Avenue of Spies
Page 24
“dogs on the street corners”: Defense de la France, March 15, 1944.
“a German name on the list”: Alice Moats, No Passport for Paris, 228.
“coming to fetch them”: Jacques Delarue, The Gestapo, 301.
Had she talked?: National Archives, US, “Reports Headquarters, Paris 6801 MIS-X Detachment, US Forces European Theatre, 1946.”
including the “underground” couple: Joe Manos, interview with author.
to storm a building: Goélette Frégate archives, 17 P 136. Château de Vincennes.
resistance network were inside: Ibid.
SS captain Hugo Geissler: Ibid.
PART THREE: NIGHT AND FOG
“It was a world composed of masters”: Jacques Delarue, The Gestapo, 353.
13: GUESTS OF THE REICH
knock on the front door: National Archives UK, W0309/1592.
“He’s at the hospital”: Clemence Bock, unpublished memoir of Sumner Jackson.
could be found: Ibid.
trick them or call for help: Ibid.
He felt terribly guilty: Francis Deloche de Noyelle, interview with author.
“don’t say a thing”: Clemence Bock, unpublished memoir. The family was driven to Vichy. Phillip didn’t sleep at all that night at number 11 when they were waiting. He packed his homework and notes for his school exam. “The men in the Milice who arrested the Jacksons were at any rate quite second-class in rank. They were not officers, just ordinary troopers. Most of the Milice were low class. They were people who couldn’t get jobs, who couldn’t get in the army or police, so they took their last chance with the Milice. They were the lowest of the low. They were thugs who had turned ‘honest.’ ”
may have been watched: She would then look after the apartment, retiring to her small maid’s room on the fifth floor of 11 Avenue Foch, until the end of the war, always wondering what had happened to the American family she so adored.
get out and urinate: Phillip Jackson, interview with author.
Nemours…Nevers…Moulins: Ibid.
then split up the family: National Archives UK, BT 271/106.
“Would you like to have breakfast”: Clemence Bock, unpublished memoir.
often with his parents: Ibid.
The weather continues to be: Letter from Toquette to Tat, May 31, 1944.
wanted him to excel: Phillip Jackson, interview with author.
tore up the ticket: Ibid.
wasted in this fight: Robert Paxton, Vichy France (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972), 326.
“Jews and the communists”: www.history.com/this-day-in-history/pierre-laval-attempts-suicide.
“thinking of France and only of her”: Geoffrey Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France (New York: Macmillan, 1968), 396–97.
American embassy in Vichy: Phillip Jackson, interview with author.
with three other men: National Archives UK, W0309/1592.
Not knowing was agony: Phillip Jackson, interview with author.
a whip in his hand: Ibid.
“How are things in Normandy?”: Ibid.
part of the prison to another: Ibid.
“You can write to me two pages”: Jackson family archives.
taken into a waiting bus: Phillip Jackson, interview with author.
“It’s no use”: Ibid.
fifty miles northwest of Paris: National Archives UK, W0309/1592.
Red Cross parcels: Phillip Jackson, interview with author.
nor did they go hungry: Phillip Jackson, letter to friends, May 1945, courtesy of Loraine Riemer.
deportations from Compiègne: National Archives UK, KV2/2745.
“France, arrogant, self assured”: Ibid.
he was “at war”: http://livreblanc.maurice-papon.net/interv-knochen.htm.
“against the Allied armies”: Ibid.
“I am headed for Paris”: Jackson family archives.
the heat was oppressive: National Archives UK, W0309/1592.
Others were wounded: Ibid.
by now desperately thirsty: Phillip Jackson, interview with author.
opened the boxcar doors: National Archives UK, W0309/1592.
that he resembled an ape: Phillip Jackson, interview with author.
tried to shave around it: Ibid.
His father’s was 36462: Ibid.
“Since the 14th, I am at Romainville”: Private correspondence, Jackson family archives.
14: THE COUP: JULY 20, 1944
uniform’s belt buckles: http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/annual-midnight-swearing-nazi-ss-troops-feldherrnhalle-munich-1938/.
when his adjutant burst in: Randall Hansen, Disobeying Hitler (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 42.
demanding to see Oberg: National Archives UK, KV2/1668.
