Sarah Helm

by Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins;the Missing Agents of WWII

  When she arrived back in London, everyone wanted to see Tania, remembered as the little girl who had received her mother's George Cross. But the person Tania most wanted to meet was Vera Atkins. “I don't remember why I wanted to see her or how I found her,” said Tania, now sixty-three, in a flowing skirt and trailing scarf. “But I do remember I wanted so much to please her. Then when we met it was all rather formal, and she seemed distant and cold. I think Vera disapproved of me.”

  In the 1960s there had been a further attempt to lay the SOE story to rest with the publication of the official history SOE in France by M.R.D. Foot. For most the book became the long-awaited authoritative account of SOE, although not for Vera, who was angered that anyone should claim to know more about the subject than she. When I met her in 1998, she expressed her opinion: “Some consider it the Bible. It's about as accurate as the Bible.” For some critics the history simply raised more questions than it answered. Though Foot meticulously analysed the disasters and the treachery, he found no conspiracies and blamed few, concluding that the errors were largely due to the fog of war. “To the question why people with so little training were sent to do such important work, the only reply is the work had to be done, and there was nobody else to send,” he wrote. Foot also blamed “sensation mongers” for making “ghastly imputations” about what happened to women agents, who, he said, would have wanted no special treatment.

  No history, though, official or otherwise, could provide answers for the young Tania Szabo, the first of the offspring of SOE agents to arrive at Vera's door in the hope of finding out more about what really happened to parents, or in some cases uncles or aunts. Immediately after the war the questions Vera faced were largely from writers, MPs, or former SOE agents themselves, but from the 1960s on she faced questions from the children of the dead, and these were much harder to answer. I suggested to Tania that perhaps the reason Vera appeared so cold and distant at their first meeting was not because she “disapproved” of Tania but because she feared the questions she might be asked. Perhaps Vera feared Tania would blame her in some way.

  “She certainly didn't want to get too close to me,” said Tania. “That's why I thought she disapproved.”

  “What was it you felt she disapproved of?” I asked.

  “Oh well, you know, it was the sixties, and I was young and doing not very much. I think she expected more of me. And I think I had a feeling that she didn't want me to be bothering her. Here I was in London, alone—perhaps she thought I would always be at her door. It must have been very difficult for her. She thought she might have me on her hands.”

  Had there been any contact while she was in Australia?

  “None at all,” said Tania. Tania and her grandparents had not even been invited to attend the launch in 1958 of the film about her mother, Carve Her Name with Pride.

  I asked Tania if she did blame Vera in any way for what happened. “Oh, no,” she said. “Of course I didn't blame her. It was war.” Then she added: “Though she might have thought I would blame her. It was understandable she should think that, I suppose. She certainly didn't open the gates, as it were. But I had the impression she was somebody who didn't want to open the gates. Ever.”

  That day at Rutland Gate Tania must have been about the same age as her mother was when Vera first met Violette. We wondered if Vera might have seen a likeness. I showed Tania a tribute to Violette, written by Vera after the war. It read:

  I first met Violette in the early autumn of 1943 when she volunteered for work in occupied France with the French resistance. She was twenty-two, recently bereaved, her daughter little more than a year old. She was beautiful with great natural gaiety and vitality but she had been deeply hurt. Often her eyes would have a hooded look and there would be little silences, small leaks in her brave armour. She sought an outlet in action, preferably exciting and demanding.

  Tania read the little piece carefully, then said: “I think there was always something particular between Violette and Vera. There was an understanding. I had a sense of that. It was an instinct. It had to do with the way she talked about Violette. I think it was why she went out to Germany: to find out what had happened to Violette. And if she hadn't done it we would never have known.”

  After Tania came many others. As the offspring of the dead agents grew up, many suddenly discovered they knew nothing about their parents, whose mission, capture, and death were doubly hard to learn about because they were officially secret. Who could they ask? Letters usually found their way first to the Historical Sub-Committee of the Special Forces Club, and then to Vera.

