The Lost Boys

by Catherine Bailey

  23 ‘“Let’s not talk”’ quoted in Fey von Hassell and David Forbes-Watt, A Mother’s War (John Murray, 1990), p. 182

  24 ‘Leaving his company’ James, op. cit., p. 189n

  25 ‘“Across the square”’ ibid., pp. 189–90

  37

  1 ‘In the circumstances’ Hans-Günter Richardi, SS-Geiseln in der Alpenfestung (Edition Raetia, 2015), p. 209

  2 ‘“They were all”’ ibid., p. 235

  3 ‘“After my years”’ B. A. ‘Jimmy’ James, Moonless Night: The Second World War Escape Epic (Leo Cooper, 2002), p. 191

  4 ‘The men were’ Richardi, op. cit., pp. 230–3

  5 ‘“In this glorious”’ Peter Churchill, The Spirit in the Cage (Hodder & Stoughton, 1954), p. 221

  6 ‘TO REICHSFUEHRER’ Government Code and Cipher School: Signals Intelligence passed to the Prime Minister, HW 1/3747, The National Archives

  7 ‘But more than’ Richardi, op. cit., p. 238

  8 ‘… “left in a spin”’ ibid.

  9 ‘“As we approached”’ James, op. cit., p. 194

  10 ‘“Our soldiers”’ Marie-Gabriele Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg, Aufzeichnungen aus unserer Sippenhaft 20. Juli 1944 bis 19. Juni 1945 (Haus der Geschichte Baden-Württemberg, Der neue Blick, 2015), p. 127

  11 ‘“The majority”’ Isa Vermehren, Reise durch den letzten Akt: Ravensbrück, Buchenwald, Dachau. Eine Frau Berichtet (Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1979), p. 240

  12 ‘Almost immediately’ Richardi, op. cit., pp. 254–5

  13 ‘“The American”’ Kurt Schuschnigg, Austrian Requiem (Victor Gollancz, 1947), pp. 241–2

  14 ‘“I cannot”’ ibid.

  38

  1 ‘Leading the convoy’ Peter Churchill, The Spirit in the Cage (Hodder & Stoughton, 1954), p. 225

  2 ‘“We beheld”’ ibid., p. 226

  3 ‘… “after a very”’ Isa Vermehren, Reise durch den letzten Akt: Ravensbrück, Buchenwald, Dachau. Eine Frau Berichtet (Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1979), p. 270

  4 ‘“Every moment”’ ibid., p. 273

  39

  1 ‘In the summer’ figures cited in Tara Zahra, ‘Lost Children: Displacement, Family and Nation in Postwar Europe’, Journal of Modern History, vol. 81, no. 1, European Childhood in the Twentieth Century (March 2009), p. 47

  2 ‘In the concentration camps’ ‘Children during the Holocaust’, website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

  3 ‘Another 50,000’ Verena Buser, ‘Displaced Children 1945 and the Child Tracing Division of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration’, in The Holocaust in History and Memory, vol. 7: 70 Years After the Liberation of the Camps, ed. Rainer Schulze (University of Essex, 2014)

  4 ‘Whether through’ Zahra, op. cit., p. 45

  5 ‘The Red Cross’ Dorothy Macardle, Children of Europe (Victor Gollancz, 1949) p. 305

  6 ‘In the final’ Michelle Mouton, ‘Missing, Lost and Displaced Children in Postwar Germany: The Great Struggle to Provide for the War’s Youngest Victims’, Central European History, vol. 48, issue 1 (March 2015), p. 54

  7 ‘In the Soviet zone’ ibid., p. 61

  8 ‘As early as 1943’ ibid., p. 54

  9 ‘But when the time came’ ibid., p. 56

  10 ‘In setting up’ ibid., p. 55

  11 ‘Many families’ ibid., p. 57

  12 ‘Children arriving’ ibid., p. 63

  13 ‘“From experience”’ Hans Szperlinski, the founder and head of the German child search agency Kindersuchdienst, cited in ibid.

  14 ‘While the Allied authorities’ ibid., pp. 55–6

  15 ‘The majority had’ ibid.