Knochen at number 72: Ibid.
to 72, Avenue Foch: Ibid.
“too energetically to Brehmer”: Otto Abetz, Histoire d’une Politique Franco-Allemande, 1930–1950 (Paris: Stock, 1953), 320.
“Then we’ll soon have peace”: Thomas J. Laub, After the Fall, 284.
Castiglione, close to the Opéra: National Archives UK, KV2/1668.
“accustomed to settling them”: Alex Kershaw, The Longest Winter (New York: Da Capo Press, 2004), 12.
“in hushing things up”: National Archives UK, KV2/2745.
brandy, listening to the radio: Thomas J. Laub, After the Fall, 285.
“Germans must show a united front”: Heinz Höhne, The Order of the Death’s Head (London: Penguin, 2000), 534.
operation, a mere “exercise”: Otto Abetz, Das Offene Probleme (Cologne: Greven Verlag, 1951), 290.
deputy a more “military attitude”: National Archives UK, KV2/1668.
Loyalty to Hitler was all that counted: Michael Neiberg, The Blood of Free Men, 75–78.
colleagues entered the dining room: Claude Roulet, Ritz (Paris: Quai Voltaire, 1998), 120.
German officers in France: National Archives UK, KV2/1668.
right moment to strike: Gerhard Heller, Un Allemand à Paris (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1981), 184.
15: AVE MARIA
operative all the more impish: Leo Marks, Between Silk and Cyanide (New York: The Free Press, 1998), 493.
forty-eight hours after D-Day: National Archives UK, HS9/1435.
emerged in a courtyard: R. J. Minney, Carve Her Name with Pride (London: Aramada, 1989), 188.
London on seized radio sets: National Archives UK, WO/235.
in a room nearby: Ibid.
would soon be in Paris: R. J. Minney, Carve Her Name with Pride, 191.
the wrath of the vengeful: Michael Neiberg, The Blood of Free Men, xxxi.
Toquette had become close: National Archives UK, HS9/1435.
that could incriminate anyone: www.francaislibres.net/liste/fiche.php?index=65475.
“the French high society”: Raoul Nordling, Sauver Paris (Paris: Petite Bibliotheque Payot, 2012), 124.
“wear on ceremonial occasions”: Fritz Molden, Exploding Star (New York: William Morrow, 1979), 125.
These days the pair was arranging: Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, Is Paris Burning?, 70.
Toquette told her to stop: Clemence Bock, unpublished memoir.
“full of courage” as they parted: Ibid.
“No Mass tomorrow morning”: Maisie Renault, Great Misery (Lincoln, NE: Zea Books, 2013), 4–6.
filled with intense emotion: http://faculty.wwu.edu/jeannea/miseretrans.pdf.
Then the door was closed: Maisie Renault, Great Misery, 4–6.
“shipped to the slaughterhouse”: Collins and Lapierre, Is Paris Burning?, 70.
would agree to it: Ibid.
that concealed their detectors: The resistance had even taken to issuing warnings to its “pianists”—radio operators—to be on the lookout for “fat men” in trench coats. In Paris, so effective had the tracking system be
come, Kieffer’s men had been able to locate radio operators within half an hour of the first code being tapped out on a set’s keys. But these Gestapo technicians were too busy packing up their equipment for shipment and destroying files. They had been informed that all personnel, other than combat troops, were to leave Paris in the next few days. That order had come from the very top, from Hitler himself. Traffic jams were already forming for the first time since June 1940 as trucks and cars headed north, out of Paris, bound for the Reich. Source: www.craigsimpsonbooks.com/pdfs/SOE-Educational-Aid-Leaflets-1-to-5.pdf.
Germans organized evacuation detainees: Collins and Lapierre, Is Paris Burning?, 70.
“kill them all,” Abetz said: Michael Neiberg, The Blood of Free Men, 127.
“for your forces, Ambassador”: Raoul Nordling, Sauver Paris, 144–48.
heroes of France’s resistance: Less than three hundred of these 2,500-odd deportees would return.
16: DAYS OF GLORY
vital documents: National Archives UK, KV2/2745.
that total would return: Allan Mitchell, Nazi Paris, 145.
near a beautiful waterfall: Matthew Cobb, The French Resistance, 258.
in a convoy of fast cars: www.memoiresdeguerre.com/article-Helmut-39991995.html.
the concierge in person: National Archives UK, KV2/1668.