  “All these letters would come in, and she just squirrelled them,” said the former agent Tony Brooks, doing a squirrelling action—a kind of pawing—with his hand. “She squirrelled every single one of them,” he said, doing the action again. “Never told the rest of us what was even in them. Wanted them all for herself.”

  I found these letters, still hidden away, in lots of brown envelopes in Vera's files. In their first approaches to Vera, most of the sons or daughters, nephews or nieces, sought names of people and places, any clues, however slight, about how to begin their search back in time. Some found in Vera a conduit to the past or a source of guidance and advice. Others, like Alain Antelme, nephew of France Antelme, who was dropped into the hands of the Gestapo, were treated warily by Vera. “She kept her discretion,” Alain told me.

  Many of Vera's correspondents then started to make their own enquiries and wrote to Vera to check a detail, and that detail was also squirrelled away here. The more I opened envelopes, the more I realised that among this mass of little notes and cards were vital snippets of new information, and the more I realised that the story could not yet be laid to rest because it was still being told. Not only did relatives write, but so did others who had known the agents yet never spoken up before. A prisoner who shared a cell at Fresnes with Violette Szabo, before her deportation to Germany, suddenly wrote years later with vivid memories. “When she arrived in Fresnes jail, she was wearing the same dress as when she left London: a new one, in crêpe de Chine, with blue and white flowers. She was also wearing a shirt in black crêpe georgette with yellow lace.” The writer also recalled that Violette had talked in prison of a traitor in London who had betrayed her. Letters also came from people who had read the many books about SOE now published and had still more new information. One of these correspondents was a man named Wickey.

  There was nothing on the envelope to indicate who Wickey was, and at first sight the contents were puzzling. On top of the papers was an official-looking letter. It was from the Canadian High Commission in London and was addressed to Vera. The letter was dated May 9, 1975, and said: “Dear Miss Atkins, Thank you for your query about Colonel H. J. Wickey, which has been passed to National Defence Headquarters Ottawa. You will be advised once we are in receipt of their reply.” There was no sign of a reply. Underneath was another letter—this time a faded copy—dated April 1958. The address of the sender was given as “Stony Mountain, Man,” and the letter was addressed to “The Editor” of Pan Books in London.

  Dear Sir, Some time ago when browsing through the book section in one of the large departmental stores in Winnipeg I chanced to see one of your books entitled Born for Sacrifice. I picked up the book and glanced through it. Immediately I recognised some of the names in it and so purchased the book.

  From perusal of the book I can see there is still some doubt about how the wireless operator, Miss Inayat Khan (code-name Madeleine, cover name Jeanne-Marie Renier), was disposed of after being taken from Karlsruhe prison. Thinking that the enclosed document may be of some value, I would greatly appreciate if you would be good enough to pass it on to Miss Jean Overton Fuller, the author of the said book, as I do not know how I could contact her except through your office.

  Yours truly H. J. Wickey. Lt Col OC Intelligence Coy, Winnipeg Manitoba.

  Cc: War Office, London, England.

  Attached to the letter were three pages o
f single-spaced typescript— obviously a copy of the original: it was Wickey s document on the “disposal” of Nora. And along the sides of one of the pages was some barely legible handwriting.

  Lieutenant Colonel Wickey explained first that during the war he worked for Canadian intelligence. As a fluent speaker of French and German, he was used behind the lines as a courier and had “contacts on both sides of the fence.” After the war he became military governor of Wuppertal-Eberfeld, in the British zone. He also worked on war crimes investigations.

