by Tania Szabô
Violette desperately hoped Philippe and the others would not worry that she would talk. She knew she would not. Just as when she was a child and got hurt she would never cry, merely say she wanted to go dodo, the French equivalent for ‘sleepy-byes’. The same was true now. She would not surrender any part of her: her loyalty, her mind, her capacity to act, her body. They could take by force the last three, but not the first.
The SS officer looked at her in open admiration, offering her a cigarette by gently placing the filtered end in her mouth. He was sure she could do with one. Her shoulder and foot must be giving her hell. She was dishevelled and dirty with drying blood down her arm and over her legs, but her eyes were shining and she was undaunted.
She spat the cigarette out. And then spat the disgust of years full into his face.
‘You’re a fiery little thing, aren’t you? Can’t help but respect your pluck, mademoiselle.’ He clicked his heels in salute, bending slightly towards her. Finally, he said, ‘You will come now with us as our prisoner to the Tivoli, the Gestapo headquarters in Limoges.’
‡
* * *
140 SNCF = Société nationale de chemin de fer – the French national railway company.
141 Traction avant = front traction. All French cars with engines in the front were, at the time, called ‘les tractions avant’. This one was a large black Citroën, a model that was a favourite not only of the Résistance and Gestapo but also of war films set in France.
142 Casimir was the cover name in this region for Peter Lake, who led or took part in the sabotage.
143 From Jean-Claude’s correspondence with the author.
144 Nana = dolly-bird, babe.
145 Feldgendarmerie = Field police. The Feldgendarmerie of the Waffen-SS had its own SS-Feldgendarmerie, known by the sinister nickname of ‘Kopfjäger’ or ‘Headhunter’. This was a reference to the SS ‘Totenkopf’ or ‘Death’s Head’ skull emblem on their caps, but also to their severe reputation as strict enforcers of military law. They frequently carried out route reconnaissance as an integral part of their overall duties.
146 Kämpfe was Diekmann’s friend and the much-valued commandant of the SS-Das Reich who had been kidnapped by Guingouin’s Maquis and eventually killed.
33
Arrested, Maison d’Arrêt de Limoges, the Tivoli and
Huguette Deshors
Friday 10 June to Wednesday 15 June 1944
‘Women were not exempted from torture. Usually upon them the tortures were most odious.’
From Inside SOE by E.H. Cookridge (1966)
After running from the car, Jean Bariaud heard the shooting continue for a good twenty minutes. It seems he had to walk the fifteen miles to Anna Ribiéras to warn Philippe so that the local Maquis could try to do something about:
freeing Szabo and Dufour. The only thing he was positive about was that he had heard firing going on for over half-an-hour while he was escaping through the woods …
as reported by Philippe in his PF.147 Jean’s trek would not have completely exhausted him, as he was fit, but he may have experienced some discomfort for, as he told the author in 2004, he had been in the French army on the Maginot Line in 1940, and, apparently wounded, sent home to Croisille to recuperate. He remained there, helping his father. What else he did is hard to say. It was many hours later that he reached Philippe in Sussac to tell him of the disastrous turn of events.
Anastasie stayed hidden under the logs until after nightfall, afraid that the Germans might return if they decided the farmer had not told the truth. They would not have been gentle to the farmer and his family. When Anastasie emerged from his hiding place, they all discussed his predicament while he gulped down food and coffee. He was still dirty and sweat-stained from the exertion of running and crawling through the densely growing maize, then running for another two miles over very rough terrain, mostly uphill.
The mayor of Salon-la-Tour, Monsieur Montelly, had been compelled to hand over the Hôtel de Ville to the Feldgendarmerie for its local HQ prior to June. The mayor’s son, a child of ten at the time, saw the mêlée in the town on that hot afternoon, when, apart from the presence of the SS-Feldgendarmerie, part of the SS-Regiment ‘Das Führer’ swept into the town square. German ambulances were in attendance and a number of injured German soldiers were on stretchers or standing and sitting around. Colonel Rivier, later to become General Rousselier, recipient of the Compagnon de la Libération medal, reports in his citation to Violette that she had certainly killed a German corporal. It was obvious to him that the casualties in the square were the direct result of the encounter between Violette and the SS platoon.
