Young, Brave and Beautiful Read online

  Denise recounted the events of the planned dinner party on Thursday 9 March. It had been arranged that Claude and his partner Anne would arrive at half past seven in the evening. By nine he had still not appeared, although Anne had arrived at the agreed time. Already anxious, Anne decided to hurry home to see what had happened.

  The concierge was at the door of her block of apartments. She asked him quickly if he had seen Monsieur Serge.

  The concierge replied in the negative, explaining that Monsieur Serge had gone out at about four o’clock this afternoon, looking worried and in a bit of a rush, and he hadn’t him since, saying he hoped he was not in any trouble.

  Anne muttered a quick merci and rushed back to Denise, only to discover that he had not yet arrived there either.

  Pierre was now seriously concerned that disaster had struck. He admitted at dinner to the two women that Claude had said how worried he was, ‘as things were getting hot’. Pierre went on to say that it was time for him to disappear. If he stayed, he was sure, it was not only his own life that was in danger, but also that of Denise, Broni and several others – and all those safe-houses he and Broni used for transmissions, too.

  Even though the women thought that it was too late to go that day, Pierre felt that there was still just under two hours until curfew, it was a beautiful moonlit night – easy to cycle without a lamp – and even if he could not get very far, he could sleep in a field and continue to a safe-house the following day.

  Denise was enormously sad at the prospect; it was dangerous and she was afraid. Anne announced that she would go home. Claude might be on some assignment or other, or he might have received urgent information to disseminate to other members of the organisation. She thought it would be better to wait until tomorrow and then meet again, probably with Claude in tow, when they could all decide their next steps together.

  Denise enthusiastically agreed, saying they should come the following day at one o’clock when they could discuss everything calmly and make new plans for their safety and that of the other group members. Reluctantly, Pierre agreed. An extra night would surely not hurt.

  Violette was aghast at the reasoning and could not help wondering about it. Was Denise telling the truth? The idea that Claude could be out performing some task was not altogether out of the question. It was a weak argument for lack of action perhaps, but still, on the other hand, it could have been the case. Nevertheless, it was extremely dangerous to wait and turned out to be fatal.

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  39 During his proofreading, Leslie Jackson, friend and financier, informed me that in England the flour was grey in colour and white flour a rarity. ‘I know this,’ he wrote, ‘because on my ship we did have white flour and when going ashore to see Peggy, my fiancée, a lb-bag of white flour was greeted with delighted surprise.’ During the war in France there were some 55,000 bakeries – one for about every 800 people.

  40 Réfractaires = draft dodgers, but in the Second World War les réfractaires au STO were French civilians who refused to work in Germany or on German installations in France and thus constituted the foundation of the Maquis.

  41 Bronislaw Pionteck, a skilled wireless operator. He had been born in Poland but was naturalised French in 1934, and joined the French Air Signals corps. He and his brother Felix were attached to the Hamlet/Salesman circuits and probably also to the Libé-Nord and the Diables Noirs. He was mentioned in Philippe Liewer’s debriefings as Bruni. He and Pierre worked closely together and Broni was probably Pierre’s instructor in French as Pierre was not entirely bilingual, and in this way acted as his bodyguard by doing most of the talking. Broni was awarded the Légion d’Honneur, Médaille Militaire with Palm, Croix de Guerre and Médaille de la Résistance.

  42 Cicero – code name for Claude Malraux.

  43 Serge was the code name for Jean Sueur, and also a code name for Claude Malraux. Néné was another of Jean Sueur’s aliases; he was an important contact to Philippe and manager of the Rouen branch of Madame Micheline’s women’s fashion shop. He was also an external member of the Diables Noirs.

  44 Leslie also informs me that another additive was ground figs; this was called feigen Kaffee and still drunk after the war, particularly in Austria. It should probably be written Feigenkaffee.

