As a result of the increased level of partisan activity, the work was becoming more difficult. The number of German security police increased and Koch’s gang became even more active. Feeding prisoners was now more difficult because of the increasing cost and the decline in availability of food. This increased pressure on the organisation caused Derry to issue instructions tightening up security. He reviewed recent events:
1. A large number (over forty) ex PW have been retaken in the last few weeks in ROME. Of these, twenty-eight were recaptured as a result of denunciations, and sixteen have been picked up in the street (of these sixteen, three were picked up in a drunken condition).
2. Current propaganda in ROME is that the Allies will not arrive before the Autumn. This is strong propaganda when coupled with the food shortage and with the static condition of the bridge-head and CASSINO fronts.
3. The Fascists and German SS have been, during the last four weeks, and still are far more active in the respect of the rounding up of Allied ex PW that any time since the Armistice.
As a result of this assessment of the situation he highlighted a number of conclusions.
1. Fascist gangs, working in collaboration with the Gestapo, are out to make a name for themselves by rounding up all ex PW in ROME.
2. The work of finding billets, paying padrones, contacting and supplying our men is more difficult than ever before.
3. The longer men remain cooped up in-doors, the more desperate becomes their attitude of mind and stimulated by a drink or two, the more likely they are to take ill-advised action.
He then went on to issue instructions.
1. No more ex PW are to be billeted in ROME. Any arriving in the city will be given financial assistance and advised to return to the country.
2. Ex PW must on no account leave their billets unless they receive warning of an imminent raid. The practice of going from one billet to another to visit friends must cease forthwith.
3. If forced to ‘make a run’ for it, ex PW must leave ROME and hide out in the country. Dashing to another billet only compromises additional people.20
In the second week of May the ‘Schoolmaster’ was arrested. Fernando Giustini was a village schoolmaster in the village of Corchiano which is located in Viterbo province. He had lived as a child for a short time in the United States. During the War, he led a band of partisans in his region, who accomplished acts of sabotage against the military occupying the area, but who also were of assistance to people on the run, notably prisoners of war. In this latter aspect of his activities, he worked with O’Flaherty and his organisation. His link with O’Flaherty was through another Irish priest, Fr Clancy, who was then Director of the Collegio Marcantonio Colonna. The German authorities became aware of his work in Corchiano and carried out a house-to-house search. All members of the family were able to escape. They came to Rome where O’Flaherty and his colleagues managed to hide the mother, two sons and one daughter. Fernando continued his activity in Rome until such time as he was picked up as well. He also was tortured but did not disclose any information and eventually managed to make his escape.
On top of all of that, Simpson had disappeared. A heavier load now fell on John Furman but he was becoming too well known. He dyed his hair jet black and changed the position of his hair parting. This, together with the shaving off of his moustache, altered his appearance and he now looked like a fairly typical Italian. Within a couple of days, he met a friend who was able to tell him that the authorities had identified him as the most important person regularly out and about on the streets of Rome for them to capture next. Renzo Lucidi stepped into the breach and devoted himself full time to the work of the organisation. Whenever there was a warning that it was dangerous for Furman to be out on the streets, Renzo and his wife Adrienne dealt with all deliveries of money and supplies to escapees. Things were getting very difficult in the city because there was a rash of minor explosions, assassinations and other events as the running battle between the authorities and the resistance developed.
One of the helpers, Giovanni Cecarelli, was looking after five men who had been evacuated from Mrs Chevalier’s flat. All five were at home when the Fascist Gestapo hammered on his door. As there was no other exit, he bundled them through the French window onto the tiny balcony outside and drew the curtain across. He admitted the raiding party who searched the flat and found nothing incriminating, but just as they were leaving, the sergeant pointed to the French window and demanded to know what was through there. ‘Only the balcony’, said Giovanni and, in an effort to distract the sergeant, offered him a drink. However, the sergeant decided to go through with a routine check of the balcony but, much to Giovanni’s surprise, returned a few seconds later and asked for the drink. After the Fascists had gone, Giovanni went out on the balcony and was surprised to see nothing. He owed his life to the fact that he routinely stored a ladder on the balcony and the five had climbed up to the balcony above and pulled the ladder up with them.
Despite all this, the organisation was very active. The income for that month was in excess of 2,750,000 lire (approximately €350,000 in current terms), consisting of about 250,000 lire from Tittmann and the balance from Sir D’Arcy. Derry’s careful accounts show that the money was spent on 164 escaped prisoners of war who were being catered for in Rome and in excess of 3,500 in the countryside around. These latter escapees were in 32 different locations with the groups varying in size from 3 to 110.
12
The Liberation
The difficulties the organisation had experienced in recent weeks continued into the month of May, while at the same time, the numbers seeking their assistance were increasing by about a hundred per week. The Monsignor was called to a meeting with His Holiness.