When Philippe later spoke to some of the people in Salon-la-Tour he was told that the Germans had taken Anastasie prisoner as well as Violette. The Germans had deliberately passed this piece of disinformation around, and Bariaud also told those he met that that was what had happened. Reports have it that the Germans broadcast it about that, ‘We caught the lad later in the woods. We’ve certainly got him.’
Philippe waited anxiously for Anastasie’s report but when he did not return from what they believed would be an uneventful journey, he became seriously concerned. There was not a lot Philippe could do but wait for news while he continued implementing his plans. Losing Violette was a major disaster to the Salesman II circuit’s activities and Philippe knew he or one of his men must get down to Jacques Poirier (Capitaine Jack) as a priority before going to the north of the region.
Why did Anastasie not, as was his first duty, immediately report to Philippe or at least get a message to him? Instead, he spent a few days hidden in the warehouse of an uncle’s timber and machine business not far from Salon-la-Tour railway station. Monsieur Montelly, the son of the mayor, explained to me years later that Anastasie hid for an unknown number of days in amongst farm equipment in a large barn. He mentioned that, if he recollected correctly, it was the huge warehouse and timber yard at Salon-la-Tour railway station that belonged to Jacques’ father, Jacque. Anastasie, was acutely aware that Philippe would be furious at his abysmal failure to drive Violette safely at least to Uzerche, a little over half-way to Arnac-Pompadour. He did not reappear for about four or five days, not just one night, justifying it by saying the Germans were still on the lookout for him and he already had a price on his head.
However, the first and most basic task that was expected of him was that he report immediately to Violette’s commanding officer in the Sussac safe-house, indirectly through a third person if necessary. In Sussac, he would have been afforded all the protection possible. Was he too ashamed to face Philippe, as Major Charles Staunton, his military superior?148 Had he decided to put a deadly spoke into the communist wheel? No one has clarified what exactly had happened.
Anastasie would not have wished to speak to Philippe again. He had sent a hot-headed report to London, listing his deep dissatisfaction with Philippe and complaining how Philippe only helped the communists. He left the area, he wrote in his report, to go south to join other Maquis groups. The village people told us that after the war, he went to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, where he was killed. He was later buried with honour in Salon-la-Tour.
Philippe, in one of his debriefings after the war, reported that Anastasie only gave him a verbal report, which he wrote down later from memory. His memory did not serve him well in that the report stated that Anastasie said Violette was exhausted, or Anastasie was clearly not telling the truth. Hot as it was, Violette had far more stamina than twenty to thirty minutes’ racing through maize fields. However, the word in French for ‘exhausted’ also means, ‘short of’ or ‘out of’, in this case, ammunition. Philippe’s written English is very good, but often has areas of French syntax and wording.
Philippe received information the day after Violette’s arrest, that is, the afternoon of Saturday 11 June, from two men in the Limoges Résistance force, who came specifically to see him. Bariaud eventually did meet with Philippe to recount his story. They told him
that she had indeed been arrested – along with Anastasie. Jean-Claude Guiet reported the following, ‘We also sent our courier, Corinne, [i.e. Louise] to contact the organiser of Dordogne. The day after she left we received news that she had been captured by the Germans.’
Jean-Claude makes no mention of Anastasie being arrested, although he does say that they all moved out of Limoges into the hills after Violette’s arrest, as it would be safer for them. It was the Maquis and Limoges Résistance who suggested that a rescue attempt just might be possible. When Philippe asked about Anastasie, they replied there had just been the young woman. They reported to him that they had seen her ‘limping badly’, being dragged along by her assailants. For all that, as the ‘beautiful girl’ was pulled along, they said, she carried her head high and with dignity.