  Now if my memory serves me well, I believe that on the trial agenda were Herren Kiefer [sic] and Knochen, who both had been on the staff of the Geheime Sicherheitsdienst at Avenue Foch. It came to our notice that the question of Miss Inayat Khan was to come up…

  But, as stated above, I was the Military Governor of Wuppertal and with some four regiments then stationed in the vicinity (British, French, Dutch and some Russian small formations) social life was somewhat heavy, and also on account of my own duties, my movements were restricted. However, I managed to go under cover and sneak out. I frequently mingled with all sorts of people, house parties, slums rendez vous, even black market operators. Thanks to my training and dual nature, I once more felt quite at home, and, of course, I was after information. All this was to the dismay and consternation of my own staff who obviously could not always know where I was. In due course of time my “suspicious movements” were reported to British HQ then at Düsseldorf.

  Now on my staff, my police section was headed by two officers, both of whom were, I think, on the London Metropolitan Police staff, but of this I am now not too certain. In any case, one of these officers, from the very first day I arrived in Wuppertal, greatly detested me, perhaps not personally but perhaps because I was a Canadian, a “colonial” and, further, because a foreigner (as I am not Canadian born, just naturalised) was in command.

  These officers, said Wickey, often sent “distorted reports” of his “suspicious behaviour” to HQ, but nevertheless he continued with his underground investigations into the Nora Baker case.

  That was how many of us Canadian officers were treated after the war to make room for unemployed British officers… and at that time I regret to say that I did not trust British HQ. So much information that I had previously passed on had leaked out and especially information on Russian agents who were trying to establish contacts with London, with the view of obtaining industrial diamonds for the operation of certain types of machinery.

  Eventually, said Wickey, he came across a “certain German officer” who had worked as an interpreter and once spent some time at Dachau.

  While there some camp officials had told him that a few days previously they had received a group of special prisoners, four women who had arrived from Karlsruhe. These women were to be kept absolutely separate from other inmates of the camp.

  The four women were French, but one of them, somewhat more swarthy in complexion, looked much like a Creole. She was considered to be a “very dangerous” person and to be given the “full treatment.”

  Now, if we remember that agent Nora was of Indian descent, she would as such look much like a Creole. In Europe any person who shows an appearance of not being pure white is often referred to as a Creole.

  The German officer gave Wickey the name of one of the Dachau camp staff who had somehow managed to get away before the Allies arrived and was by then living in Hamburg or in a village close to it.

  “This official had been present to the last hours of these four women and, of course, would know well about all that had happened. Upon this hot tip, which I considered most reliable, that same evening I commandeered my car and driver and left for Hamburg.”

  With assistance of the military government of Hamburg and the Hamburg police, Wickey eventually found his man.

  At first and quite naturally he denied all knowledge, but when I assured him that there was no action contemplated, at least just now, he began to talk. At first I made a bargain with him that for the information wanted I would not mention his name to anybody. He said they did receive a group of four women, three typical French and one looking more of a Creole type. The three French women were taken, after some two or three hours of their arrival, near the crematorium where they were partially undressed, they were in rags anyhow, and shot with pistols. They were handled very roughly, one of them had her face several times slapped, they were all kicked several times before being shot.

  The Creole was kept outside, chained and almost naked. She was subjected to ridicule, was slapped and kicked several times, apparently by this same man who was very fond of this type of sport. She was left all night long lying on the floor in a cell, and the next day, rather than drag her along to the crematorium, they gave her some more rough handling. Finally in a cell they shot her with a small pistol, and dead or half dead she was carried by some other inmates and thrown into the furnace. That the person was the unfortunate Inayat Khan is well nigh 99 per cent certain.

  Wickey concluded by saying that he had never presented his report to the war crimes command because when he returned to Wuppertal he was summoned to Düsseldorf and charged with taking a joyride to Hamburg without first requesting permission.

  “I was so angry with this attitude towards Canadians that although my pockets were bulging with hot information I destroyed the whole thing and requested to be returned home.”

  I then turned the paper around to try to read the handwriting scrawled along one edge. It wasn't Vera's writing. I could just make out one sentence: “This bears more resemblance to the horrible report from Gibraltar than to Wassmer's account given to Miss Atkins.”