  45 Salaud = bastard.

  46 Notes from Martin Sugarman in his paper for Jewish Historical Studies, vol. 41, 2007.

  47 Odette (Hallows/Churchill) Sansom GC (see biography and film entitled Odette) said of Violette, ‘She was the bravest of us all’.

  48 There is some question whether the woman in Claude’s life was his wife, fiancée or lover. As far as I can ascertain her name was Anne.

  49 Broni was finally liberated and lived to the ripe old age of ninety-three, having married and had three children. Among his activities, he had participated in the sabotage of a German minesweeper in the port of Rouen as part of Salesman/Hamlet.

  8

  The Confession

  Tuesday 11 April 1944

  Denise continued, saying that the next day, Friday 10 March, Denise, Pierre and Anne had met again as arranged for lunch in Denise’s flat, continued Denise. But still no Claude. He had not been seen or heard of and had left no message.

  While they were eating, the Vichy police had arrived, accompanied by two Gestapo and a few German soldiers, who remained on guard with the vehicles. Their officer banged heavily on the door and demanded to speak to the ‘lodger’. It was Vichy Chief Inspector Alie, a French North African Vichy police officer enlisted by the Gestapo for his particular penchant for cruelty in interrogating suspects. With him was Inspector Jean Déterville, who was in fact playing an extremely dangerous game in clandestine communication with the Résistance. Denise replied that she had no lodger, as the French were supposed to declare all lodgers to the authorities, but said she had a friend living with her. Chief Inspector Alie barked out that they knew he was a réfractaire – and that he refused compulsory work service.50 By April 1940, some 200,000 workers were on the run. The Pétain government had recently been encouraged to send more young Frenchmen to Germany to work in factories and weapons industries, where they laboured under gruelling conditions; workers dropped like flies and the German war machine needed constant replacements.

  ‘It was terrible, Corinne, there was a lot of shouting from the Milice and Chief Inspector Alie led them in. I was beside myself with fear. They just knew so much about us all. I was so upset that I shouted out, “You can’t do that to a British captain.” I knew that, as Pierre was a soldier, he could become a prisoner of war, not be sent to slave labour in Germany.’

  Aghast at what Denise had said, Violette blurted: ‘But, don’t you realise a military man in occupied territory not wearing his country’s uniform can be summarily shot as a spy?’

  ‘Oh no! That can’t be! I was trying to protect him.’ Tears streamed anew down her face at the horrendous mistake she had made. ‘It can’t be true!’ She had had no idea, fully believing that British officers went straight to POW camps.

  ‘I’m afraid it is true.’ Violette’s voice was serious. ‘Please, Denise, tell me the rest so I have a chance to assess the situation a little better. I know how painful this is for you, but we must go over every aspect of what happened to them and to you, so that we can plan better for the days ahead.’

  Wiping her eyes and blowing her nose, Denise explained that the police knew exactly what they were talking about, in detail too. They had never set eyes on her before but they obviously knew who she was before they started to question her. They found a photo of a man in her bag which, Denise thought, may have told them who she was. Violette was not able to establish from Denise that the woman’s name was really Anne but Denise thought it was; nor could she ascertain that it was Claude’s photograph the Milice found, although it was fairly safe to assume it was. Philippe had not mentioned this woman’s name in his later debriefing reports either, although he must have known it from working closely wi
th Claude Malraux. Denise surmised that the police knew she was Claude’s partner, or at least that she had some close connection to him since it transpired that they had arrested him only the previous evening. Violette was unsure of the logic of this but could get no clearer explanation from Denise.

  If Pierre, Denise and Anne were the only ones who knew of the planned lunchtime meeting, was one of them the traitor? And where was this Anne? On being asked, Denise did not respond, but instead said that she and Pierre had a prearranged story that exonerated her from any knowledge of his activities.

  Going over the deeply disturbing events again and again, Denise told Violette that Anne had been saying she thought Claude was on his way to tell another group that the weapons and other material at Philippon’s garage had not yet been found by the Gestapo and they needed to hide them elsewhere. Anne believed he had been told, or realised when he went there, that there remained a well-concealed cache of weapons as yet undiscovered by the enemy.

