by Larry Loftis
As dusk approached Sühren finally spoke.
“Do you want to know where we are going?”
“No.” She assumed it was to a deserted wood to be shot.
“I’m taking you to the Americans.”
“You are? You must be mad!”
She assured him that the Americans would open fire on a convoy of armed SS soldiers. Sühren realized she was right. He stopped the cars and told the others that he’d take the lead and that they should follow at five hundred meters.
The party continued on and about ten o’clock that night, Odette and the commandant came to a small village and were stopped by American soldiers.
“This is Frau Churchill,” Sühren told them, “she has been my prisoner. She is a relation to Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of England.”
Ah, there it was. Leverage. The cunning commandant assumed that if he was so kind as to protect and return unharmed a relative of the prime minister, all sins would be forgiven. No harm, no foul.
Zut to that.
“And this is Fritz Sühren,” she retorted, “commandant of the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. You make him your prisoner.”
They stepped out of the Mercedes and one of the Americans took Sühren’s sidearm, handed it to Odette, and escorted the German away. As she stood by the car, another soldier said he’d find her a room for the night.
“No, if you don’t mind,” she said, “I have not seen the sky for a very long time . . . and the stars . . . I would like to sit in this car until morning.”
Odette did want to see the stars, but she also wanted to see—and take back to England—the documents in Sühren’s briefcase and two albums of photographs, which he had left in the car.
She sat back in the Mercedes and gazed heavenward, the twinkling glitter absorbing her thoughts in the cool night. The Churchill name had saved her, no doubt. And where was Peter? Was he alive? Or did he do something foolish and get himself shot? And what about the F Section women she had traveled with: Diana, Yolande, and the others? Were they still alive? Such brave women.
And Marianne, Lily, and Francoise—to see their faces again!
Thoughts came and went as Odette drank deeply the precious air of freedom.
A clock chimed somewhere—it was midnight—and she reclined to admire the moon, a luxury she hadn’t experienced in years. The same moon that had guided the Lysander landings, the drops, and Peter’s arrival on Mont Semnoz.
Footsteps.
Odette swung her head.
An SS officer from one of the other cars was looming over her.
* * *
48. An anti-Nazi resistance group founded by Helmuth James Graf von Moltke (arrested by the Gestapo and executed on January 23, 1945). The dissidents met at von Moltke’s Kreisau estate in Prussian Silesia, now Krzyzowa, Poland.
49. He didn’t give Peter details, perhaps because the experience was too gruesome to relive. Records reveal that when Fabian refused to confess any connection to the attempt on the Führer’s life, he was tortured in four stages. First, his arms were bound behind his back. A device was then attached to his hands which enclosed each finger separately. On the inside of the mechanism were iron spines that pressed against the tips of his fingers. The spines were extended, gradually and slowly, by the torturer’s turn of a screw. When the bloody procedure failed to draw a confession, the Gestapo moved on to stage two. Fabian was tied face down on what appeared to be a bed frame. A blanket was placed over his head, and iron pipes were affixed to his legs. Inside the pipes were nails, which, like the hand device, were extended into his thighs and calves by the turning of a screw. Fabian continued his claim of innocence, which brought on stage three. Once again he was tied to the bed with his head covered. This time, however, the contraption was pulled apart—slowly or joltingly—in an Inquisition-type of stretching and wrenching. When that failed, they moved to stage four. Fabian was manacled in a twisted fashion so that he could not bend in any direction. The Gestapo then beat him with clubs so that he fell forward. Since his hands were fastened behind him, his face would crash first onto the ground. He passed out and was carried to his cell. The next day he suffered a heart attack. When he could walk, the Gestapo repeated the four stages, and again he fell unconscious. Realizing that Fabian wouldn’t break, the Gestapo gave up and he was sent to Flossenbürg, and then to Dachau.
CHAPTER 20
PIERRE
Wildsee, Austria
The main company of American soldiers arrived at Wildsee five days after Captain Attwood’s escort. From the breakfast table Peter saw several jeeps and light tanks pulling in, Italian Partisans hanging from every toehold. Kesselring’s soldiers turned over their weapons and Peter and the others greeted the Americans. Peter was given a fresh set of clothes—a GI uniform—and was told that an army general had promised the group transportation to Verona, Italy.
Meanwhile, the final Third Reich dominoes tumbled. On May 4 Wehrmacht armies in the Netherlands, Denmark, and northern Germany surrendered to British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery in Lüneburg. The following day they surrendered in Norway, and on May 7 General Alfred Jodl signed Germany’s unconditional surrender in Reims, France, which was ratified by Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel the following day in Berlin.
The war in Europe was over.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING PETER’S promised convoy arrived—more jeeps and tanks, personnel vehicles, even an ambulance—and they made it to Verona at one in the morning on May 9. The day after, Peter was flown to Naples, debriefing center for returning Allied POWs. Upon arrival, he sent a number of telegrams to England to report in and, more importantly, inquire about Odette.
