Americans in Paris: Life & Death Under Nazi Occupation

by Charles Glass

  p. 293 ‘Charles E. Bedaux, friend’ ‘Bedaux Arrested in Deals with Foe’, New York Times, 14 January 1943, p. 1. See also ‘Windsors’ Host Held as Trader with the Enemy’, Chicago Daily Tribune, 14 January 1943, p. 5.

  p. 293 ‘quite disappointing’ D. M. Ladd, ‘Memorandum for Mr. Tamm’, 14 January 1943, Federal Bureau of Investigation Archives, File No. 100-49901-22 provided under a Freedom of Information Act request. FOIPA No. 1088544-001.

  p. 293 Someone, probably in the State ‘Too Many Systems’, Time, 25 January 1943. Time wrote, ‘Unofficially it was said he had tried to buy up the North African orange crop for the Nazis. Bedaux’s record would indicate that his zest for chasing dollars had involved him more deeply.’

  p. 294 ‘a man who loves danger’ ‘Bedaux Arrested in Deals with Foe’, New York Times, 14 January 1943, p. 5.

  p. 294 ‘sadness and disheartenment’ Bedaux, La Vie ardente de Charles Bedaux, p. 103.

  Chapter Thirty-two: Sylvia’s War

  p. 298 ‘After receiving your’ Letter from Tudor Wilkinson to Adrienne Monnier, 7 November 1942, Maurice Saillet Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Box 3, Folder 3.

  p. 298 ‘I stood there in shock’ Mary Berg (Miriam Wattenberg), The Diary of Mary Berg: Growing Up in the Warsaw Ghetto (originally published in English as Warsaw Ghetto: A Diary, New York: L. B. Fischer, 1945), translation from the Polish by Susan Glass, Oxford: Oneworld, 2006, p. xxviii.

  p. 299 ‘While we are waiting’ Ibid., p. 210.

  p. 299 ‘Not a trace of the snow’ Ibid., p. 213.

  p. 299 ‘When I told them’ Ibid., p. 214.

  p. 299 ‘His wife and child … It seems that the Germans’ Ibid., p. 234.

  p. 300 ‘A problem which concerns’ ‘Report on Visit to the Internment Camp of Vittel by Mrs. Andermo and Messrs. Senaud and Andermo on February 8, 1943’, US National Archives, College Park, Maryland, RG 389, Box 2142, File: Vittel Vosges (Frontstalag 194), Camp Reports: France.

  p. 300 ‘Resistance was overcome’ Sylvia Beach, ‘Inturned’, in Jackson Mathews and Maurice Saillet, Sylvia Beach (1887–1962), Paris: Mercure de France, 1963, p. 143.

  p. 300 ‘There is no more wonderful … The Internees try’ Berg, The Diary of Mary Berg, p. 216.

  p. 300 ‘The relations between them … The Nazis gave the’ Ibid., p. 218.

  p. 300 Sylvia’s detention allowed Letter from Holly Beach Dennis to Sylvia Beach, 28 January 1945, in which Holly wrote, ‘I have heard from you three times since June 1940: your letter from camp of October 1942, which reached me in March 1943; your letter of October 1944 (mailed in Washington), which I received on October 10th and your post card of October 16th, 1944.’ Sylvia Beach Collection, CO108, Box 14, Folder 18, Princeton University Library.

  p. 301 ‘And what if my dear’ Sylvia Beach, ‘Inturned’, p. 143.

  p. 301 ‘I came back to Paris’ Interview with Sylvia Beach by Niall Sheridan, Self Portraits: Sylvia Beach, documentary film for Radio Telefis Eireann (RTE), Dublin, 1962.

  p. 301 ‘Miss Sarah Watson undertook’ Sylvia Beach, Shakespeare and Company, London: Faber and Faber, 1960, p. 220.

  p. 302 ‘nobody let on’ Interview with Sylvia Beach by Niall Sheridan, Self Portraits: Sylvia Beach, documentary film for Radio Telefis Eireann (RTE), Dublin, 1962.