  Denise then reluctantly explained to Violette that it seemed Pierre had broken down almost immediately, as the very next day, Saturday 11 March, the six families who had allowed him to use their homes for transmitting and receiving were arrested, every one of them. This came to a total of about twenty people. Who else would have known about all these families? Violette replied that it was quite possible that he and his bodyguard had been followed for the last few weeks, maybe even months, by Vichy police, Gestapo, Milice or informers. It was, in Violette’s opinion, highly unlikely to have been Pierre who gave the information as he had proved to be such a robust operator; it was much more likely to have been a betrayal within the networks. Perhaps security had been getting lax; the fact that Denise herself came into the equation remained unspoken.

  The Gestapo had taken everything that Pierre possessed in Denise’s apartment, including a hoard of 50,000 francs that Philippe had left with him rather than Claude before returning to London; money to be used to fund various resistance activities.

  Whatever the reason for those arrests, it was devastating, thought Violette. She insisted to Denise that she must contact those left behind; at the very least she could help them financially. Would they even be prepared to talk to her if they even remotely thought one of her own group had seemingly sold them down the river? Did they realise the persistence of the enemy to infiltrate and harm? It was very demoralising for the remnants of the circuit. Or was Denise placing the blame elsewhere in order to protect herself?

  From all Violette had heard of Pierre it was inconceivable that he would break so completely and immediately. Was Denise telling her the truth as she saw it? Did she even know? Had they all been followed and not realised? This seemed to Violette to be much more likely. She did on the whole feel that Denise was being sincere and honest.

  Violette spoke quietly, thinking aloud, explaining that maybe this raid had been timed to coincide with a number of others. It was likely that there existed at least one infiltrator or collaborator, or perhaps a careless high- or low-ranking member in one of the clandestine groups, who over a period of weeks, maybe even months, had led to the destruction of Charles’s Salesman circuit and other networks. It was something she and Philippe thought quite possible.

  Denise certainly agreed saying that some of these homes where Pierre transmitted from, were thirty to forty-five kilometres from Rouen. The Gestapo arrested everybody in each home. She felt that it could only have been Pierre, Claude or, just possibly, Anne who had given away the whereabouts of these people after the Germans gave their word that nobody would be shot.

  Violette still had doubts about this. It was likely that the raids had been planned and orchestrated over months. The Germans were not fools and more than capable of letting networks continue to train, receive armaments and supplies and so forth, only to arrest the members after they had been trained and grab the delivered weapons – textbook tactics.

  On the other hand, Denise’s relationship with Isidore was so close that Isidore had asked her to go to Broni that morning. What else did she know? Violette desperately wanted to keep on questioning Denise but it was vital that she remain sympathetic so that Denise would help her to reach other circuit members or other groups. Softly, softly, she reminded herself.

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  After Denise had made yet more fresh coffee, Violette came back to the serious business of her mission, asking if Denise would mind telling her again what happened next to Pierre and Claude. Reluctantly she did although she was not proud of her actions. Violette was gentle in her thanks.

  Then, in an extraordinary confession, Denise told Violette that, in the hope that the treatment of Pierre would be lenient, she had promised the Gestapo that she would tell them if she saw Charles – Philippe – again. Hands shaking, Denise burst into uncontrollable sobs of shame and embarrassment.

  ‘I-I was so scared, Corinne, I didn’t want anything dreadful to happen to Pierre and so I promised. I still don’t know to this day whether I would have kept such a promise. I don’t think I would. I was so terrified for Pierre, I just blurted it out. I did know I wasn’t in a position to give Charles away as he had disappeared, apparently to England. But I shouldn’t have done it. I’ve visited Pierre as often as they’ll let me, taking him food and clean clothes, and I’ve seen that he hasn’t been badly treated at all. Nor, for that matter, have Claude, Jean or Florence.’ Pierre had confirmed to her that he had not been tortured, or even beaten up. The leniency even went further: Pierre had been allowed to share a cell with Claude in the Palais de Justice in Rouen. This perk was, no doubt, given to see if the enemy could elicit useful information from listening in on their talk; most cells were bugged.