“Will we be able to keep our own clothes”: Virginia d’Albert Lake, An American Heroine in the French Resistance (New York: Fordham University Press, 2006), 152–53.
“the camp at Ravensbruck”: Ibid., 155.
to the Ravensbruck regime: R. J. Minney, Carve Her Name with Pride, 200.
acutely embarrassed by their nakedness: Virginia d’Albert Lake, An American Heroine in the French Resistance, 159.
“if necessary, under ruins”: Dietrich von Choltitz, De Sébastopol à Paris (Paris: Aubanel, 1964), 207.
“Ah! General, how fortunate”: Ibid., 247.
whom Himmler had wanted to be spared: National Archives UK, KV2/2745.
No one was ashamed to weep: www.historynet.com/from-d-day-to-paris-the-story-of-a-lifetime.htm.
1,750 steps of the Eiffel Tower: Liverpool Daily Post, August 26, 2004.
“German 88 nicked one of its sides”: www.historynet.com/from-d-day-to-paris-the-story-of-a-lifetime.htm.
“Everybody, one by one, hands up”: Collins and Lapierre, Is Paris Burning?, 297.
“France, of the eternal France!”: Michael Neiberg, The Blood of Free Men, 237.
remembered one war correspondent: www.historynet.com/from-d-day-to-paris-the-story-of-a-lifetime.htm.
“war should have ended”: Collins and Lapierre, Is Paris Burning?, 265.
to Nazi Germany: Charles Glass, Americans in Paris, 403.
“had harbored American fliers”: Ibid.
“Our first impression of freedom”: Clara Longworth de Chambrun, Shadows Lengthen, 236–47.
rich friends in the country: René de Chambrun, Mission and Betrayal, 165.
height of the Great Terror: Clara Longworth de Chambrun, Shadows Lengthen, 231.
17: NIGHT AND FOG
to a train at Fürstenberg: Virginia d’Albert Lake, An American Heroine in the French Resistance, 162.
“France who need us”: Ibid., 165.
“from ‘Toquette.’ Many thanks”: Jackson family archives.
“to us in a confidential manner”: Ibid. Meanwhile, Toquette’s family in Switzerland was furiously trying to locate Sumner and Phillip. Toquette’s sister-in-law on November 1 sent a letter to Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt at the White House asking for help in finding the Jacksons. The letter was forwarded to the State Department, which replied that it had no information on the family.
daughter Tania back in London: Virginia d’Albert-Lake, An American Heroine in the French Resistance, 170.
“chance, it never came”: Ibid., 165.
toll on women working outside: Ibid.
“until then was our only aim”: Ibid., 176.
reality and nightmare had blurred: Geneviève de Gaulle, The Dawn of Hope (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1998), 43.
first day of a fresh year: Virginia d’Albert-Lake, An American Heroine in the French Resistance, 192.
“half alive, half dead”: Ibid., 193.
“will power and vitality”: Ibid.
“leading to her arrest”: Hal Vaughan, Doctor to the Resistance, 128.
living on starvation rations: Virginia d’Albert-Lake, An American Heroine in the French Resistance, 171.
had resorted to cannibalism: Jack G. Morrison, Ravensbrück (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2000), 285.
a final spasm of barbarism: Like Suhren, he would be executed for war crimes.
SS Major Fritz Suhren: According to General de Gaulle’s niece, Geneviève, who had been apprehended by Henri Lafont and handed over to Helmut Knochen on Avenue Foch, Suhren “had a crafty air about him: he reminded me of a fox, which is not exactly flattering to that poor animal.” Source: Geneviève de Gaulle, The Dawn of Hope, 51. Suhren would be hanged in 1950.
burned along with their clothes: Violette Szabo, one of so many victims of the Gestapo on the Avenue Foch, would be posthumously awarded the George Cross, becoming the first woman to ever receive it. Her daughter, Tania, dressed in an outfit her mother had bought for her on a secret mission to France, was four years old when she visited Buckingham Palace with her grandparents to receive her mother’s award. For several days, she had practiced her curtsy—what she called her “skirty.”
The King knew all about her mother and he proudly handed the medal to Tania.
“It is for your mother,” he said. “Take great care of it.”
