselle, Yonne Memoire, November 2003, online at http://arory.com/fileadmin/images/Yonne_memoire/bulletin_11.pdf.
94Merck asked Lien to infiltrate: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark.
94Operation Gibet: Delasselle, Yonne Memoire.
95the code-name Lanky: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark.
95“Do not try to contact any member”: Ibid.
95“Warning,” Hedgehog said: Ibid.
96In Sens, in the north: Delasselle, Un Département and Yonne Memoire. The following paragraphs are informed by these sources.
96“Treachery”: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark.
96private banquet in Dijon: Ibid.
96“the Noah’s Ark that we have been fighting”: Ibid.
96Groupe Roche was dismantled: La Rochefoucauld recording and military records.
97gave up twenty: Delasselle, Un Département.
97Why help these irregular fighters?: Foot, SOE in France, and Stafford, Churchill & Secret Service.
97327 parachute drops: Mackenzie, The Secret History of SOE.
97is a cold place to spend a winter: Conversations with Claude Delasselle. I was there in July 2014 and had to buy sweaters because the high for the day never exceeded 60-degrees Fahrenheit.
97food grew scarce: Ibid.
97Germans or their French collaborators: Ibid.
97acreage outside Quarré-les-Tombes: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
97moved his remaining stores of weapons: La Rochefoucauld recording.
98He could not shake the suspicion: Ibid., and La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
98“the terrible year”: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark.
98phoning his mother: La Rochefoucauld recording.
98strictly forbade its fighters: Foot, SOE in France, and Nicolson, Aristide.
98he never said why he phoned: La Rochefoucauld recording.
98thought she was going mad: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark.
98Who would help him?: La Rochefoucauld recording and La Liberté.
99“Crushed, oh, I was utterly crushed!”: Cobb, The Resistance.
99fast asleep on a bed of hay: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
99Then the blows fell: Ibid., and La Rochefoucauld recording.
99“They tied me up like a sausage”: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
99“I was sleeping here”: La Rochefoucauld recording, and La Rochefoucauld family DVD.
CHAPTER 10
101beyond the forest: This paragraph is informed by my drive from Quarréles-Tombes to Auxerre, and also by looking at old maps of the department.
101took his shoelaces: The practices of what happens when an inmate enters Auxerre are summed up in a memoir, Jean Léger, Petite Chronique de l’Horreur Ordinaire (Yonne: ANACR, 1998).
101December 7, 1943: Auxerre prison records.
101no first name entered the rolls: Ibid.
102a simple woodcutter: Ibid.
102toward the B wing: The idea that this wing was reserved for political prisoners comes from Delasselle’s scholarship of the prison, and the conversations I had with him.
102many political prisoners did: Léger, Petite Chronique, and Delasselle, Yonne Memoire, and my conversations with Claude Delasselle.
102The prison was constructed in 1853: A website tracking the history of the French criminal justice system, brimming with government documents and official sources, helped me here. http://criminocorpus.hypotheses.org/7243.
102Stalag 150: http://www.ajpn.org/internement-Frontstalag-150-Auxerre-1031.html.
102desperate for human interaction: Conversations with Claude Delasselle and Léger, Petite Chronique.
102inmates who had short prison stays: Auxerre prison records.
102narrow metal walkways: Léger, Petite Chronique.
102doors themselves were wooden: André Daprey, Traqués Par La Gestapo et La Police de Vichy: 1943–1944 dans l’Yonne (self-published, 2003).
103a low buzz of noise: Léger, Petite Chronique.
103Roughly two thousand people: Website tracking the prison’s history, http://criminocorpus.hypotheses.org/7243.
103held between two and three hundred people: Conversations with Claude Delasselle.
103thirteen-by-six-foot: Léger, Petite Chronique.
103slop bucket in between: Ibid.
103He was an epileptic: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
103“then went to find a doctor”: Ibid.
103He was a forty-six-year-old: Delasselle, Un Département.
103as if to center his disproportionate, rotund appearance: Surviving photos of Haas.
103and had a mouth full of gold teeth: Jorge Semprun was a Spanish-born novelist and memoirist who was imprisoned in Auxerre. Jorge Semprun, Literature or Life (New York, Penguin, 1998).
104nothing in his personal file: Delasselle, Un Département.
104Major developments in the Yonne: Ibid.
104he might torture inmates: Ibid.
104This baffled Robert: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
104“And I am neither!”: Ibid.
105These interrogations: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark.
105as they jarred Robert’s teeth loose: Conversations with Constance Guillaumin. La Rochefoucauld told her after the war that he’d lost his teeth in Auxerre.
105held weekly interrogations: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark.
105that Robert said little: There is next to no discussion of the pain he endured in La Liberté, in his recording, or in the La Rochefoucauld family DVD.
105“the brutal return of past despair”: Semprun, Literature or Life.
105psychiatric hospital: I saw this for myself, on my sightseeing tour with Delasselle.