  p. 302 ‘active in bringing out’ Sylvia Beach, ‘French Literature Went Underground’, New York Herald Tribune, Paris edition, 4 January 1945, p. 2.

  p. 302 ‘Ce volume, publié’ Beach, Shakespeare and Company, p. 221. ‘Midnight Editions’, Time, 25 September 1944.

  p. 303 ‘Sylvia has been to see’ Handwritten letter from Adrienne Monnier to Maurice Saillet, 30 March 1943, 6 pages (this passage is on p. 6), Maurice Saillet Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Box 3, Folder 3. Original in French. My translation.

  p. 303 ‘to keep them from’ Drue Tartière, with M. R. Werner, The House near Paris: An American Woman’s Story of Traffic in Patriots, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1944, p. 206.

  Chapter Thirty-three: German Agents?

  p. 304 ‘The society charged’ ‘De Chambrun Criticized’, New York Times, 7 March 1943.

  p. 304 ‘restore the dignity’ Michael R. Marrus and Robert O. Paxton, Vichy France and the Jews, New York: Basic Books, 1981, p. 312.

  p. 304 For a time, Vichy Ibid., pp. 310–15.

  p. 305 ‘organizing a series’ Cable from the Ministry of Economic Warfare to W. Simpson, HM Embassy, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 23 July 1943, R.700/924/2, British National Archives, Kew.

  p. 305 No evidence emerged Secret cable from F. W. McCombe, British Embassy, Washington, DC, 30 November 1943, to H. S. Gregory, Trading with the Enemy Department, 24 Kingsway, London WC2, Number: TED.275, British National Archives, Kew: ‘By a very roundabout process I learn that you have asked Censorship to include the two Polignacs [Guy and Gladys de Polignac], René de Chambrun etc., in the Special Watch List, presumably as part of the chase which involves Laval, the Bank of Worms and Eastern Provinces Administration Ltd.’

  p. 305 Although his arrest made Gaston Bedaux, La Vie ardente de Charles Bedaux, Paris: privately published, 3 June 1959, p. 85.

  p. 305 United Press correspondent Geoffrey Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France, New York: Macmillan, 1968, p. 359. Warner relied mainly on documents from German military intelligence, the Abwehr, that survived the war.

  p. 306 ‘The Germans are going’ Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, I Was There: The Personal Story of the Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman Based on his Notes and Diaries Made at the Time, London: Victor Gollancz, 1950, pp. 73–4.

  p. 307 ‘Dr Keller was a repulsive’ André Enfière, ‘Edouard Herriot et Pierre Laval’, testimony in La Vie de la France sous L’Occupation (1940–1944), vol. II, Paris: Librairie Plon, 1957, p. 1067.

  p. 307 ‘I must admit that’ Ibid., pp. 1067–8.

  p. 308 ‘No indication subject … Acquaintances characterize subject’ FBI Form Number 1, ‘Title: Frederic Ledebur’, 8 April 1943, Federal Bureau of Investigation Archives, file provided under a Freedom of Information Act request and unnumbered. FOIPA No. 1088544-001.

  p. 309 ‘Did Watchdog, who was’ ‘Minutes of the Working Committee, Hemisphere Intelligence Conference, Wednesday, March 24, 1943, New York City’, Federal Bureau of Investigation Archives, file provided under a Freedom of Information Act request and unnumbered. FOIPA No. 1088544-001.

  p. 309 ‘Charles Eugene Bedaux’ The FBI refused to provide the transcript of that interview and other documents sixty years later, despite repeated Freedom of Information appeals.

