by Larry Loftis
Not long after they had settled in, a woman approached Peter. Her name was Isa Vermehren, she said, a former inmate at Ravensbrück. Was Peter the husband of the woman named Churchill in that camp? she asked. Peter asked for a description and Isa described Odette. She said that Frau Churchill was called Frau Schurer in the camp, but some knew her real identity. Baron von Flügge, she said, had closer contact with Odette and would know more.
Peter raced to find von Flügge and explained to the baron that he had probably known Odette under a different name. He showed him the photo from his wallet.
“I’m sorry,” the baron said. “This is not the woman I knew.”
Seeing the dismay on Peter’s face, von Flügge asked to see the photo again.
“Yes, yes. It might be she. People can change so much in prison. Forgive me, my dear Churchill.”
Von Flügge handed the photo back and shuffled away, realizing that his words had devastated Peter.
Peter stood there, forlorn, until the room emptied. What had they done to her? Starvation . . . torture . . . sickness . . . disease . . . abuse so acute that Odette was no longer recognizable. The thought was more than he could bear.
* * *
BEHIND THE SCENES COUNT Folke Bernadotte, chairman of the Swedish Red Cross and nephew of the king, was negotiating with Himmler for additional Ravensbrück prisoners, and on April 22 more trucks arrived. Two hundred French women were selected for immediate evacuation to Padborg, Denmark, and over the next few days, thousands more were rescued by caravans shuttling back and forth.
Odette was not one of them.
On April 26 Sühren released even more: four thousand women to be taken to Padborg by a sixty-car train. The day after, he began implementing Himmler’s last order: march all women who could walk to Malchow, a Ravensbrück subcamp forty-five miles west. Strangely, Odette was not included. The remaining women in the camp—some three thousand—would be left to fend for themselves.
That night she sat in her cell, thinking. Of her fate. Of her children. Of Peter. Since she wasn’t included with those who were evacuated or sent on the march, it seemed clear that she would be executed. She simply knew too much.
Tomorrow was her birthday. She would be thirty-three.
What would be her present? A bullet so she wouldn’t be fed alive into the furnace?
It was midnight when her cell door opened.
* * *
42. In many cases, the SS simply shot the prisoners. On January 27 they mowed down 250 sick inmates at Fürstengrube (a subcamp of Auschwitz-Birkenau). At Palmnicken, 3,000 Stutthof concentration camp marchers were machine-gunned.On February 2, 1,300 infirm at Lieberose (a subcamp of Sachsenhausen) were slaughtered. At Dachau, they began burying the slain in mass graves because the incinerators could not keep up.
43. Some 3,600 girls and young women transferred from the neighboring Uckermark camp were taken directly to the gas chamber at Ravensbrück. The camp infirmary itself reported 3,858 deaths in the first quarter of 1945, also probably a conservative figure.
44. On the 18th he sent a similar message to Flossenbürg: “There is no question of handing over the camp. No prisoners [must] fall alive into enemy hands.”
45. Canaris and Oster were members of Berlin’s St. Anne’s Church, led by Lutheran pastor and anti-Nazi theologian Martin Niemöller. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Niemöller were among the most prominent clergy to oppose Hitler and the nazification of the church.
46. Whose wife was killed by an Allied air raid on the Buchenwald concentration camp, where she was captive.
47. Schlabrendorff had tried to kill Hitler twice. On March 13, 1943, he placed a time bomb on Hitler’s plane, but the detonator failed. On another attempt, the would-be assassin (who offered to plant the bomb) got cold feet at the last moment and failed to act.
CHAPTER 19
STILL WARM
It was Sühren. Alone.
He studied Odette several moments, perfectly still, a hunter before the pull. Raising one of his mannequin hands, he drew the nail of his forefinger across his throat.
“You will be leaving tomorrow morning at six o’clock.”
He closed the door.