I have heard today from an Italian source that Monsignor O’Flaherty of the Holy Office has been requested by the Holy Father not to leave the Vatican City and to give an undertaking that he would abstain from all activities in relation to providing shelter or money for escaped British prisoners of war. He is known to have boasted some months ago that Prince Doria had placed a couple of million lire at his disposal for this purpose. The Germans apparently got to know of his activities for, several months ago, the Secretary of the German Embassy to the Holy See asked Kiernan if he knew a certain Monsignor O’Flaherty in Rome. Very likely they protested to the Vatican which provoked papal restrictions on his movements. His actions were not in accord either with the neutral character of the Vatican City or of the country of which he is a citizen.1
(MacWhite, 9 May 1944)
It seems reasonable to assume that this report is relatively accurate. However, it would be wrong to take that as evidence of papal disapproval. After all, at this stage the Allies were weeks away, though as it turned out it took longer for them to arrive than anticipated. During the entire period of his activities, O’Flaherty’s life was in danger. In addition, of course, the Pope would have been concerned about the inevitable embarrassment that would have been caused had the Monsignor been captured. The most likely explanation of this meeting is that that Pope had decided O’Flaherty should run no more risks. The person best placed to judge O’Flaherty’s position throughout this period was his closest associate, Sam Derry. The Englishman’s consistent view was that the Monsignor had the tacit approval of the Pope for what he was doing and there is no reason to doubt the accuracy of that observation.
At the same time, controls on visitors to the Vatican were tightened up and it was not possible to gain access to Monsignor O’Flaherty in the German College. Yet again, John May and his unusual relationship with the Swiss Guard came to the rescue.
He induced the Swiss Guards to allow specified people to make use of the guard-room by the Santa Marta gate. On arrival at the Vatican, we went straight to the guard-room. One of the guards telephoned John on the internal phone and he came down. In a quiet corner of the room we transacted our business with relative privacy.2
May then would pass on whatever mess
ages were necessary to Monsignor O’Flaherty or indeed bring him down to meet the visitors if that was needed.
On 12 May, the Allied Forces opened a major new offensive on the southern front.
The offensive has put new life into us, and new hope into the Italians. The Allies are progressing slowly, but as long as they do progress, all is well.3
(Mother Mary St Luke, 14 May 1944)
People in Rome can talk of nothing else than the offensive and are already settling dates for the arrival of the Allies – as they have so often done in the past.4
(Mother Mary St Luke, 19 May 1944)
High Fascist officials are known to have completed preparations for leaving Rome. The Chief of the Fascist police, the party leaders … have already parked luggage which only await the signal. In German circles it is said they will abandon the city on the day the Allies attempt a landing … which they anticipate on May 22nd or thereabouts.5
(MacWhite, 20 May 1944)
We hear that Kesselring has called up all his available reserves … Rome is tense. The Romans are in high spirits, but they dread what the Germans may do before they go … The panic that is beginning to show itself recalls the panic last September when Rome was occupied. Anxiety to conceal young men who are wanted by the Fascists for the army or forced labour, and desire to protect their families, in case of reprisals, is increased by the knowledge that tomorrow at midnight the time ‘graciously granted by Il Duce to defaulters for military service’ expires. For weeks press and radio have never ceased to advise, order, coax, beg, encourage and direct defaulters to come and be forgiven, to join the ranks of the Republican army, assuring them that they would suffer no penalty for delay until midnight on May 25th. After that they would be searched out, arrested and shot in the back as deserters.6
(Mother Mary St Luke, 23 May 1944)
Derry was afraid that escapees, hearing what was going on, would now begin to engage in rash actions, such as coming out of hiding to try and join the battle. So he issued strict instructions for all to stay in their accommodations. Not all obeyed and two decided to visit Mrs Chevalier to get a good meal. She was renowned for the quality of catering provided to escapees. There were no longer any soldiers billeted there but it acted as a clearing house on occasions and as a general base for food distribution. However, the family were aware that the house was under observation. Two German SS men, who were regularly on the street, had questioned the caretaker Egidio about the inhabitants of Apartment 9 (Mrs Chevalier’s) and she subsequently telephoned O’Flaherty warning him that she was now under full-time observation. Furman passed a message to all escapees who knew her to stay away from the apartment but presumably these two, Martin and Everett, did not get the warning. When they knocked at her apartment door she was horrified and told them to go away immediately as the Germans were watching. They knew that to go back downstairs was to face the likelihood of immediate arrest. They also knew their first duty was to Mrs Chevalier so they went down the flight of stairs as quickly as possible. Her quick warning had bought them some time. But as they turned into the street, one of the Germans left the café opposite and followed them.