  Chapter Thirty-four: A Hospital at War

  p. 310 On 4 April 1943 ‘133 Flying Fortresses Raid Paris Plant After R.A.F. Hammers at Essen; U.S. Units Gain Six Miles in Tunisia’, New York Times, 5 April 1943, p. 1.

  p. 311 ‘German propaganda was’ Ninetta Jucker, Curfew in Paris: A Record of the German Occupation, London: The Hogarth Press, 1960, p. 75.

  p. 311 ‘reached its crucial point’ General Aldebert de Chambrun, Managing Governor, Letter to the Board of Directors of the American Hospital of Paris, 9 December 1944, p. 4, American Hospital of Paris Archives, File: Report, 1940–1944.

  p. 311 ‘He was suffering’ Jucker, Curfew in Paris, pp. 168–9.

  p. 312 ‘The problem was solved’ Clara Longworth de Chambrun, Shadows Lengthen: The Story of My Life, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1949, p. 174.

  p. 312 Otto Gresser recalled Otto Gresser, ‘Histoire de l’Hôpital Américain –5ème Partie’, American Hospital of Paris Newsletter, vol. III, no. 11, March 1975, p. 4.

  p. 312 ‘So … we did some’ Otto Gresser interview in Kathleen Keating, ‘The American Hospital in Paris during the German Occupation’, 19 May 1981, 14-page typescript, p. 7, American Hospital of Paris Archives, File: German Occupation by Kathleen Keating and Various Other Histories, 1940–1944, p. 10. See also Otto Gress
er, ‘History of the American Hospital of Paris’, 28 September 1978, 14-page typescript, p. 5, Archives of the American Hospital of Paris, File: History by Otto Gresser: ‘Fearing a possible shortage of water in case of bombardment, after digging in the middle of the garden, an underground Seine was discovered ready to be used in case of emergency.’ The well was not needed.

  p. 312 René Rocher, the French Rocher, who had also had a successful career as an actor, was one of a series of temporary directors during the war. They were all filling in for the Odéon’s longstanding Jewish director, Paul Abram, who was dismissed when the Germans occupied Paris in 1940. He resumed the directorship in 1945.

  p. 312 ‘The Life and Death’ Longworth de Chambrun, Shadows Lengthen, p. 176.

  p. 312 ‘The play is short’ Ibid., p. 177. The book actually states, ‘The play is short, demanded no cuts, and could not be produced even during the brief playing-time which was allowed, for curtains had to be down and lights extinguished by ten-fifty.’ I have removed ‘not’, which appears to be a typographical error.

  p. 313 ‘How can we begin’ Ibid., p. 177.

  p. 313 King John opened Yves Pourcher, Pierre Laval vu par sa fille d’après ses carnets intimes, Paris, Le Cherche-Midi, 2002, p. 286.

  p. 313 A week later, someone Gérard Walter, Paris Under the Occupation, translated from French by Tony White, New York: Orion Press, 1960, p. 191.

  Chapter Thirty-five: The Adolescent Spy

  p. 314 German U-boats trawled My father, Commander Charles Glass, Jr, took part in the convoys and recalled German torpedoes sinking ships around his. One U-boat torpedo missed his ship by a few feet.

  p. 314 A picturesque town ‘British Photograph Bombing of the Nazi U-Boat Hideout at St. Nazaire’, Life, 11 May 1942, pp. 30–31.

  p. 314 During one raid ‘U.S. Raid Blasts St. Nazaire; 6 Bombers Lost in Battle’, New York Times, 17 February 1943, p. 1.

  p. 314 ‘the toughest target’ ‘Saint Nazaire Raided; Clouds Curb Blow’, New York Times, 3 May 1943, p. 5.

  p. 315 In Paris, R went Hal Vaughan, Doctor to the Resistance: The Heroic Story of an American Surgeon and His Family in Occupied France, Washington: Brassey’s, 2004, pp. 71–6, based on lengthy interviews with Phillip Jackson.