* * *
SHORTLY AFTER DAWN SüHREN ordered the last batch of women to join the march to Malchow. But not Odette. She was summoned at eight and loaded with several others into a Black Maria for transport to who knew where. As the lorry and convoy of SS officers sped through the gate, a number of guards quietly slipped away, many wearing prisoner clothes.
The Allies, they knew, were closing on Berlin.
Later that day word came that Italian Partisans had executed Mussolini and his mistress. Sühren realized that many would be looking for the commandant of Ravensbrück, too, and he’d have to take three measures to survive: destroy records, eliminate witnesses, and go to ground with an assumed name.
They drove fourteen straight hours, arriving at Neustadt at nightfall. Odette and the others were locked up while the Germans waited for news. In the meantime, the killings continued. Though it seemed impossible, more were being executed at Neustadt than at Ravensbrück.
Meanwhile, the Russians were pounding Berlin and on April 30, with the Red Army just a half mile from his bunker in the Reich Chancellery, Hitler and his mistress, Eva Braun, committed suicide.
After a day or so, Odette and the others were returned to the Black Maria and driven to Münchof, twelve miles due northwest, to spend the night. Unfortunately for all, the camp had no food. The next morning, lorries arrived with a batch of male prisoners who, mad with thirst for liberty, rushed the gate.
They were slaughtered, mown down by SS machine guns.
Odette had seen enough. She demanded to see Sühren. The commandant came out of his office, tears streaming down his face.
“What do you want?”
“I want to know why you don’t open the gates of the camp,” she said. “The war is over. It is useless murder to keep people here.”
“Adolf Hitler, Führer of Germany, is dead,” Sühren said feebly. “He died as a hero in the forefront of the battle.”
“Are you proposing to do the same thing, to die as a hero?”
“Go back to your hut. I have not finished with you yet.”
Italy-Austria
PETER’S CONVOY HEADED FOR the Brenner Pass, the mountain path through the Alps at the Italy-Austria border. Near the top, the coaches pulled over to take cover from an air raid and Peter overheard a whispered conversation.
“If Hitler should be killed in the bombing of Berlin,” a guard said to the driver, “I’ll mow down these bastards like ninepins.”
That risk, Peter knew, persisted regardless of the fate of the Führer.
The coaches got under way and continued south into Italy and then east toward Villabassa. It was en route that Peter heard the story about the other coach. One of the SS guards had become drunk, someone said, and a fast-fisted prisoner snatched his wallet. Inside was an order from Himmler’s office:
Execute all British officers and other military personnel.
The revelation was enough to encourage action, but with what? The SS guards carried Schmeissers, but Peter and his colleagues had only weapons for rock-paper-scissors. Granted, Peter had been trained to kill with his hands, but he was the only one; the remaining men were civilians and officers equipped to fight with rifles and pistols.
They would need a miracle.
When they reached Villabassa, Colonel von Bonin snuck into the post office and made a phone call.
Western Germany
May 1, 1945
AT THREE IN THE afternoon a guard burst into Odette’s hut.
“Ist Frau Churchill hier?”
“I am she.”
“You are to come with me at once. It will not be necessary for you to bring your things.”
She asked where they were going and the guard said she’d find out.
It will not be necessary for you to bring your things. Behind
the hut, maybe? Perhaps they would drag her into the woods and do it there.
Her gut tightened.
She went with the guard outside and was told to wait beside other inmates. Most were the half-dead skeletons who normally roamed the camp, but there was a young girl—eighteen or nineteen—a few feet away. Her head was shaved but Odette knew that she had just arrived, as she was still “fresh.”
Which made it all the more difficult. These things always seem to transpire in slow motion and this one was no different.
The shot came out of nowhere and the young girl dropped.
Odette flinched and jerked her head but saw no reason why the German had shot her. Before she could catch her breath, she watched in horror as the other women started in.
It was sickening. They were starving, yes. Mad, perhaps.
