“So who are you?” she exclaimed, staring at me wide-eyed. “What have you brought me here from my past?” Striking still at eighty-two, Lisa had shining green eyes. I showed her the letters she wrote to Vera in February and March 1946. “Yes, yes. That's me,” she said, and laughed.
Lisa had been nineteen when the war broke out. One day she saw a German walk up the drive at her home in Alsace, so she reached for a shotgun and tried to shoot him. Later, while in the resistance, she tried to rescue an imprisoned American spy but was caught and locked up in Karlsruhe.
“Yes, Martine was in a cell next to me for about a year. One day I went to empty my pot outside the door—you know, the pot for dirty water to wash and so on—and the door opened next door, and I was bending down and I looked around, and this woman was bending down, and she turned to me and she smiled, and I smiled and when I went back in my cell I thought, She's French. So I tapped in Morse: ‘You are French.' And she tapped back: ‘Yes.' ” Lisa had learned Morse as a girl scout.
“We couldn't talk, you see, as there were three guards standing by the door. I remember she had brown eyes and a nice smiling face, a little round with dark hair, big lips. She had a pleasant face. Not pretty.
“Then we began our conversations in Morse, which carried on for hours every night. So I used to tap the point of the fork for the short sound and scratch with the prongs for the long sounds. Our conversations took a long time, you understand, but we had a long time. She told me her name and about her family. She told me she was not married, and I told her I was not married. She was arrested with other people and denounced, like me, by a Frenchman.
“Then we talked of politics, the landings, that Germany had lost the war. We had such lovely conversations. We were both en secret [in solitary confinement] at that time.”
Lisa read on through her letters to Vera, nodding. “I have a great visual memory, you see—this is my métier,” said Lisa, who after the war had become a comedienne. “And I thought at the time when I saw these girls, They are not going to come back. And so, I thought, I will fix them all, now, in my mind.”
“How did you survive?” I asked.
“You know, I never knew. But one day they took me to see a Gestapo man. He was nice and gave me food. I didn't know why he was being nice, and then one day, when the door opened, I saw somebody come in the outer room who looked just like me. It was his daughter. She could have been my twin. So I knew why he was so kind.”
I asked Lisa what Theresia Becker was like. “Madame Becker?” she exclaimed, as if surprised to hear herself voice the name all these years later. “Madame Becker. We got on fine. I was not a whore or a murderer, so she liked me well enough. Enfin, she was severe! But she could be kind. And when you left, she saw you off, and you collected your belongings from her. I had a little valise and collected it when I left.
“One day she put in the prison an enormous bag of potatoes and told me to peel them. I said: ‘You think I am going to peel potatoes.^ ne suis pas condamnée, je suis prisonnière politique! I do not peel potatoes for the Germans!' And you know what?—she never asked me again. I said I would like to iron. They gave me an iron, so I ironed the clothes of the priests from the church. I could turn the iron over and reheat my soup.”
“How did you get to know the other girls?”
“Martine told me about them. We were all copines [pals], she said.
When they were in the courtyard below, I was at the window, and Madame Greiner, one of the guards, would come and tell me the name of each and everything they were wearing, and when they were leaving. I told Madame Greiner: ‘You know, Fräulein, Germany has lost the war and you must help me,' and she did!
“Then I caught glimpses of them sometimes. In the shower, perhaps. I had a few words with Odette in the shower, I remember. She told me some girls were leaving. I remember her face.
“If I think now, I do not see the faces of the others, you know.”
I asked Lisa if she had known somebody named Noor, or Nora, who might have used the alias Madeleine. “I saw her,” she said, and turned to look at me as if she were not certain.
“Are you quite sure?” I said.
“I think so. I saw her in the courtyard, didn't I? I didn't know her name. She was not called Nora. Yes, I saw her. At least I thought it was Nora—later when I saw the photograph that the British officer sent me.
“She was called Suzanne. She had black hair, brown eyes, and the skin a little dark. She could have been Jewish. She was a dancer.”
I told Lisa that Nora wasn't a dancer. “Well, perhaps I didn't see her after all,” she said.
Vera with her brothers,
Guy and Ralph.
[Courtesy of K. Rosenberg]
Vera (with plaits) at a wedding at Crasna, early 1920s.
[Atkins Papers]
Vera (with plaits) and friend at Crasna, early 1920s.