105The French prisoners liked to joke: Ibid.
105to kneel on a bench: Delarue, The Gestapo.
105his arms tied behind his back: Ibid.
105“torn apart for good”: Semprun, Literature or Life.
106a dry, flashing, almost electric pain: Jorge Semprun, Exercices de Survie (Paris: Gallimard, 2012).
106ballasted the bat with lead: Ibid.
106often needed guards to support him: Léger, Petite Chronique.
106the halls suddenly silent: Ibid.
106Haas enjoyed waterboarding inmates: Semprun, Exercices de Survie.
; 106“I was helpless”: This description of waterboarding comes from Forest Yeo-Thomas, an SOE officer of considerable renown in John Grehan and Martin Mace, Unearthing Churchill’s Secret Army: The Official List of SOE Casualties and Their Stories (Barnsley, UK: Pen and Sword, 2012).
106filling his tub with trash and feces: Semprun, Exercices de Survie.
106“And indeed it was”: Ibid.
106pulling out one nail, and then another: Ibid.
107Pius VII: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
107turned up the voltage: Conversations with Claude Delasselle.
107beneath which starving rats swam: Darpey, Traqués Par La Gestapo et La Police de Vichy.
107“Those who are overwhelmed”: Semprun, Exercices de Survie.
107“To win this contest with my body”: Semprun, Literature or Life.
107to ridicule the wounded man: “La cellule de tortures de l’hôpital psychiatrique d’Auxerre conservée telle quelle par le Dr Scherrer,” Auxerre TV, November, 9. This local station aired a special on the hospital and what happened there. http://www.auxerretv.com/content/index.php?post/2011/11/09/La-cellule-de-tortures-de-l-h%C3%B4pital-psychiatrique-d-Auxerre-conserv%C3%A9e-telle-quelle-par-le-Dr-Scherrer#.
107little better when a prisoner returned to his cell: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
107drying blood and sickness never left the wing: Léger, Petite Chronique.
108could receive small parcels: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
108a small, black-haired Frenchman: Photos of André Bouy, provided to me when I visited his daughter, Françoise Millot Bouy, in Auxerre.
108Auxerre’s Hôtel de la Fontaine: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
108bunch his round cheeks into a warm smile: Photos of Bouy.
108sometimes chocolates: Conversations with Françoise Millot Bouy.
108why this man sent him anything: La Rochefoucauld recording and La Liberté.
108to walk on salt: Delarue, The Gestapo.
108and then light each piece: Ibid.
108Punches to the face and body: Ibid.
109it had been dumb enough: La Rochefoucauld recording and La Liberté.
109gouged out his eyes: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark.
109from the skin of a Jewish man: Jackson, France: The Dark Years.
109“so very human surrender”: Semprun, Exercices de Survie.
109“Who would dare to judge them?”: Delarue, The Gestapo.
109He jumped out the window: Jackson, France: The Dark Years.
110“It is my pleasure . . . to serve the king”: Conversations with Nicolas de Schonen and Constance Guillaumin.
110here in Auxerre: La Rochefoucauld recording.
110smell of roses: Semprun, Exercices de Suvrie.
110He had been imprisoned for four months: Auxerre prison records.
110most inmates didn’t make it half that long: Conversations with Claude Delasselle.
110His bushy beard: Conversations with Yolaine de Schonen, who saw him not long after his imprisonment.
110“home in the world”: Semprun, Exercices de Suvrie.
111“an experience of brotherhood”: Ibid.
111transformed in the nineteenth century: L’Horloge magazine, http://www.lhorloge.fr/magazine/article.php?article=12.
111Dr. Karl Haas: Delasselle, Un Département.
111A man named Ribain: Ibid.
111In a matter of a few minutes: La Rochefoucauld recording.
111He was to be executed: Conversations with Claude Delasselle.
112No one spoke until the evening: Léger, Petite Chronique.
112March 20 at 8 a.m.: Auxerre prison records, which also note that La Rochefoucauld escaped.
112didn’t understand a word: La Rochefoucauld recording and La Liberté.
CHAPTER 11
113Just before 8 a.m.: Conversations with Claude Delasselle. He said that many executions took place early in the morning.
113told him to sit on a coffin lying there: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
113here came a second prisoner: Ibid., and La Rochefoucauld recording.
113closed behind La Rochefoucauld: I saw these for myself when I was in France.
113listen to the birdsong: Claude Delasselle led me on the route from the prison to the execution range.
113brown stone chapel: I saw this for myself.
113Why give in to the Nazis now?: La Rochefoucauld recording and La Liberté.
114There were no handcuffs: Ibid.
114“I’m getting out!”: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
114“You’re crazy. It won’t work!”: Ibid.
114The sudden stop: Ibid., and La Rochefoucauld recording and family DVD. Most of this chapter depends on these three sources.
114Avenue Victor Hugo: Claude Delasselle told me this was where the SD had its local headquarters.