They went at the girl like dogs, biting and ripping and devouring her flesh. Odette was nauseous. The poor child was still warm.
A guard whisked Odette away and she was suddenly standing next to the camp gate, where three cars awaited. Two sedans were filled with SS officers and, in between, Sühren stood beside a sleek white Mercedes convertible. He took the wheel and told Odette to get in.
For two hours they drove in silence.
The convoy came to a wood and Sühren beeped the horn to notify the other cars to stop.
He turned to Odette.
“Get out.”
Villabassa, Italy
DURING LUNCH PETER DINED with Fabian von Schlabrendorff. They were out of earshot of the guards and the lieutenant shared his story. His family had a long friendship with England, he said, and before the war the royal family had even invited him and his wife to Buckingham Palace. Like many Germans, he hated the Nazis and had been involved with the Kreisau Circle48 in the thirties. In the spring of 1939, Abwehr chief Admiral Canaris had sent him to England to warn Churchill of Germany’s impending invasion of Poland, and to inform the prime minister of opposition working against Hitler.
He had worked under General von Tresckow, he went on, ringleader of the generals who participated in the attempt to assassinate Hitler on July 20, 1944. Their group had tried many times to kill the Führer, he said, but it was difficult because Hitler was rarely alone. The best plan, they felt, was to assassinate him on his plane while he was returning from a trip to the Eastern Front. Since von Schlabrendorff was the staff officer who attended Hitler’s briefings, he was chosen to do the deed.
He created a bomb with plastic explosive concealed in a brandy flask. Setting a fuse for thirty minutes, he gave it to Hitler’s aide just as the Führer was boarding the plane, telling the colonel to present it to a general in Berlin, compliments of von Tresckow. The fuse failed, however, and Fabian had to race to Berlin to swap it with the “one with the correct brandy” before delivery. His plot was never discovered.
The July 20 putsch was a different matter. When Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg’s bomb failed to kill Hitler, he said, the gates of hell were unleashed. Five thousand German resisters, including twelve generals and two field marshals, either committed suicide or were executed. When news of the failed plot reached his boss, von Tresckow strode into the woods with a grenade and pulled the pin.
Though Fabian denied any connection to the plot, he told Peter, the Gestapo tortured him to unconsciousness on two occasions.49 Now, after all that, Schlabrendorff was again at death’s door.
“We are not out of the wood yet, Churchill,” he said, “and I feel that tonight may be a danger spot.”
Peter thanked him for his candor, and for the warning. The British would be on their toes.
That evening the male prisoners discussed sleeping arrangements. Since the guards apparently had been given no orders, Peter and the military officers decided that the men would sleep on straw in the town hall, and the women could have the few available rooms.
After dark a British officer named Jack Churchill—no relation to Peter or the prime minister—decided to take matters into his own hands and slipped away into the black night. Not long afterward, the SS lieutenant in charge of the guards came up to Peter.
“Where is your cousin?”
“I haven’t a clue,” Peter said. “Perhaps he’s already upstairs and fast asleep.”
“Well, we have a special room for you British officers.”
Western Germany
ODETTE STEPPED OUT OF the car, accepting her fate with dignity. She had fought the good fight. Now, in a wood in the middle of nowhere, she would be fodder for wolves.
Sühren went to the back of the Mercedes and began unloading papers by the armload: Ravensbrück records. Taking them to an opening in the field, he arranged them in a pile and struck the match.
Odette watched as the papers—evidence of thousands of unspeakable atrocities—went up in flames; smoke but no chimney this time. She waited for the Luger. Perhaps Sühren would drag her body over the fire so that it would be unrecognizable.
It will not be necessary for you to bring your things.
Good-bye girls. Good-bye Pierre.
Villabassa, Italy
WE HAVE A SPECIAL room for you British officers. Peter had no intention of being machine-gunned in a twelve-by-twelve-foot room. With confidence and a nonchalant answer, perhaps he could postpone the group execution. In a casual manner he told the guard in German that the British officers had already secured sleeping arrangements and wouldn’t need a separate room.