Fifty yards from Mrs M’s house was a block of flats through whose courtyard one could pass to emerge into another street. The two boys aware that they were being followed, entered the courtyard and then ran. For two or three days, I heard nothing of them. I had already given them up for lost, when I discovered that they were safely hid away in a billet of whose existence I had been unaware.7
Furman reported this episode to O’Flaherty who immediately decided the situation was getting too close for comfort and arrangements were made to evacuate Mrs Chevalier and her family. One at a time, at brief intervals, without baggage of any sort, the members of her family including herself left the premises. It did not occur to the watching SS men that an entire family was abandoning its accommodation. Presumably they were looking out for clearly identifiable Allied ex-prisoners. By different routes, the various members of the family made their way to the home of a friend a distance away and eventually the whole family moved to a farm on the outskirts of the city where they remained until the Germans had left Rome. Furman recalls the Maltese widow:
What can be said of this incredible woman, who I guessed to be in her early forties? I would not call her brave for it seemed to me that she had no conception of fear. Her kindness and generosity were unparalleled, her maternal spirit and compassion boundless. During my stay in Rome some scores of Allied prisoners must have received hospitality in her home.8
Fr Anselmo Musters (Dutchpa) was a native of Holland and had been one of O’Flaherty’s earliest recruits. His arrest was perhaps one of the things O’Flaherty dreaded most and it occurred on the first day of May. He had just left the billet where a South African sergeant, Carl Schwabe, was located, when he became aware that he was being followed. He stopped for a moment and his follower stopped too, looking fairly suspiciously into a shop window. Fr Musters strolled on but changed direction and made for the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. Before he reached the church, the plain-clothes man overtook him and demanded identity documents. The Dutch priest attempted to gain the sanctuary of the church but the policeman jumped in front of him, pulled a pistol from inside his coat and demanded that he stop. Fr Musters pushed him aside but then he felt a vicious blow to the back of his head and he crumbled. A Palatine guard, who from within the church had seen the attack, rushed forward and dragged the semi-conscious priest inside. The German soldier disappeared. Contact was made with the Vatican authorities who instructed Fr Musters to stay where he was until the following morning when he would be collected by an escort and taken back to his mother house. It was presumed he was safe in the church but this was not the case.
About half an hour later the Church was surrounded by German SS men, and party under a Captain KEHLE entered the room where Father ANSELMO was. As Father ANSELMO refused to accompany the SS men, he was struck on the head by KEHLE with a sub-machine gun, and received a wound which did not heal for a fortnight. He was dragged by the feet out of the extra territorial property, down the steps and taken to Via Tasso. His arrival there created quite an atmosphere of triumph because the Germans thought that they had arrested an English Colonel disguised as a priest. His clothes were torn from him and thoroughly searched, all the seams of his garments were opened up, and his shoes were taken to pieces. His hands were handcuffed behind his back, and his feet also manacled.9
He was interrogated daily in the prison on the Via Tasso for over a fortnight by two members of the Gestapo, Captains Schulz and Wolf, who questioned him endlessly about the organisation which they knew existed to assist Allied ex-prisoners of war. They even produced a diagram which outlined the structure of the organisation. He was shocked to see that it was very accurate. However, through the two weeks of physical and mental abuse, he maintained he knew nothing about the organisation. Eventually his captors admitted defeat and threw him into a dark cell where he remained for another fortnight. The plan was to send him to Germany and so he was put on a train. His likely fate, had he arrived in Germany, was fairly clear. However, the train halted at Florence and he managed to make a getaway and he returned to Rome immediately.
A couple of days after Fr Musters had been arrested, Furman very nearly joined him in captivity. He was travelling on a tram when it was raided by the SS. He was delivering money and tobacco to various billets. The cellophane-wrapped tobacco was an American troops issue captured by the Germans and sold on the black market where it had been bought by those working for O’Flaherty’s organisation. His last visit before he got on the tram was to Johnny Johnstone who had now moved into a Vatican-owned block of flats in Trastevere, one of the toughest quarters of Rome ‘where he was guest of Monsignor Giobbelina, a friar tuck of a man. Living in the same block, with different families were three South Africans and Garrad-Cole.’10 He then hopped on a tram which was subsequently stopped by a cordon of Fascist soldiers.
&n
bsp; My heart sank and inwardly I cursed and cursed and cursed. To be picked up again in so short a time before liberation!11
The soldiers in the street had formed a line from the front door of the tram to the entrance of one of the block of flats and the intention was to shepherd the men in there and allow the women and children go free.
At the first sign of danger, I had extracted from my breastpocket my tell-tale notebook with [its] code entries and statement of money spent. I was standing near the front end of the tram and the pressure of people moving up behind me was impelling me towards the exit. Just in time, a man sitting on my left rose from his place, pushed past me and left the tram. I plunged into a seat, tore the offending pages from my notebook to the mystification of the woman next to me, screwed them into a tight ball and dropped them, unseen, into her shopping basket.12
The Vatican Pimpernel Page 17