Tania and her grandparents left the Palace to face a pack of press photographers who wanted Tania to show them the medal.
She did so.
“What an honor!” said one of the photographers.
“It’s for Mummy,” said Tania. “I’ll keep it for her till she comes home.” Source: R. J. Minney, Carve Her Name with Pride, 223.
“Army Group Rendulic in Hungary”: National Archives UK, KV2/2745.
Henri Lafont was executed: Dominique Lormier, La Gestapo et les Français (Paris: Pygmalion, 2013), 77.
18: NEUENGAMME
and stood below the gallows: Phillip Jackson, interview with author.
far, just two feet: National Archives UK, W0309/1592.
drained of color and humanity: Phillip Jackson, interview with author.
Max Pauly, the camp’s commandant: National Archives UK, W0309/1592.
“Give him a couple clouts”: Ibid.
morning lineup at 5:00 a.m.: A prisoner who worked for the authorities who had spent eighteen years in the United States befriended Jackson and helped make his stay less hard.
arms caused by malnutrition: Clemence Bock, unpublished memoir.
Hamburg into a vast inferno: The Battle of Hamburg, code-named Operation Gomorrah, was a campaign of air raids beginning July 24, 1943, for eight days and seven nights. It was at the time the heaviest assault in the history of aerial warfare and was later called the Hiroshima of Germany by British officials.
“We need a thousand pieces”: Phillip Jackson, interview with author.
Phillip was among them: Ibid.
“Can you do something?”: Ibid.
quite a skilled surgeon: Ibid.
“The quicker you are, the quicker”: Ibid.
“energy and forcible character”: George Martelli, Agent Extraordinary (London: Collins, 1960), 231.
his family had been deported: Ibid.
learn of his and Phillip’s fates: Ibid.
19: DELIVERANCE
began with the formal roll call: Maisie Renault, La Grand Misère, 170.
she had a high temperature: National Archives UK, FO 371/N363.
barred them from treatment: Jack G. M
orrison, Ravensbrück, 240.
suffering badly from dysentery: National Archives UK, FO 371/N363.
her condition grew steadily worse: “City of Darkness,” WWII Magazine, November 2013.
giant incubator of disease: National Archives UK, FO371/N 363.
“fall into the hands of the enemy alive”: Gunther Schwarberg, “There Shall Be No Survivors, Part II,” Der Stern magazine series, 1983.
soup to mark the occasion: Jack G. Morrison, Ravensbrück, 297.
“This is our victory”: Count Folke Bernadotte, Last Days of the Reich (London: Frontline Books, 2009), 109–112.
millions of enemies of the Reich: Shown a photograph of the chief architect of the Holocaust, Reinhard Heydrich had astutely observed: “The top half is the teacher but the lower half is the sadist.” Source: John Toland, Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography (London: Book Club Associates, 1977), 812.
he was feeling extremely stressed: Count Folke Bernadotte, Last Days of the Reich, 109–112.
“humanitarian measures,” recalled Bernadotte: Ibid.
Baltic port of Lübeck: Ibid.
were also to be freed: Peter Padfield, Himmler (New York: MJF Books, 1990), 592.
to a small barrel to defecate: Phillip Jackson’s testimony at the trial of Max Pauly, Hamburg, March 20, 1946, 63–72; National Archives UK.
“French speakers up!”: “City of Darkness,” WWII Magazine, November 2013.
“I’ve got my patients and son”: Phillip Jackson, interview with author.
where he was, beside his father: Ibid.
“bodies of his dying patients”: “City of Darkness,” WWII Magazine, November 2013.
Sumner, the “devoted American”: Ibid.
untouched by by war, utterly surreal: Maisie Renault, La Grand Misère, 160.
“four potatoes from Ravensbruck”: Ibid.
victory over Nazi bestiality: www.fondationresistance.org/documents/dossier_them/Doc00144.pdf.
“Malmo, 29 April 45”: Jackson family archives.
“little more than a skeleton”: Glenn Whistler Red Cross report, Ravensbruck Trial Files, National Archives.
“nervous” condition and severely malnourished: Ibid.
PART FOUR: AFTER THE FALL
“It was a world where people exterminated for pleasure”: Jacques Delarue, The Gestapo, 353.