  Chapter Thirty-six: Clara under Suspicion

  p. 318 ‘new and peculiar … in case we’ Clara Longworth de Chambrun, Shadows Lengthen: The Story of My Life, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1949, p. 186.

  p. 318 When Clara and Hilda walked ‘News of the American Library’, Library Journal, December 1944, p. 1068. See also ‘Milton Lord Reports from Paris’, Library Journal, July 1945, pp. 622–4.

  p. 319 ‘If they have been circulated’ Longworth de Chambrun, Shadows Lengthen, p. 187.

  p. 319 ‘Madame, I am very’ Ibid. (Italics in original.)

  p. 319 To avoid further German ‘News of the American Library’, Library Journal, December 1944, p. 1068.

  p. 320 After three years Longworth de Chambrun, Shadows Lengthen, pp. 189–90.

  p. 320 But, in New York, expatriate ‘French Add a “Little Bit of Paris” to Old New York for Bastille Day’, New York Times, 15 July 1943, p. 13.

  p. 321 ‘Portrait of an American’ Quoted in Vaughan, Doctor to the Resistance, p. 91.

  p. 321 Sumner was operating Ibid., pp. 79–80. Phillip Jackson recounted the story to Vaughan in Paris in 2002.

  p. 323 ‘a nice place … Everything, bed and linens’ After-action report, quoted in Ibid., p. 93.

  p. 323 ‘I suppose my mother’ Ibid., p. 94.

  p. 324 In late October Frank Griffiths, Winged Hours, London: William Kimber, 1981, p. 123.

  p. 324 Spanish police arrested Joe Ibid., p. 178.

  p. 324 Back in England Of the seven other B-17 crew who survived, two were captured and the other five received help from the Resistance to escape to Spain.

  Chapter Thirty-seven: Calumnies

  p. 325 Her son and his wife Château Haut-Brion had belonged to American banker Clarence Dillon since 1935. Weller was Dillon’s cousin. Aldebert de Chambrun had alerted Dillon to the sale of Haut-Brion, and Pierre Laval was Weller’s sponsor for French citizenship. Dillon was a mentor to René de Chambrun during his time in New York.

  p. 325 René rarely missed From the diary of Josée de Chambrun, in Yves Pourcher, Pierre Laval vu par sa fille d’après ses carnets intimes, Paris: Le Cherche-Midi, 2002, pp. 302–4.

  p. 326 ‘brought to America’ Paul Wohl, ‘Laval’s Personal Fortune Reported Safe in US’, New York Herald Tribune, 5 December 1943, p. 1.

  p. 326 No proof was offered When Laval was tried for treason in 1945, financial impropriety was not among the many charges against him. His biographers do not mention them.

  p. 326 René admitted that René de Chambrun, Mission and Betrayal, 1940–1945: Working with Franklin Roosevelt to Help Save Britain and France, Palo Alto, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1992, p. 66.

  p. 326 ‘At present he is attached … The Paris building’ Paul Wohl, ‘Laval’s Personal Fortune Reported Safe in US’, New York Herald Tribune, 5 December 1943, p. 1.

  p. 327 The most likely source The British, who circulated anti-de Chambrun rumours throughout the war, may have found in Paul Wohl a vulnerable conduit for disinformation. Wohl was born in Berlin in 1901, and he had moved to the United States in 1938 as a correspondent for the Czech press. In 1941, the Christian Science Monitor hired him, although he also wrote for other papers, including the New York Herald Tribune. The US did not intern him as an enemy alien, although it could have. He was unmarried and kept forty-seven turtles at his apartment in Greenwich Village. See his obituary, ‘Paul Wohl, Journalist, Dead; Wrote About Political Affairs’, New York Times, 4 April 1985.

  p. 327 ‘instructing that they be’ D. M. Ladd, FBI Washington, ‘Memorandum for Mr. E. A. Tamm’, 12 January 1943, Document 100- 49901-29, US National Archives, College Park, Maryland.

  p. 327 ‘My own Charles darling’ The translations of the three letters with a covering letter from the Adjutant General’s office to the Justice Department are reproduced in C. M. Hardwick, Time Study in Treason: Charles E. Bedaux, Patriot or Collaborator, Chelmsford, Essex: Peter Horsnell, 1990, pp. 61–3.

  p. 329 ‘an invaluable, meticulous’ Janet Flanner, ‘Annals of Collaboration: Equivalism III’, The New Yorker, 13 October 1945, p. 35.

  p. 329 ‘code telegrams; business’ Ibid., p. 36.

  p. 330 ‘Coming home from’ Clara Longworth de Chambrun, Shadows Lengthen: The Story of My Life, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1949, pp. 175–6.