Nothing back.
All afternoon and evening, he answered questions from Scotland Yard’s Lieutenant Colonel Hedin. Peter was more than happy to provide details and names from Germany’s finest camps, and Hedin asked him to summarize his comments in a report. Peter stayed up much of the night doing so, but it was important work, he understood. Hedin would have the information cabled to his counterparts in various Allied zones in the morning, and countless Germans—now in civilian clothes—would be receiving visitors by nightfall.
The following afternoon a general stopped by to thank Peter for his work, and to tell him that an air marshal was flying to Northolt the next day and had invited him along.
Peter’s stomach churned the entire flight. London still had told him nothing and his mind raced through the possible reasons. Were they waiting to notify next of kin? If Odette was alive, why wouldn’t they have said so? Would Buckmaster want to tell him personally? I’m sorry, old boy. She fought like a Spartan but the Gestapo left none alive . . . Fifteen months Peter had waited. Fifteen months of wondering if Odette had been shot, hanged, tortured, or had rotted away at Ravensbrück. The least they could do was call him or send something in the wire.
The aircraft swept over Cannes, and the memories flooded.
Yes, of course she could ride a bicycle . . .
While I talk my way through half a dozen Italian Control Posts, in the curfew, you’re sleeping in my bed, mon cher . . .
I think that you, who are instrumental in bringing about the need for this fund, should pay for this ticket . . .
And you will come back, as you promised, won’t you, Michel? . . .
Pierre, Pierre . . .
His altruistic angry gazelle. Where was she now?
The plane droned on, and the air marshal joined Peter and the other passengers for lunch. In the afternoon Peter finally saw it—the blazing green of England. They landed at Northolt but, strangely, no one from the War Office had come to receive them. Hugh Falconer, an SOE Spanish Section agent who was also on the flight, put in a call to his department but no one seemed to be in. Perhaps the office was closed on Saturday.
Finally, someone picked up. Falconer? Sorry, I don’t know that name. Can’t clear you through Security.
Hugh asked to be returned to the operator and asked if
she would transfer the call to the French Section. She did, and Vera Atkins picked up.
“You won’t know me, Miss Atkins,” the operator said. “I’m the SOE telephone supervisor and I know people by their voices. A man called Hugh Falconer, whose voice I have known on and off for four years, is on the line from Northolt. He belongs to the Spanish Section but there’s no one there who seems to know him well enough to clear him through Security. I can’t bear the thought of someone returning from the Concentration Camps and being left hanging about in this way. Knowing your interest in these men I’m asking you, off the record, if you can do something?”
Vera told her to put him through, and Hugh handed the receiver to Peter.
“Hallo, there.”
“Vera!”
“Peter! I didn’t expect to hear your voice. Are you speaking from Northolt?”
Peter said he was and Vera said she was on her way. Peter had met this wonderful lady in ’41 when she was Buckmaster’s assistant and now she was F Section’s intelligence officer.
Vera arrived with a driver and she, Peter, and Hugh sat in the back. Sitting in the middle, Vera conversed first with Hugh and then turned to Peter.
“Well, Peter, it’s good to see you back.”
“How is it at home?”
“I’m afraid your mother—”
“I know,” Peter said. “Just tell me who’s still here.”
“Your father and—”
“Odette?”
He held his breath. All the world hung in the balance as he waited for Vera’s reply.
“She’s waiting for you in the office.”
Peter’s eyes teared. Vera continued talking but he heard nothing more. Nothing else mattered. Odette was alive.
The car arrived and Vera opened the door to let Peter burst through. There, sitting proudly in her uniform, was the woman he loved.
“Pierre!”
Peter was overwhelmed. Odette’s eyes beamed with the love he’d longed to see.
* * *
BIT BY BIT, ODETTE filled Peter in—the torture, the cage, the Bunker, the heat—even the pleasant surprise when the SS officer had given her his coat that cold night in Sühren’s car.
They went immediately to Queen Alexandra’s Military Hospital in Millbank and Odette’s condition was not surprising: her entire body had medical issues. X-rays revealed that her fifth vertebra had been shattered, but now—two years after the fall—had deteriorated to nothing. The starvation and scurvy, as well as the long periods without sunlight, had left her with severe anemia. She was given injections of calcium, vitamin D, and, according to her doctor, “intense general medicinal treatment.” She also suffered from nervous tension and articular rheumatism, which had left her with a weakened heart muscle.
As the staff doctor continued to examine her, there was something else. He called in other doctors to have a look.
Odette was still missing a number of toenails, they noticed, and one of her toes had become terribly infected, causing sepsis—a life-threatening malady which arises when the body’s response to long-term infection is to attack its own tissue. It was this very condition which had killed Reinhard Heydrich after his operation following the assassination attempt in Prague in ’42.