  I looked again for a reply that Vera might have received from the National Defence HQ in Ottawa, but it wasn't here. Presumably she had requested information about Wickey to check his reliability and perhaps also to see if he was alive or dead.

  So I contacted the Canadian Defence Department and was put in touch with Colonel Wickey s son, John Wickey, who said his father died in 1994. He sent me newspaper cuttings and obituaries as well as a record of his father's war service.

  The documents painted Hippolyte John Wickey (known as John) as something of an adventurer. Born in France and educated in Switzerland, he served with the French Foreign Legion in the First World War before moving to Canada. In 1944 he was seconded from the Canadian Army to train in England with SOE and was parachuted into France in 1944. This was presumably when he operated as a “dual agent,” as he put it. It was not possible to verify every aspect of Wickey's life story. However, his service with the Canadian armed forces and his tenure as military governor of Wuppertal-Eberfeld in 1945–46 were very clearly substantiated.

  Reading Wickey's report, I immediately thought of Max Wassmer's comment to Christian Ott, “So you want to know how it really happened?” and of the sanitised story he had first told about how the women had died, all holding hands. The Wickey report also reminded me of a conversation I had with Zenna Atkins about how Vera thought Nora might have died. The conversation arose in a roundabout way. I had asked several people if they thought Francis Cammaerts was right to say that Vera was racist. Several thought he was. “But only in the way women of her generation were,” said Phoebe Atkins, her sister-in-law. Zenna, however, did not believe Vera was racist in her views, and she recalled how Vera once told her that Nora had been singled out for particularly horrific treatment by the Nazis because of the colour of her skin. “I think this distressed Vera more than anything,” Zenna told me. Vera believed that Nora had been not only appallingly beaten but also raped.

  When I first interviewed Vilayat Inayat Khan, I didn't know about Wickey or his story and so couldn't ask him about it. But I went to see Vilayat a second time. Again, I didn't raise Wickey's evidence, but Vilayat did so very early on. And I discovered that he knew every detail of the Canadian's story and had done for a very long time.

  We were talking again in his house in Suresnes, this time sitting in the living room surrounded
by Indian artefacts. There was a strong smell of teak and incense. I wanted to ask Vilayat again about Nora's cyanide pill. I told him I had heard that Vera advised Nora not to take the pill with her on her mission, fearing she might swallow it when it was not absolutely necessary, in order to be sure she would not give anything away.

  Vilayat repeated, however, that he had seen the pill and was sure Nora had it with her. “But, of course, the Nazis took it away from her,” he continued. “They knew these agents had the pill and made sure they took it from them.”

  “Would she have used it?”

  “To get out of being tortured, yes, I think she would. And of course, she was tortured in Dachau. In fact, she was beaten to death. I don't know if you have a copy of a report by a man who contacted me—a man who said he was present when she was beaten to death and said she was covered in blood and said like this she was thrown into the oven.”

  As Vilayat spoke he got out some papers from a pink folder and flicked through documents he had accumulated over the years. I could see that the paper he handed me was Wickey's report.

  I asked Vilayat whether he had managed to come to terms at all with what had happened to Nora.

  “Well, it is still not resolved,” he said. “I am just reliving it every day. I am living representing in detail in my thoughts everything she went through day and night. Not just in general—but I am visualising, first of all, that moment.” He paused as if visualising right there.

  “And you see, we still don't know if she was killed with the others or on her own, so I always try to visualise how it happened. She was probably brutally taken from Pforzheim and brutally thrown in a lorry, and when she landed in Dachau she was brutally thrown on a floor. I don't know if it was in a room, or if it was raining or cold, or if it was outdoors, but according to what we know, the Gauleiter kept on kicking her with his big boots, and she must have had sores all over her body and spent the night in agony. Whether it was in the open or not, I don't know, but if she was out there in the open, then others would have seen her when she was beaten to death.