Churchill's White Rabbit

by Sophie Jackson

  His second attempt was even more risky. He was at the rue des Saussaies after another interrogation, waiting to board the van with several prisoners. It was getting late and Forest snuck into some shadows near the building before making a dash for the main archway that opened into the street. He was spotted quite rapidly and a guard tripped him as he ran. With his hands still handcuffed behind his back he fell to earth like a stone and faced the full wrath of his gaolers. For the next fortnight he was only allowed food every other day. Considering daily rations only consisted of watery soup, a slice of bread and a cup of ersatz coffee, this was a severe deprivation. But it could have been worse – guards usually shot escaping prisoners.

  Forest had no choice but to settle into the bleak world of Fresnes. As he had expected, his RAF chums had been transferred to a POW camp and with them had gone his message to Barbara. He made contact with other prisoners and passed his time shouting messages. Then, in early May, the Wehrmacht man returned and began to beat him for being the rebellious Tartarin who had been heard shouting anti-Nazi messages and rousing other prisoners to resist. Forest had been betrayed by his neighbour in the next cell.

  Hauled downstairs to a punishment cell he found himself in complete darkness, standing on a floor that was thickly covered in a layer of fungus. The only furniture was a chair with three legs that he had to precariously balance against the wall to sleep on, but at least it meant he didn’t have to lie on the floor. His starvation rations were reduced once again, so that he only ate soup every third day for three weeks, and the remainder of the time he had to subsist on a small piece of bread. The maniacal nature of it all flipped Forest over the edge and he started a dangerous campaign of yelling out every French and British patriotic song he could remember and slandering Hitler and Germany with every invective he could think of. It was not long before his guards came to beat him with a rifle butt, yet even this couldn’t stop him. Eventually they just left him to it and he sang and chanted until exhaustion took him into a precarious sleep.

  There was one ray of hope in the nightmare. Forest learned in his third week that Britain had begun the invasion of France and that sooner or later they would arrive in Paris. All he had to do was survive until then.

  At the time many prisoners were unaware that the arrival of the Allies, which gave them such hope, would be the catalyst for mass executions to avoid Jews, resisters, communists, agents and political prisoners talking about the atrocities they had seen. Forest was equally in limbo about the situation.

  When his punishment ended, Forest was shuffled to another cell. This one was smeared in dried blood, which did not inspire confidence. He didn’t remain there long, however, before he was called before a German doctor along with several other prisoners. Forest assumed that they were being examined for suitability to go to a labour camp: it was an unpleasant thought. Many who were taken to German work camps simply never returned; most people were convinced that the Germans worked them to death to avoid the expense of a bullet or the gas chamber. Forest again promised himself that he would escape before they left France.

  That July he was bundled into a larger cell with several other inmates. Included among them were brothers Paul and Raoul Simons. They had been part of the team Forest had been organising to extract Brossolette from prison, and their appearance was yet another reason to be despondent. From Forest’s perspective it seemed that everyone he knew in the resistance had been rounded up. His spirits fell more when they recounted the death of another friend while being arrested by the Gestapo.

  Aside from the resisters the new party was comprised of black marketeers who quickly fell foul of Forest when they tried to bully the Simon brothers. With his usual confidence, Forest singled out their ringleader and punched his lights out. It was satisfying to know that he had not entirely lost his fighting spirit during those long weeks of imprisonment.

  Before long the prisoners were on the move again, but this time in a van headed for a camp at Compiègne. Forest managed to secure some paper and a fragment of pencil, which he used to scrawl a note for Barbara. Throughout his imprisonment he would produce many of these heartfelt missives and a surprising number found their target. Addressing the paper to Jose Dupuis (which was a risk in itself if the Germans spotted the note) he tossed it out of the van as they passed a group of workmen. One of them picked it up and waved. His message was on its way. It read:

  Dear Friends. Everything is fine. I am leaving for Germany – reassure Barbara – see you soon, with love to you all, especially Barbara – Cheval – Shelley – Write to Barbara for me. Tell her to be brave and patient – I will return soon. Cheval.

  The air of intense optimism was a far cry from the actual desperation Forest felt, but it gave him something to think about on his long journey and, what’s more, it gave him hope.

  Compiègne was luxury compared to Fresnes. A former military barracks, the accommodation was rundown and running water was scarce, but the food was good and that compensated for a lot. Forest turned his mind to escape yet again, as he would later report: ‘I had two cracks at it at Compiègne without success.’2 One of these attempts involved bribing guards and having accomplices pose as Germans, but before the plan could happen news reached the inmates that they were being transferred. Forest was determined to stay at Compiègne as long as possible so that he might initiate his escape plan while still in France.

  With the help of another inmate and former resistance worker who had befriended the guards and was in receipt of smuggled money from the outside world that he could use as a bribe, Forest convinced the camp doctor to give him an injection that would induce a high fever. The transport would not take a sick prisoner in case they were carrying a contagious disease, so in this way Forest missed the first transport. By regularly reporting to the camp doctor he was even able to miss a second transport and with the time he had earned himself he wrote to Jose Dupuis again:

  I am at Compiegne and about to leave for Germany. My morale is good, but I am very worried about Barbara. I beg you to do everything possible to reassure her and make her understand that the war will not last for ever and that we will be together again soon. It’s Barbara that concerns me so do everything you can for her and remind her that if anything bad happens to her then life will have no purpose for me – she represents everything that I hold dear in this world – tell her that I love her more than ever and I think of her constantly – I embrace her with all my heart, with all my love – it’s the uncertainty about this that has caused me the greatest distress since my arrest.