115and sped right past it: La Rochefoucauld recording and La Liberté, and La Rochefoucauld family DVD.
116He checked himself: Ibid.
117He was back where he started: Ibid.
CHAPTER 12
119He walked into Auxerre: La Rochefoucauld recording La Liberté, and La Rochefoucauld family DVD. This chapter is heavily influenced by these sources.
119an agrarian and somewhat antiquated department: Delasselle, Un Département.
120“It was hard to explain”: LA Rochefoucauld recording.
120“one cannot answer for his courage”: Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims (1871).
120entirely in someone else’s: La Rochefoucauld recording and La Liberté.
121“Of course I’m a good Frenchman”: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté. The rest of the dialogue in this anecdote comes from the book as well.
121She “served me a meal big enough to choke on”: Ibid.
121“for several months”: Ibid.
122Would he talk to the hotelier?: Ibid and La Rochefoucauld recording.
122and gave him a hearty embrace: Ibid.
122Bouy was thirty-eight: Conversations with Françoise Millot Bouy.
122and that warm smile: Photos of Bouy.
122the family business was effectively his: Conversations with Françoise Millot Bouy.
123sixty in one month in 1943: Delasselle, Un Département.
123safety in transparency: Conversations with Françoise Millot Bouy.
124René Lallier: La Rochefoucauld recording.
124Bouy had been given an Ausweis: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté, and conversations with Françoise Millot Bouy.
125They could only hide him well: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté, and conversations with Françoise Millot Bouy.
126“Here you are, sir—my Ausweis”: La Rochefoucauld recording and La Liberté.
126told La Rochefoucauld they’d arrived: Ibid., and La Rouchefoucauld family DVD.
CHAPTER 13
1291,300-calorie diet: Jackson, France: The Dark Years, set it at 1,327 calories.
129forage for acorns: Ibid.
129meals of the countryside: Gildea, Marianne in Chains.
129“Paris was arguably the safest place in Europe”: Allan Mitchell, Nazi Paris: The History of an Occupation, 1940–1944 (Oxford: Bergahn Books, 2013).
129which were in fact bombed in 1943: Ibid.
129central and southern France: Ian Ousby, Occupation: The Ordeal of France, 1940–1944 (New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000).
129but it looked more like 1938 here: Rosbottom, When Paris Went Dark.
130an aunt and uncle of his: La Rochefoucauld recording and La Liberté.
130“Robert!” she said: Ibid.
130“For me, it was a marvelous moment”: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
130“Well, we’re very lucky”: Ibid.
130POW camp: La Rochefoucauld’s recording mentions how they discussed family matters. Olivier de La Rochefould’s military records note when he left the POW camp.
130more than four children: Jackson, France: The Dark Years.
131of anothe
r age, another life: La Rochefoucauld recording.
131larger than he expected: Ibid.
131at a post office: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
131He decided to call a friend: Ibid.
131the king of Naples in 1808: Joachim Murat biographical information comes from a couple of online sources, http://www.arcdetriomphe.info/officers/murat/; and http://www.angelfire.com/realm/gotha/gotha/murat.html. The notion that Salomé was a stunning young woman comes from Getty Images I viewed of her subsequent wedding: http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/princess-salome-murat-the-daughter-of-achille-napoleon-news-photo/104418991.
131rue de Constantine: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
131“vying with each other”: Ibid.
132“I owe it to France”: Cobb, The Resistance.
132“declare their wish to set the motherland free”: Ibid, and this educational website, which has a fuller transcript of the speech, https://prezi.com/0oghl89ehjnk/annex-five/.
132“We could feel victory coming”: La Rochefoucauld recording.
132“national insurrection and the German defeat”: Foot, SOE in France.
132now sent some men as old as sixty to Germany: Gildea, Marianne in Chains.
132“or went into hiding”: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
133back to the family chateau in Villeneuve: Conversations with Nicolas and Yolaine de Schonen.
133and fight in Lorraine: La Rochefoucauld recording and La Liberté.
133L’hôtel Wendel: Conversations with Yolaine de Schonen.
133his mother’s family built: Franck Beaumont, “L’hôtel Wendel en Photographies,” Evous, December 12, 2011, http://www.evous.fr/La-saga-d-une-dynastie-industrielle-les-Wendel,1149214.html.
133and began talking as if all this were normal: Conversations with Yolaine de Schonen.
133Yolaine immediately noticed his beard and mustache: Ibid.
133also announced he was no longer a boy: Ibid.
134and thinking how surreal it was: La Rochefoucauld recording.
134“such emotion”: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
134He planned to contact his handlers: Ibid.
134had even drawn up an itinerary: Ibid.
134and left the room: Conversations with Yolaine de Schonen.
134The doctor told Robert he had scabies: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
134where his parents came to see him: La Rochefoucauld recording and La Liberté.
135thirty thousand borderline reprobates: Jackson, France: The Dark Years.