[Atkins Papers]
Vera with her brothers in pony and trap at Crasna, early 1920s. [Atkins Papers]
Vera's father, Max, at the front of the house at Crasna, 1920s. [Atkins Papers]
The rear of the house at Crasna. [Atkins Papers]
Vera in her teens. [Courtesy of K. Rosenberg]
Vera (seated) with her mother, Hilda, Uncle Siegfried, and father, Max, on the rear veranda at Crasna. [Courtesy of K. Rosenberg]
Mountain picnic guests at Vallea Uzului, 1932. Riders (from left): Siegfried Rosenberg (second); Count von der Schulenburg (third); Charles Robinson, commercial attaché (fifth); Vera (sixth); Vera's cousin (one of the Rosenberg twins, Hans or George) (seventh); Fritz Rosenberg (ninth); Annie Samuelli (end). [Atkins Papers]
Vera at Crasna before a ball. [Courtesy of K. Rosenberg]
Targul Mosilor (theatre), Bucharest, mid-1930s. Vera (back row, centre); John Coulson (middle row, far left); Montague Chidson (middle row, second left); Leslie Humphreys (middle row, far right). [Courtesy of Valerie Chidson]
Vera (second left) as Bluebeard, Samedan, near St. Moritz, Switzerland, 1938. [Courtesy of Mimi Rocke]
Vera as WAAF squadron officer, 1946. [Atkins Papers]
Sonia Olschanesky, descriptions of whom led Vera to think she was Nora. [Special Forces Club]
Nora Inayat Khan (alias Madeleine). [Atkins Papers]
◹
Diana Rowden. [Special Forces Club]
◸
Vera Leigh. [Special Forces Club]
◹
Andrée Barrel (alias Denise). [Special Forces Club]
◸
Yvonne Rudellat. [Special Forces Club]
◹
Violette Szabo. [Atkins Papers]
◸
Lilian Rolfe. [Special Forces Club]
◹
Denise Bloch. [National Archive]
◸
Cicely Lefort. [National Archive]
◹
Madeleine Damerment (alias Martine). [Atkins Papers]
◸
Yolande Beekman (alias Yvonne). [Atkins Papers]
◹
Eliane Plewman. [Special Forces Club]
◸
Odette Hallowes (formerly Churchill, formerly Sansom). [Special Forces Club]
◹
Yvonne Baseden. [Atkins Papers]
◸
Eileen Nearne. [Special Forces Club]
Francis Suttill (alias Prosper) with his wife, Margaret, 1935. [Courtesy of Anthony Suttill]
◹
Francis Suttill in lieutenant's uniform. [Courtesy of Anthony Suttill]
◸
Gilbert Norman (alias Archambaud). [National Archive]
▵
France Antelme. [Courtesy of Alain Antelme]
◸
Jack Agazarian. [Special Forces Club]
◹
Frank Pickersgill. [National Archive]
◸
Henri Déricourt (alias Gilbert). [Déricourt's Private Papers]
◹
Maurice Buckmaster. [National Archive]
Nicholas Bodington. [National Archive]
Buckmaster (centre) on tour —the Judex Mission—in liberated France, 1944. [Atkins Papers]
The Judex Mission: Vera (centre); Buckmaster (far right). [Atkins Papers]
Vera in office with war crimes investigators, including Stephen Stewart (back right), Bad Oeynhausen, 1946. [Atkins Papers]
Vera with Tony Somerhough, Germany, 1946. [Atkins Papers]
War crimes investigators at Bad Oeynhausen break for lunch, 1946: Somerhough (far left); Vera second left). [Courtesy of Jane Hamlyn]
Vera on investigations in Germany, 1946. [Courtesy of John da Cunha]
Vera with John da Cunha in Hamburg during the Ravensbrück trial, December 1946. [Courtesy of John da Cunha]
Sturmbannführer Hans Kieffer at his desk in Avenue Foch. [Courtesy of Kieffer family]
Horst Kopkow, SS counterintelligence chief in Berlin. [Berlin Document Centre]
Fritz Suhren, Kommandant of Ravensbrück concentration camp. [Atkins Papers]
The drawings in blood made by Yolande Beekman in her cell at Karlsruhe prison, 1944. The captions read: “Elise dreams… Tomorrow we will eat…” and (though the German is not perfect) “The bad girl's room.” [Courtesy of Erich Johe]
Natzweiler concentration camp on Struthof Mountain, Alsace. [Weiner Library]
A coat worn by a Natzweiler prisoner designated N+N (Nacht und Nebel).
[Atkins Papers]
Vera's sketch of the crematorium building at Natzweiler, 1946.
[Imperial War Museum]
Brian Stonehouse's sketches of women prisoners walking down the Lagerstrasse at Natzweiler. [Imperial War Museum]
The Natzweiler defendants in the dock at the 1946 trial held at Wuppertal. Right to left: Zeuss, Straub, Meier, Wochner, Hartjenstein, Berg, Rohde, Brüttel, and Aus dem Bruch. [Wiener Library]
Vera (left) with Hedwig Rosenberg, her sister-in-law, and Odette (right) at the time of the London opening of Odette, 1950. [Atkins Papers]
Vera with Virginia McKenna and Paul Scofield during the filming of Carve Her Name with Pride at Pinewood Studios. [Atkins Papers]
Vera walking with Buckmaster in the garden of his retirement home in East Sussex, late 1980s. [Atkins Papers]
Vera at memorial service at Ravensbrück concentration camp, Germany, 1993. [Atkins Papers]
17.
The Villa Degler
The Villa Degler in Gaggenau, a small town near Karlsruhe, on the edge of the Black Forest, was an unlikely place to interrogate war criminals. The stylish house caught the eye of the young SAS intelligence officer Major Eric “Bill” Barkworth when he drove through the wreckage of Gaggenau in the summer of 1945. He was looking for a base from which to search for missing SAS soldiers.