  But his hope was misplaced. During his time at Fresnes a clerical error had been made on his file, probably helped along by his friends on the outside. Forest had been downgraded from a ‘three-star’ prisoner, which would categorise him as a dangerous saboteur and terrorist and have him on a quick route to a speedy German death, to a ‘one-star’ minor offender. It was an error that saved his life and induced his transfer to Compiègne, but someone noticed the mistake and the file was re-graded. Forest was once again a ‘three-star’ prisoner and now there was no way to avoid a transfer. Surrounded by eight armed guards, he was escorted to a train and an unknown destination in Germany.

  * * *

  Notes

  1. It is now the second largest after the construction of Fleury-Merogis prison between 1964–68.

  2. Official report to SOE.

  – 15 –

  The Darkness of Buchenwald

  ‘BUCHENWALD STILL SHOCKED ME when I first went there. But, of course, after all the years in the guard units at the camps, I did not come there unprepared. I over-came it. Sachsenhausen, Flossenburg and all the other [concentration camps] presented no problems after Buchenwald.’1 So said notorious concentration camp commandant Hans Huttig during a 1970s interview. Only Auschwitz could outshine the horrors of Buchenwald and for many SS men who served as guards there, once they had adapted to Buchenwald no other camp could tweak their consciences.

  Buchenwald opened i
ts gates in 1937, initially to political prisoners and criminals, but by 1938 it was accepting its first transport of Jews. Some of these earliest inmates proved lucky, as those were the days when Nazi policy still favoured relocation over execution. There were 10,000 Jews interned at Buchenwald that were released at the end of 1938 having promised to emigrate and a similar policy was adopted with Czech Jews released at the outbreak of war. This ‘generous’ policy failed to last, as in 1942 remaining Jews in the camp were transported to Auschwitz while, in contrast, Polish prisoners were being sent back to Buchenwald from the infamous extermination camp.

  When Forest first glimpsed his new home (the last one his captors intended for him) it was swelling to bursting point due to another new policy: Jewish slave labour intended for the armaments factories. The camp population had risen dramatically to 85,000 and the overcrowding was horrendous. In the first 100 days of 1945, 13,969 prisoners had perished simply from the horrific conditions that the overcrowding caused. When the War Crimes Committee began investigating Buchenwald prior to the trial of leading Nazi figures, they estimated that there had been 51,000 deaths at Buchenwald, of which only 33,000 were recorded and most were listed under natural causes: very few of the many executions were recorded as such.2

  Rumours of Buchenwald had already filtered from the camp, but Forest quickly learned of the full extent of its horrors from his fellow prisoners once inside. It had been set up by Karl Koch, its first commandant, who, along with his wife Ilse, was renowned among the inmates for his sadism and cruelty. He eventually came unstuck with his own party when it was discovered that he had been embezzling camp funds, and was executed. Ilse survived the war to be labelled as the ‘bitch of Buchenwald’ and to be accused of making lamps and other items out of human skin.

  Buchenwald’s evils had not decreased with the loss of Koch. Forest learned that the Nazis were now experimenting with typhus vaccines at the camp, which meant infecting large numbers of inmates with the disease first. Many died during the experiments. Dr Schuler was in charge of the experiments and the prisoners knew him as Dr Ding.

  For new arrivals life at Buchenwald began with the usual routine humiliations. Stripped naked and forced to stand outside for hours, they were eventually shorn from head to toe with blunt clippers, then jammed into a shower block to wash. The ritual was supposed to remove lice, but it seemed to Forest that it was just another way to demean him. A small towel had to be shared between four men to dry themselves, and then everyone was issued with camp clothing – cotton shirt and trousers.

  A forced march had to be endured across gravel pathways in bare feet to the ‘little camp’, which was an external section for new arrivals that was separate from the main camp. Inmates remained in the ‘little camp’ for varying lengths of time; accommodation was provided in a few huts and tents, but everywhere was so overcrowded that most prisoners had to sleep in the open air, no matter the weather. Disease spread rapidly, from the more mundane environmental conditions of chilblains to rampant outbreaks of dysentery and typhus. The weakest failed to survive ‘little camp’ and were cremated without ceremony.

  Forest had managed to maintain his health during his time in Fresnes, even avoiding serious blood poisoning in his injured arm, but now he was struck with dysentery that wracked him with agonising pains and stripped him of his strength.