  Violette was shocked by the story. She sympathised with the woman but felt let down. And very scared. She kept her voice as calm as possible and tried not to show just how distressed she was. Denise was weeping quietly.

  ‘Shush, now, don’t worry, Denise,’ calmly soothed Violette. ‘What you’ve told me is so useful. I know it’s difficult but I need to know everything so that we can make the right assessment and decisions about we can do in the weeks ahead. We all do things we wish we hadn’t but we do them for what seem to us the best reasons at the time. Sometimes, as with what happened to you, there aren’t even seconds to decide what to do.’

  Violette, this time, made another small cafetière of coffee. She went to rinse the tiny cups in the sink. Busying herself gave her pause to ease the tension building inside her and to try to think a little more coherently. What if, after such a confession, Denise felt so diminished that she decided to report her to the Milice or the Gestapo? It had happened before with other people who, mortified by their weakness, blustered into betrayal. Or what if all she had heard was just a story to lure her into something worse? What if the Gestapo were keeping a careful watch on the house at this very moment? She was very, very scared.

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  After a while, they began to talk more generally again about Rouen, the war and where it was leading. Denise described again how she was able to visit Isidore three times a week and bring anything she liked to him, Claude, Jean and Florence – cigarettes, food and so on. Violette then realised that it was not the Gestapo nor the French Milice who had imprisoned them, but the Vichy police, as they were imprisoned in the cellars of their headquarters in the Palais de Justice. It seems possible that Isidore and Claude had somehow been protected from torture by the clandestine Résister, Inspector Déterville, or one of his undercover people that Violette did not yet know about. Violette asked Denise if she was sure it was Louis Alie, the head of the French Milice, with his men, who came to arrest them all that day.

  Denise thought so but did admit that one despicable Milice officer looks pretty much like another to her. She was sure there were Gestapo there as well. There were four or five altogether, she thought, with a couple of black cars out the front carefully guarded by Miliciens and German soldiers. She explained that the Vichy police on the whole preferred to keep to civil c
riminal matters and nothing more. But Alie was specially recruited, along with his chosen men, commonly thought of as a shower of Vichy louts and fanatic Nazi supporters, just like the Milice, which was generally known as the French Gestapo. Then there was the SD – the Nazi Party police force – the Gestapo and the French GMR, the reserve mobile groups, Vichy’s mobile police forces. This reinforced all Violette had learned at SOE school and briefings in Orchard Court, Baker Street and with Philippe.

  Denise explained there had been just as many Résistants who continued working – much more carefully, to be sure – for the Allied cause, and just as many who gave nothing away under the most horrible interrogations imaginable. The Gestapo, she said, were nothing but vermin that should be destroyed but it must be said that, overall, the Wehrmacht, the regular army, was not so bad. The Abwehr, the military police, were harsh – but the Gestapo was a vicious secret police agency, directly answerable to Himmler and Hitler – cruel and merciless from top to bottom. The harm they had done was terrible indeed.

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  The morning had slipped by, but Violette thought that spending this time with her first contact was worth every minute. Even so, she should leave soon; the questions she so much wanted to ask would probably upset Denise too much. Biding her time would reward her more. They spent a little longer discussing happier moments and Denise described how, although they were lovers, she felt like a second mother to her Pierre; and how he had taken her to Paris, where they would chat about their plans after the war’s end. She repeated many times how happy Pierre was to return to her place and that he felt so secure and comfortable there. Violette listened carefully to all this and felt unaccountably sadder. There was something … too effusive, too scared … eyes which were not always direct … Yet she did feel Denise would strive for her people now, try to eradicate her growing feeling of self-loathing.