The guard moved on without comment.
A moment later Dr. Kállay sidled up to Peter. “In God’s name,” he whispered, “don’t go to any special room tonight. They’re gunning for you. I feel it in my bones.”
“Thanks, but don’t worry,” Peter told him. “We feel it too.”
The British contingent went to the main sleeping area and Peter’s pulse quickened. At the end of each row of beds, he saw, a guard sat with his Schmeisser across his lap.
Would the guards wait until the British were asleep and then begin firing?
What a way to go. He’d stay awake, Peter told himself. He assumed the other officers would, too, and if the firing began, perhaps they could wrest a Schmeisser from a guard’s grip.
The hours ticked by as the Brits feigned sleep. Morning came and as the prisoners awaited their fate, Colonel von Bonin made his throw. He called the SS lieutenant aside and explained—truthfully—his call when they had arrived. He had contacted Field Marshal Kesselring’s Fourteenth Army headquarters in Italy, he said, and happened to know the staff officer who answered the phone. He told the officer that he and some others were being held by Himmler’s SS guards in Villabassa and requested that a company of Kesselring’s finest come to rescue them. The soldiers were promised to arrive at six o’clock the following evening.
Heute, junger Mann. In just a few hours.
If the guards were smart, von Bonin said, they’d disappear pronto.
The lieutenant had a choice. He could go with his orders and execute the prisoners as planned, or he and his men could vanish. If they killed what were now essentially hostages, a war crimes bureau would surely charge them with murder. If they didn’t kill the prisoners but stayed, they would risk being shot by the Wehrmacht, which largely despised the Nazi private terror army.
The guards disappeared and, as promised, the Wehrmacht company arrived at six. After some discussion, von Bonin and the other leaders decided that the group should move up the mountain to the Pragser-Wildsee Hotel.
Peter admired the situation. Here, at five thousand feet—with snow surrounding the glimmering Lago di Braies and a view from every room—the concentration camp prisoners relaxed as tourists . . . under the protection of the German army. Von Bonin stationed Kesselring’s men around the hotel in case any SS men—or deserting foreigners who had been conscripted into a German uniform and were now in need of a civilian suit—happened by.
Peter, Garibaldi, and Ferraro requisitioned a car and drove in the direction of the advancing US Army, perhaps anywhere from fif
ty to two hundred miles away. About ten miles into the trip, they found a tired American, Captain Attwood, with a group of exhausted men. Attwood had received a wireless message at 0215, he said, ordering his unit to rescue some Allied personnel at Wildsee. With only twenty minutes of sleep, he and his men set out on the seven-hour trek through the mountains. The main troops, he said, were days behind them.
Attwood and his men followed Peter and the others back to Wildsee but, perhaps because Kesselring’s soldiers might be needed, Attwood didn’t disarm them. At the hotel they heard over the wire that the Red Army had taken Berlin on May 2, and that Hitler had committed suicide two days earlier.
Peter now had just one thought: Was Odette alive?
Western Germany
SüHREN WAITED UNTIL THE last of the evidence was gone. The starvation and forced labor, beatings and brutality, medical experiments and murders, all now memories. How many were there, the Poles, Jews, and Russians who perished under his charge? Fifty thousand? Of course, he was simply a man under orders; Ravensbrück was Himmler’s responsibility.
Maybe the Allies would buy it.
They went back to the car and the commandant produced sandwiches and a bottle of Burgundy. Odette was terribly hungry but the occasion was intriguing, to say the least. Was this to be her last supper?
They ate without conversation and he told her to get back in the car. The convoy left and they drove all day. Odette could only wonder: Why had she been singled out? Where was he taking her? Why not just shoot her at Ravensbrück? The cut-throat gesture the night before and now the picnic in the park, complete with Burgundy and bonfire. None of it made sense.