  PART SIX: 1944

  Chapter Thirty-eight: The Trial of Citizen Bedaux

  p. 335 ‘extremely straightforward person’ FBI Form Number 1, Title: Changed, Frederic Ledebur, Mrs. Isabella Cameron Waite, File No. 65- 6045 KJH, 25 February 1943, New York.

  p. 335 But Bedaux, despite Gaston Bedaux, La Vie ardente de Charles Bedaux, Paris: privately published, 3 June 1959, p. 89.

  p. 336 ‘I will be here’ Jim Christy, The Price of Power: A Biography of Charles Eugene Bedaux, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1984, p. 282.

  p. 336 ‘What assurance do’ Ibid., p. 280.

  p. 337 ‘he showed an ebullience’ Janet Flanner, ‘Annals of Collaboration: Equivalism III’, The New Yorker, 13 October 1945, p. 39.

  p. 337 ‘that [Frederic] Ledebur’ J. Edgar Hoover, FBI cable to SAC, San Francisco, 18 January 1944, from FBI files supplied under Freedom of Information Act, unnumbered file. FOIPA No. 1088544-001.

  p. 337 ‘OUR WASHINGTON ATTORNEY’ FBI File Number 65-3349, ‘Title: Frederick George Ledebur, Espionage G[erman]’, 12 typewritten pages, from FBI files supplied under Freedom of Information Act, FOIPA No. 1088544-001.

  p. 338 ‘in the event BEDAUX’ Ibid.

  p. 338 ‘I received your … It was always’ Gaston Bedaux, La Vie ardente de Charles Bedaux, p. 110. (The letter is reproduced in its entirety in French, but wartime restrictions meant that Gaston’s card and Charles’s le
tter would have taken circuitous routes through neutral countries to reach their destinations.)

  p. 338 ‘Well, one of these days’ Christy, The Price of Power, p. 283.

  p. 339 ‘Dear friend, I cannot’ Ibid., p. 295.

  p. 340 ‘is seriously ill’ ‘Charles Bedaux Seriously Ill in Miami Hospital’, Associated Press, Miami, 17 February 1944, in Chicago Daily Tribune, 18 February 1944, p. 7.

  Chapter Thirty-nine: The Underground Railway

  p. 341 ‘Just have news’ Copy of Incoming Cablegram, Max Shoop to Nelson Dean Jay, 9 February 1944, American Hospital of Paris Archives, File: Correspondence, 1940–1945.

  p. 341 Miss M. Thevoz, former chief The official list of Personnel reste à l’Hôpital le 14 Juin 1940 refers to Mlle M. Thevoz, Directrice des Infirmières, directress of nurses. Archives of the American Hospital of Paris, File: Personnel, 1940.

  p. 341 ‘understand Shoop’s reference’ Letter from N. D. Jay to Leslie Allen, 23 Wall Street, New York, NY, 14 February 1944, American Hospital of Paris Archives, File: Correspondence, 1940–1945.

  p. 341 ‘Please say that none’ Second letter from N. D. Jay to Leslie Allen, 23 Wall Street, New York, NY, 14 February, American Hospital of Paris Archives, File: Correspondence, 1940–1945. It is not clear why Jay wrote two letters to Leslie Allen, giving the same information in different words, on the same day.

  p. 341 The board attributed Neal H. Petersen (ed.), From Hitler’s Doorstep: The Wartime Intelligence Reports of Allen Dulles, 1942–1945, University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996, p. 544. Shoop’s former partner in the Paris office of Sullivan and Cromwell, Philippe Monod, was OSS Agent 405 with the code name Martel. Monod, a Frenchman, represented the combined Resistance body, Forces Françaises Combattantes de la Metropole (FFCM), with Allen Dulles in Switzerland (ibid., p. 53). Shoop, who liaised between the OSS and the Resistance, had known Dr Jackson in Paris. He and Monod should have had details of Dr Jackson’s escape network.