  16 ‘But the children’ Robert Foster, unpublished memoir, undated, private family archive

  40

  1 ‘Ilse’s teenage years’ Ilse von Hassell, unpublished memoir, undated, private family archive

  2 ‘Like so many’ David Stafford, Endgame 1945 (Abacus, 2008), p. 461

  Epilogue

  1 ‘“As a teenager”’ Corrado Pirzio-Biroli, conversation with author, November 2016

  2 ‘While there’ Peter Hoffmann, Stauffenberg: A Family History, 1905–1944 (Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 281

  3 ‘After his release’ ibid.

  4 ‘“He was a true”’ Dr Gudula Knerr-Stauffenberg, correspondence with author, 8 March 2018

  5 ‘“It is not”’ Marie-Gabriele Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg, Aufzeichnungen aus unserer Sippenhaft 20. Juli 1944 bis 19. Juni 1945 (Haus der Geschichte Baden-Württemberg, Der neue Blick, 2015), p. 129

  6 ‘“The tour”’ ibid., p. 231

  7 ‘“A society”’ Isa Vermehren, lecture at Ravensbrück, 1993

  8 ‘He left’ Peter Longerich, Heinrich Himmler (Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 735

  9 ‘Here, according’ Werner Grothmann, Preliminary Interrogation Report 031/Misc 19, 24 May 1945, WO 208/4431, The National Archives

  10 ‘The river’ Peter Witte and Stephen Tyas, Himmler’s Diary 1945: A Calendar of Events Leading to Suicide (Fonthill Media, 2014), p. 207

  11 ‘They spent’ ibid., p. 210

  12 ‘“Himmler was”’ Interim Report of Werner Grothmann, 13 June 1945, WO 208/4474, The National Archives

  13 ‘… the British’ ibid.

  14 ‘“At that time”’ statement by Captain T. Selvester (undated), WO 32/19603, The National Archives

  15 ‘“The first man”’ ibid.

  16 ‘“At 22.45”’ ‘The Diary of Major Norman Whittaker’, quoted in Witte and Tyas, op. cit., p. 218

  17 ‘… “saw a small”’ Colonel Murphy, quoted in Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel, Heinrich Himmler: The Sinister Life of the Head of the SS and Gestapo (Frontline Books, 2017), p. 248

  18 ‘“My God!”’ ‘The Diary of Major Norman Whittaker’, quoted in Witte and Tyas, op. cit., p. 218

  19 ‘Immediately’ Manvell and Fraenkel, op. cit., p. 248

  20 ‘“The dramatic”’ Captain C. J. ‘Jimmie’ Wells, quoted in Paul Van Stemann, ‘Himmler’s Night of Reckoning’, Independent, 21 May 1995

  21 ‘“This evil thing”’ ‘The Diary of Major Norman Whittaker’, quoted in Witte and Tyas, op. cit., p. 218

  22 ‘“These four”’ Second Army Defence Company War Diary, WO 208/4474, The National Archives

  23 ‘During the six’ Janina Grabowska, Odpowiedzialność za zbrodnie popełnione w Stutthofie. Procesy [Responsibility for the Atrocities Committed at Stutthof. The Trials], KL Stutthof, Monografia

  24 ‘In 1948’ Dorothy Macardle, Children of Europe (Victor Gollancz, 1949), p. 296

  Index

  The page references in this index correspond to the print edition from which this ebook was created, and clicking on them will take you to the the location in the ebook where the equivalent print page would begin. To find a specific word or phrase from the index, please use the search feature of your ebook reader.