A centre of the brewing industry, the town had also been home to an important Mercedes-Benz factory, and in 1944 RAF bombers growled down the river valley here, depositing their loads on the factory. But many of the bombs missed their target, flattening seventy percent of the town. The Villa Degler, however, remained intact, for it was sturdily built in the Bauhaus style and set back far enough from the river to escape the bombs.
When Barkworth's jeep pulled up outside the villa, he found it occupied by Herr Herman Degler, owner of one of the biggest breweries in the area. The brewer and his family were turfed out in under an hour, and Barkworth, with about twelve NCOs, moved in. Frau Degler and her daughter were asked to come by each day to cook and clean for Bark-worth's men.
Gaggenau was exactly where Barkworth needed to be to scour the countryside for SAS soldiers who had gone missing on operations. More than twenty SAS men were believed to have been captured after being dropped behind enemy lines just after D-Day. Yurka Galitzine's 1944 investigation into Natzweiler concentration camp had provided Barkworth with his first important clues as to the whereabouts of his missing soldiers.
By early 1946 Barkworth had rounded up and interrogated many of the Natzweiler camp staff, including the crematorium stoker, Franz Berg. Vera came to Gaggenau to interrogate Berg in early April. The statement taken from Berg had already proved vital to her research, first by alerting her to the possibility that some of her women died at Natzweiler. It was Berg who had claimed that the women might still have been alive when they were burned. And crucially for Vera, it was Berg who, by studying photographs, had first identified Nora as one of the women.
The trial of the Natzweiler staff had been set for the end of May, just weeks away, and Vera wanted to be certain of her evidence in good time. Her strong view now was that Nora must have been “No. 2,” but doubts had been awakened once again by a further letter from Lisa Graf. After examining the photographs Vera sent her, Lisa wrote back: “The only one I have difficulty recognising is the one you call Nora and I called Dany because when I saw her she had very long hair—more blonde.” Berg was to be a vital witness at the trial, and Vera now wanted to see him for herself to judge if he was credible.
Berg was brought up from the cellar of the villa by one of Bark-worth's team. The cellar had been converted into makeshift cells by Barkworth, who often got his prisoners to help a little around the house by serving drinks or shining shoes. Barkworth spoke fluent German and even hired a German secretary from Karlsruhe, whom he later married.
Vera was already seated in what had once been the Deglers' dining room when Berg was led in. Next to her was a row of shelves containing a cut-glass bowl and an ornamental clock, left behind by the Deglers. Through the glass doors dividing the dining room from the living area came the sound of male voices as Barkworth's team played cards. On the table in front of Vera lay Berg's deposition, Yurka Galitzine's report on Natzweiler, a pen, and two blank sheets of paper.
By now Vera knew Berg's background. A common criminal, he had made himself useful to the SS and been given a comfortable job in return: stoking the crematorium oven at Natzweiler. He had also become the head prisoner, or Kapo, of the Zellenbau, the prison block. Unlike most Kapos, Berg was not detested. He was the camp gossip, the prisoners' eyes and ears, as well as the SS's dogsbody. Everybody knew Kapo Berg, which was why Barkworth's men had found him easy to trace. After the war he had simply made his way home to Mannheim.
Vera explained to Berg, a small, dark-haired man with a broad, square jaw, that she wanted him to describe in more detail what he had already explained to Major Barkworth.
“You started work in the crematorium, you say, in February 1943. What was your job exactly?”
“Burning bodies.”
“Bodies that had been executed?”
“Yes. Or bodies which had died by other means.”
“By injection?”
“No,” he said. He had never burned a body that had died by injection, though others had. “I mean, I burned the bodies who had just died in the camp. You know, in the quarry and other places.”
Vera knew all about the “bodies” in the quarry from Galitzine's evidence. Men were sent to the quarry to be worked to death. The prisoners returning to the camp each night carried the bloody and emaciated corpses of those who did not survive the day. And she had familiarised herself with the names of the sadists who flogged the prisoners to death—Zeuss, Nietsch, Ermenstraub—all of them listed in Galitzine's report.
“And the executed ones,” Berg elaborated. “The shot or the hanged ones.”
Vera knew all about these dead bodies too. Shot bodies were stacked roof high in the cellar, awash with blood, below the furnace room. And the hangings she had heard about in person from the executioner, Peter Straub. Some weeks previously she had interrogated Straub. Berg and others had said that he was the person who had pushed the four women into the ovens. And people had said that one of the women had revived on being pushed into the oven and lashed out, scratching Straub's face.
Straub, however, had denied all involvement with the killings, saying he was away from the camp that day.
Just as Vera's accounts of her investigations, writt
en years later, were dry and distant, so the depositions she took at the time were mostly devoid of interesting detail. Her casual jotted notes were much more revealing, but in the formal statements she took, her subjects disappeared off the page as she honed their words. It was as if she wanted to draw inside herself any emotion or texture in what was said and not communicate it. The statement Vera took from Peter Straub was only five lines long.
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