For the next several hours, two French Résistants from Limoges and a few of the local Sussac men in the Résistance talked with Philippe about how they would plan her escape. Philippe was distraught. He knew he should not have let Violette go in that damned car. He was also desperately angry at the delay in their plans caused by her arrest. Apart from Jean-Claude Guiet assiduously sending messages to London from his safe-house, he had lost his most valuable team member; Violette, as his courageous liaison officer would have achieved much in unifying the Maquis forces, leaving him the time to orchestrate instructions from London. He would now have to travel down to Arnac-Pompadour himself, as well as try to spring some sort of rescue attempt. He was not hopeful of success.
It was the two French Résistants who did most of the planning for a rescue attempt. The men all knew it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to realise. Jean-Claude Guiet explained years later, ‘What Philippe Liewer’s final statement to Dufour’s [verbal] report does not state was that for several weeks we were in contact with one of the French jailers who led us on to believe she was still in Limoges and accepted money to help Violette and provide information. It brought back some bitter memories.’
Limoges prison was full and held important resistance leaders who had been captured. They were all dragged back and forth for interrogation sessions to the Gestapo HQ in Impasse Tivoli. Harry Peulevé suffered a similar horrendous fate to Violette’s, here in Limoges.
The first step was to set up a watch of the Gestapo headquarters and the prison to check on her journeys between the two. Philippe asked the Résistants to deal with the escape plan as new and unfamiliar faces such as his and Bob’s could attract unwanted attention. Bob was given the task of staying in very close touch with them while he contacted other local groups for further armed backup in the rescue attempt.
The distance from Gestapo headquarters to the prison in Limoges is roughly a kilometre. High walls, depressingly blank and grey, the prison is forbidding in its ugliness, even today. It faces onto a paved square with a few scrawny trees.
On some days at eleven in the morning and four in the afternoon, Violette exited from Limoges prison by a side door escorted by German SS soldiers and was taken by car or frog-marched across a kilometre of town to Gestapo headquarters at the end of the Impasse Tivoli. The Limogeois have changed the name of the cul-de-sac to that of Impasse Saint-Exupéry and demolished the house of horrors. It was a substantial three-storey house, guarded by the Gestapo twenty-four hours a day.
The SS-Hauptsturmführer questioned Violette on each visit. These visits would last from one to two hours, sometimes more. Then she was returned to the jail. They already knew that her name was Vicky Taylor and that she came from London and an agent for SOE. She therefore continued to give her name as Vicky Taylor. How did they have it? From London or France?
Opposite the prison was the Wehrmacht HQ for the German army and close by the French Milice premises. Although only two guards accompanied her, any rescue attempt faced the problem that there were always German soldiers, Milice, Gestapo, SD officers and armed personnel going about their activities in the square itself or passing through.
‡
Having had his platoon of experienced, SS soldiers so ignominiously held at bay by the accomplished shooting and spirit of Violette, the SS officer did not relish reporting the event to his superiors, nor that his dignity had been roundly attacked on the railway bridge in front of his men by this mere slip of a girl. He would have been loath to admit that Violette had, with her one shaky Sten gun and ninety bullets, held up for around half an hour an SS-Feldgendarmerie unit of at least forty men possessed of machine guns and a unit of an advanced guard of the SS-Regiment Das Führer with armoured vehicles. Nor would his superior officers have been keen to report the incident. Soldiers might bear being shot and wounded by a sole individual under combat conditions, but by a young, lone woman, and clearly wounded – that was shameful and intensely discomforting. Better forget the incident ever took place. All over the region, too, the Germans were constantly under sniper fire, sabotage and inveigled into deadly skirmish after deadly skirmish. Most incidents were never reported by the Germans, and often not reported by the French or British either.
It was the country folk who filled in the details of the actions of ‘la p’tite Anglaise’ against some of the best troops of Nazi Germany. They told not only Philippe but also many people who came after the war to discover what had happened, including R.J. Minney, her biographer in 1956, Squadron Leader Edward ‘Ted’ Crawfurd and my grandparents with me in 1963 and my later visits including with Paul Emile. During those early post-war years the still young or middle-aged villagers and farmers were alive and only too happy to talk of the remarkable ‘p’tite Anglaise’ and her courageous demeanour and actions.