  Absam (Tyrol) 9, 12, 15

  Abyssinia, Italian conquest 43, 45

  Adlestrop Mission (SIS operation in Friuli) 169–70

  Aktion Hess (Nazi purge of occultists) 14

  Alexander, Harold (later 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis) 346

  Alpenfestung (Hitler’s Alpine fortress) 2, 312–13, 338

  Alvensleben, Ludolf von: background and character 111, 156, 347; SS and Gestapo commander in Udine 111–12, 156; mass executions of prisoners 115–19; retribution attacks against partisans 171

  Alvensleben, Wichard von 347–8, 349, 351, 353

  Anacapri (Capri) 356–7

  Anschluss (Nazi invasion of Austria; 1938) 11

  Anthroposophy Society 10–14, 386

  Anti-Comintern Pact 56

  Armée Secrète (French paramilitary unit) 320

  Arosa (Switzerland) 64, 77

  Arta (Friuli) 138

  Astaire, Fred 47

  Auschwitz concentration camp 217, 275, 277

  Austin, Edwin 401

  Bad Reinerz (Lower Sil
esia) 189, 190; Hindenburg Baude (hotel) 190–91, 196, 199

  Bad Sachsa (Saxony) 380, 381–2; orphanage 281, 380, 382

  Bader, Ernst (SS guard): appearance, character and earlier career 291, 292, 341; in charge of evacuation of Prominenten (special prisoners) from Buchenwald 291–7; group held in village school at Schönberg 297–8, 300, 304; arrival of group at Dachau 306–7; at Reichenau labour camp 332; ordered to liquidate prisoners 335, 343, 345–6; transport of group to Tyrol 337–40, 341; at Villabassa 343–4, 345–6, 347–8; leaves group and returns to HQ 349

  Badoglio, Pietro 79, 83, 92

  Barbarossa, Operation (Nazi invasion of Soviet Union; 1941) 13, 233

  Barbella, Maria 88

  Beck, Ludwig 58–9, 61, 63, 68, 69, 127, 130, 137

  Belsen concentration camp 316

  Benevento, Battle of (1266) 48

  Berlin 45–6; Allied bombing 263, 267; final encirclement 311, 325; see also Zeughaus

  Bernadotte, Folke 314–15, 317–18, 322, 334

  Best, Sigismund Payne: kidnapped at Venlo 274; imprisoned with Prominenten (special prisoners) in Buchenwald 274, 288–9; group evacuated from Buchenwald 292–4, 295, 296, 297, 304; in Dachau 310, 313, 319–20, 322, 323–4; transportation to Tyrol 323–4, 331, 332, 333, 340–43; at Villabassa 345–6; group transported to Naples by Americans 355

  Birger, Trudi 219–20, 221, 224

  Bismarck, Otto von 13

  Bletchley Park (Government Code and Cypher School), intercepts 318, 351–2

  ‘blood guilt’ doctrine (Sippenhaft) 154, 194

  Blum, Léon 273, 291, 300, 309, 319, 329, 353

  Bocchini, Arturo 47–8, 49

  Bolzano (Tyrol) 338, 343, 349

  Bonhoeffer, Dietrich 273–4, 300

  Bonin, Bogislaw von 339–40, 342–3, 348

  Boniński, Władysław 225

  Bonomi, Ivanoe 365

  Boratto, Rosanna 92–3

  Borghese, Scipione, 10th Prince of Sulmona 113n

  Bormann, Martin 11, 145

  Bovolenta (Brazzà farm manager) 74, 103, 120, 166, 375

  Bowler, Operation (Allied bombing of Venice harbour; 1945) 21–3

  Brandt, Heinz 70, 71

  Brandt, Rudolf 334, 335

  Brazzà estate (Friuli): location 23, 26–7, 73, 101; architecture and buildings 23, 24, 25–6, 31–4, 73, 390; grounds and gardens 23, 24–5, 37, 38–9, 73, 159; history 35–6; farming and landlord–tenant relations 86–8, 114; silk production 26, 88

  Brazzà, Alvise di 119, 120–21, 122, 164

  Brazzà, Anna di 164

  Brazzà, Pietro di 394

  Brazzà Savorgnan, Detalmo (the Lost Boys’ father) see Pirzio-Biroli, Detalmo

  Brazzà Savorgnan, Detalmo (the Lost Boys’ grandfather) 88

  Brazzà Slocomb, Cora di 36, 77, 87–9

  Brazzaville (Congo) 394

  Breitenbuch, Eberhard von 129–30

  Bremervörde (Saxony) 398

  Breslau 206–7

  Britain, Battle of (1940) 67

  Bromberg (Pomerania) 262

  Bruckmann, Hugo 58

  Buchenwald concentration camp 44, 58, 269–79; Prominenten (special prisoners) 271–5, 289–91; evacuation 289–91, 301–2, 316, 325