  There seemed no rhyme or reason to when the Germans chose to move prisoners from ‘little camp’ to the main building. POWs and political prisoners were kept separate from the slave labourers, but it was still a diverse population that Forest emerged into. He was surrounded by communists and Polish and French criminals, as well as those who had opposed the Nazis, while a large chunk of the camp company was made up of British and American airmen. This was clearly against the Geneva Convention, but for various reasons the Germans had removed POW rank from these men, so they could do as they pleased with them at Buchenwald. Forest felt he finally might have allies in an escape, but he had to be cautious. Internal camp politics among the prisoners were as dangerous as those of their Nazi overlords. Factions had developed and they openly warred with each other; the communists were a particular threat as they were some of the longest-serving residents and distrusted the airmen. In among them were the ever-present traitors and stool pigeons who would happily turn a ‘comrade’ over to the Germans. Forest had entered a hornet’s nest.

  He now also had the pleasure of learning about life in an SS-run camp. The Gestapo had been bad enough but at least they seemed to have reasons for tormenting their victims, even if it was just to get some minor information. The SS guards were more universal with their bullying and enjoyed picking on the weak. Mingling with the criminals and airmen were the disabled or mentally ill, yet another portion of society the Nazi regime considered pointless. They were not spared from the SS brutality and many were beaten and tortured, both mentally and physically, just for existing. It was obvious to one witness who later reported his experiences to SOE that some of the inmates had no concept of what was happening to them, ‘their only crime was insanity’. A large number of these unfortunate souls perished from their wounds.

  There were also rounds of extermination and executions. The same witness wrote: ‘250 little gypsy boys, aged between 6 and 16 years were taken out of the camp and crushed into large furniture like vans – the back was then closed and sealed, and I was told they were gassed by means of a pipe from the exhaust.’3

  Thankfully Forest was not alone in this nightmare. On his train journey to Buchenwald he had found himself in the company of other SOE men and women. The women were destined for Ravensbruck, but the men were all headed for the same destination. Included in their number was Captain Henri Peulevé who had been captured in the same month as Forest and shared much in the way of personality and life experience. Peulevé worked for F Section as a wireless operator and had broken his ankle on his first mission during the parachute drop. He had to crawl to a nearby farm and beg for help. Fortunately the farmer’s wife was sympathetic to the resistance and didn’t turn Peulevé over to the Germans. He found his way back to England and was rapidly ready for his next mission.

  More upsetting was Forest’s recognition of Captain Desmond Hubble, an old friend from RF Section. Hubble had a family and Forest had always felt the risks he took were too great for someone with such responsibilities. He had tried to persuade him not to take on an operational mission, but like so many SOE men Hubble could not refuse the chance of getting into the action. He had been parachuted into the Ardennes and not long after was discovered and arrested by the Germans.

  Among others in the group was unfortunate Christopher Burney who had been sent by SOE to join the Autogiro circuit after it had already been taken over by the Germans. He narrowly escaped walking directly into a trap and was on the run for months before the Gestapo caught up with him. Then there was Lieutenant Stephanie Hessel and 23-year-old Jewish SOE agent Maurice Pertschuk.

  All told there were thirty-seven SOE men who were determined to stick together whatever the cost while in the camp. The SS were not concerned about all these agents mingling, perhaps they hoped they would share information that could then be extracted, but they did make every effort to ostracise the group from the other prisoners, even ordering them not to take part in the daily roll call. No doubt this was in an effort to generate resentment among their fellow prisoners and it certainly worked with the communists, who instantly took a dislike to the SOE men. They called the officers products of the ruling classes and whispered that they, like the capitalists, were to be disposed of first once the Soviets took control. Forest was used to this nonsense having worked alongside the communist resistance branch for so long and took no more notice than was required to avoid playing into their hands.

  Anyway, he was already busy thinking about escape. While daily life was one of camp routine, interspersed with chess tournaments using a travel set that Hubble had smuggled in, and playing bridge using cards created by Captain Frank Picke
rsgill of F Section, Forest’s mind was diverted by assessing his chances of escape. The new agents were confined to a limited area and separated from other prisoners by barbed wire. Forest had to use the only two men he trusted who had fuller access to the camp – Burney and Pertschuk.

  Forest’s main interest was in the block used for housing prisoners for ‘special treatment’ and where it was well known that experiments were being carried out. This was the preserve of the camp doctors, a notorious bunch who could even send a shiver of fear up an SS man’s spine. They were presided over by 32-year-old Dr Erwin Schuler who specialised in typhus experiments, but there was also Dr August Bender, Dr Hans-Dieter Ellenbeck (who conducted blood experiments), Dr Karl Kahr (previously a camp doctor at Dachau), Dr Erich Kather and Dr Heinrich Plaza. They were a sordid crew of hack scientists but, of more interest to Forest, their secretive experiments cast a fearful pall over their domain, which kept the SS guards at bay. Not least because Dr Schuler was working on a dreadfully infectious disease that none of the SS men wanted to get.

  Only Dr Schuler and a political prisoner named Arthur Dietzech, who had been in the camp since 1922, had overall access to the special treatment centre and this potentially made it a relatively safe place for fleeing prisoners.

  Forest had noted that other opportunities were limited. The barbed-wire fences were too well guarded and too many unfriendly eyes would happily reveal would-be escapees to the SS. But people who entered the special treatment centre were rather prone to ‘vanishing’. It might be the only way to ship out a number of men.