Georges Guingouin and Jacques Valéry were instrumental in ensuring a monument to Violette was erected. Jacques Valéry’s father had been in the Résistance, and he has dedicated his own life to ensuring that the Maquis of the Limousin will be remembered for the courage they showed and battles they fought to return France to freedom; many other folk of the Haute-Vienne campaigned until they had a monument erected to Violette close to Mont Gargan, the spiritual home of the Maquis. Every June, the people of the Limousin commemorate her life and courage, as they do all the Maquis, first at her monument and then by climbing to the top of Mont Gargan for their final commemorative ceremonies.
There were many extremely courageous Résistants in the Haute-Vienne, willing put their lives on the line. Their brave acts tend to be neglected or overlooked because they were mostly communists in the Haute-Vienne.
It took Violette’s father, angry and distressed, agonising for months to get any information at all from the authorities on the fate of his daughter, while his wife suffered great anguish. Vera Atkins considered him a danger as he went to the newspapers, trying to discover what had happened or where she might be. Vera even described him as a ‘despicable little man’. Charlie Bushell went to the press simply because the Red Cross had provided no information or help, nor had any of the agencies of the armed forces, or the government and its bureaux, nor any member of SOE. They simply did not want to disturb the status quo. At last, Vera Atkins was moved to try to discover what had happened to ‘her’ missing girls. It must be said that it also suited her career and ambitions to visit the Nuremburg prisoners awaiting trial for crimes against humanity. But she did a superb job and with great sincerity, being utterly dedicated to it.
The Maquis group in Limoges did plot a rescue plan. Philippe agreed it and arranged for Bob Maloubier to go to Limoges to meet with the four men who had done all the groundwork and would deal with the guards. Tommy guns supplied by Bob were essential, as was transport. Bob arranged for a second car with six armed men to deal with the soldiers at the exits of the town. They expected a fight.
The day chosen was Thursday 16 June, six long days after her capture, arrest and incarceration in Limoges prison. That morning, early, she was gone. To Gestapo headquarters in Avenue Foch in Paris.
To this day, Violette’s daughter, the author, remains bemused. Why has Bob Maloubier refused to tell her what he
knows, but does talk to the media on Violette’s capture? Has he spoken, faintly, through Huguette Deshors?
‡
I met Huguette Deshors, a young Résister and now a retired school teacher.
This is what she told me of Violette’s time in Limoges prison and I translate her words into the third person. From 1 April 1944, Huguette and her mother had shared a cell with eight other women in that part of Limoges prison reserved for the use of the Gestapo. She was about sixteen years old. She knew her brother was doing something in the Résistance and she had helped. It was not unusual for the young to be involved in some way, usually delivering verbal messages. Huguette told me very little of why she was there, nor anything about her suffering and that of the other women. Violette was her companion, her friend and her sister and that is about whom she wished to speak.
One morning in June 1944, she is not sure when, but probably the 8th, she was separated from her companions by two impressively armed ‘verts-de-gris’.149 She was alone after that, in a filthy narrow cell. The only ‘luxury’ was a bedstead with one single blanket, a jug of water, a sort of hollow plate and a lavatory hole. No towel, not even soap. The casement was solidly barred but no glass; it was terribly chilly at night. The only thing to look at was the high grey wall, not the slightest bit of sky.
It was there that Violette arrived. Huguette does not remember exactly for how many days because in prison the notion of time is very quickly lost. Huguette says they shared everything, the same concerns, the same humiliations, and the same suffering. Huguette had only been subjected to two interrogations (the word ‘only’ is hers, not mine), just after she had been captured. The Gestapo were not really interested in her, ‘I was only small fry.’ For Violette it was quite different. Violette was interrogated every day. The two jailers were nicknamed the ‘two robots’ by the inmates and they would take Violette away and bring her back during the afternoon.