  Buffarini Guidi, Guido 49

  Burckhardt, Carl Jacob 65

  Buri, Frau (Wiesenhof orphanage head nurse) 16–17, 386–7

  Busch, Ernst 129

  Busch, Friedrich 177

  Cadogan, Sir Alexander 64

  Caldwell-Taylor, Dorothy (later Countess di Frasso) 47

  Campo Imperatore (Abruzzo) 91

  Campoformido airbase (Friuli) 99, 113

  Canaris, Wilhelm 293, 300

  Canebola (Friuli) 125, 126

  Caporiacco, Andreina di 122

  Capri 356–61

  Casablanca Conference (1943) 65, 67

  Caserta, surrender of (1945) 346–7, 352

  Central European Economic Conference 64

  Churchill, Jack 310, 340

  Churchill, Peter 310, 336, 351, 355

  Churchill, Sir Winston 65–6, 139, 318n, 332–3, 351

  Ciano, Galeazzo 48, 49, 50, 57

  CIC see Counter Intelligence Corps

  Cisco Red Mission (SOE operation) 124

  Civitavecchia 75

  Clark, Mark 389–90

  Cologne 304

  Commissar Order (1943) 68

  concentration camps: Himmler’s introduction 179, 306; Kapos scheme (prisoner–guards) 219, 221–3; medical experimentation on prisoners 276–7, 293; use of prostitution 277, 309, 319; child casualty totals 369; see also Auschwitz; Belsen; Buchenwald; Flossenbürg; Kaiserwald; Mauthausen; Ravensbrück; Sachsenhausen; Stutthof; Theresienstadt

  Coolant Mission (SOE operations in Friuli) 28–9, 123–6, 139, 169

  ‘Cornali’ see La Malfa, Ugo

  Counter Intelligence Corps (United States; CIC) 356, 357

  Da Carrara family 89

  Dachau concentration camp 58, 193, 275, 293, 306–8, 319, 396; Prominenten (special prisoners) 308–310, 312, 319–22, 324–7; evacuation 322, 323–4, 327–9; liberation 327

  DAF see Desert Air Force

  Daluege, Kurt 56

  Dannenberg, H. (senior German officer at Brazzà) 140–41, 153, 155, 158; and Fey’s deportation 162–3, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168

  Dannowski, Gertrud 239

  Dante Alighieri, La Vita Nuova 279–80

  Danzig 206, 209, 250, 258–61, 401

  Day, Harry ‘Wings’ 310, 340–41, 344

  Delestraint, Charles 320

  Desert Air Force (DAF): wartime Italian campaign 23, 38–9; advances on Udine 21, 23–4; HQ established at Brazzà 23–4, 374; operations in Friuli and against planned Communist coup 28–9, 30

  Dietrich, Marlene 47

  Ditmann (SS lieutenant at Buchenwald) 288

  Dohnányi, Hans von 61

  Dollfuss, Engelbert 45

  Dollmann, Eugen 48

  Dowse, Sydney 310, 331

  Drenchia (Friuli) 28

  Dresden, Allied bombing 282

  Ducia, Anton 342, 343

  Dulles, Allen 2, 142, 195, 347

  Dunin-Wąsowicz, Krzysztof 220

  Ebenhausen (Bavaria) 60, 73, 391

  Eden, Anthony (later 1st Earl of Avon) 64–5

  Ehrich, Lore 239–40

  Eidlitz, Walther 11

  Einstein, Albert, theory of relativity 57

  Eisenhower, Dwight D. 318, 323, 332–3, 335

  Eisermann, Ottokar 99–100, 103, 140, 153

  Elbing (East Prussia) 238, 242

  Elser, Georg 309, 320

  Erfurt (Thuringia) 289

  European Commission 393

  evacuation of East Prussia (1945) 235–40, 242–3, 248, 250–51, 258

  Faedis (Friuli) 159

  Falconer, Colin 390

  Falconer, Hugh: in Buchenwald 274; evacuated from Buchenwald and moved to Dachau 295–6, 297, 299; in Dachau 320–21; transportation to Tyrol 337, 338, 345, 350–51

  Falkenhausen, Alexander von 274, 319

  Feletto Umberto (Friuli) 113; executions 115–19

  Fellgiebel, Erich 133

  Fenoaltea, Sergio 140, 365

  Fischler, Franz 394

  Flensburg (Schleswig-Holstein) 397

  Florence 356

  Flossenbürg concentration camp 293, 294, 300, 304

  Flügge, Wilhelm 339–40

  Foggia 123, 124

  Foster, Robert: early life and career 22; AOC, Desert Air Force 21, 22; Operation Bowler (bombing of Venice harbour) 21–3; advances on Udine 21, 23–4; establishes HQ at Brazzà 23–4, 374; exploration of estate and investigation of its history 23–7, 30–40; DAF operations in Friuli and against planned Communist coup 28–9, 30; greets Fey and Detalmo on their return to Brazzà 375

  Foth, Ewald: sergeant at Stutthof concentration camp 212–13, 215, 227, 228, 243; role in processing of new arrivals 217, 218, 219, 220; mass killings 220–21; sentenced to death for war crimes 401<
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  Four-Power Pact (1933) 51

  Frank, Hans 14

  Frankl, Viktor, Man’s Search for Meaning 404

  Frassanelle (Padua) 89, 92

  Frasso, Carlo di 47

  Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor 48

  Freisler, Roland 145–7, 271, 397

  Fritz, Sergeant (quartermaster to Ernst Bader) 345–6

  Fromm, Friedrich 130, 134

  Gable, Clark 47

  Garibaldi partisans (Italian Communists): operations in vicinity of Brazzà 104, 119–20, 121–2, 138–9; unite with Osoppo battalion 139–40; German rastrellamento offensive against 167–8, 170–71; planned coup with Yugoslav Communists 28–9, 30

  Garibaldi, Sante 309, 323, 340–41

  Gaulle, Charles de 320

  Gdańsk see Danzig

  Gehre, Ludwig 274, 293

  Genkin, Efraim 236–7

  Gerow, Leonard 355

  Gersdorff, Rudolf-Christoph von 71–2

  Giacomuzzi (Udine family) 97, 167, 169

  Giacomuzzi, Luciano 169–70

  Gisevius, Annelise 195, 200, 213, 289

  Gisevius, Hans Bernd 142, 195

  Goebbels, Joseph 11, 12, 15, 127, 135, 234, 319

  Goerdeler family: arrested following Carl Friedrich’s role in July plot 194, 198; imprisonment in Hindenburg Baude 194, 198; at Stutthof concentration camp 213, 214, 226, 227–31, 246; on journey to Buchenwald 264, 267; at Buchenwald 270, 281

  Goerdeler, Carl Friedrich 59, 63, 130, 194, 382

  Goldap (East Prussia) 236, 237, 238

  Göring, Hermann 71, 203, 236, 272; visits Rome 53, 54

  Gorizia 30, 104

  Gotenhafen (Pomerania) 258

  Göttingen 381

  Gran Sasso raid (rescue of Mussolini; 1943) 91–2

  Grant, Cary 47

  Greenup, Operation (OSS mission in Austria; 1945) 311

  Grothmann, Werner 398–9, 399–400

  Grünwalderhof (Tyrol) 312, 313

  Guettner, Walter 178

  Gumbinnen (East Prussia) 236–7

  Habecker, Walter 143

  Haeften, Werner von 130–34

  Halder, Franz 272

  Halder, Gertrude 272

  Halifax, Edward Wood, 1st Earl of 64

  Hammerstein, Maria von 270–71, 292, 326

  Handmaids of Charity (religious institute) 156–7

  Hannibal, Operation (evacuation of German civilians from Baltic Coast; 1945) 258