The prognosis of the physicians was the same.
She would die.
CHAPTER 21
HUNTING THE HUNTER
Amsterdam
Throughout May and the beginning of June, the Allies scoured Amsterdam searching for one Hugo Bleicher—aka Monsieur Jean, Jean Verbeck, Jean Castel, Colonel Henri, Colonel Heinrich—the German spy-catcher responsible for the arrests of more than one hundred Allied agents.
Hugo, however, was well hidden. Not long after arriving in Holland in March, he had been given the name of a German businessman—Sams—who had lived in the country for twenty years and knew Amsterdam well. Sams would be Hugo’s interpreter and guide.
One day Sams mentioned that the SD had arrested a Dutch friend of his, along with nine others, as part of a crackdown on an Allied Resistance cell called “the Order Service.” Hugo knew that the SD was executing enemy operatives without procedure or fanfare and the chances of these men’s survival were slim.
He contacted the SD, telling the local officer that he and Sams needed the ten spies for a special operation. The SD consented to the transfer and Hugo conducted a formal interrogation of each member. He then released them with instructions to go to ground until the Allies liberated the city.
When the Canadians approached Amsterdam, the tables turned; it was Hugo who now needed assistance, and the freed Dutchmen were happy to oblige. They provided Hugo and Sams with a hideout that was well-stocked with food. They also kept the German duo apprised of news as the city was liberated.
Once again, however, Hugo was trapped; he couldn’t hide in this little room forever. He and Sams would need false papers to slip out of the city and the Order Service offered to help. If Hugo and Sams could produce photos, they said, the Order Service would do the rest. On May 31, he and Sams headed to a photographer’s studio to have the photos taken; from there they would meet with the head of the Order Service to discuss an escape plan.
It was a beautiful day, a sunny Sunday, and their Resistance landlord decided to go with them. As they were crossing a canal bridge, Hugo noticed Dutch militia—carbines at the ready—coming directly toward them. He turned to look back—they were coming from both sides.
Betrayal! Hugo thought. Betrayal, the very method he had used with Lily Carré, Roger Bardet, Kiki, and others to arrest a hundred spies and Resistance agents.
The procedure itself was uneventful for Bleicher. He had orchestrated countless arrests himself and this was no doubt the reverse of the medallion, a poetic justice about which he couldn’t complain.
* * *
FOR EIGHT DAYS HUGO waited in his cell. Finally, an interrogator came and the interviews began. When it became clear that Sergeant Bleicher had performed no effective work in Amsterdam, the Dutch lost interest. The Canadians and French, though—both of whom had files for “Monsieur Jean,” “Colonel Henri,” and “Sergeant Hugo Bleicher”—wanted immediate custody.
A French major claimed charge over Hugo and waited for a military truck to drive him to Paris. The Canadians, though, beat him to the punch. On July 15, while the Frenchman waited for transport, two Canadian military policemen took custody of Hugo and whisked him away. The following day he was flown to London and interned at Camp 020, interrogation center for high-ranking German officers.
Interrogations began after a week and Hugo did his best to be forthcoming. To his amazement, the British had run a highly effective intelligence war.
“The British Secret Service appeared to know everything—literally everything—about my activities as a member of the German Military Intelligence,” he recalled. “I only had to confirm the facts as I was confronted with them. When I compared this to our hasty German interrogations, I was seized with professional envy.”
Weeks later, Hugo learned that none other than SS General Walter Schellenberg, Hugo’s chief when the Abwehr was folded into the SD in 1944, was in the camp, along with Schellenberg’s boss, SD head and war criminal Ernst Kaltenbrunner, who was being held in solitary confinement.
* * *
AS TIME WENT ON, inmates in Camp 020 decreased and those who remained were given more freedom. “We had all sorts of pastimes,” Hugo recalled, “and could sit out in the garden for hours. It was more like a holiday camp than a prison, and only the barbed wire and the discipline reminded us of captivity.”
A rumor circulated in October that the camp would be closed and the inmates returned to Germany. On the 15th it seemed to be true: a guard summoned Hugo in from the garden and told him to change into his old clothes. They were leaving.
Hugo was handcuffed to a soldier and, with the escort of a staff officer, driven to the airport.
“Where is the plane for Paris?” the officer asked someone.
<
br /> When they landed, a French agent appeared on the tarmac and the Englishman uncuffed Hugo and shook his hand. It was a pleasant parting from the British, the enemy who had treated him so well.
After the Briton left, the Frenchman locked eyes with Hugo.
“Do you know me, Monsieur Jean?”
Hugo said he didn’t.
“But I know you.”
CHAPTER 22
FANNING THE DAMNED
A number of specialists were called in to look after Odette, and one bright young physician, Dr. T. Markowicz, was chosen to serve as Odette’s supervising doctor. Together the physicians decided that they might be able to save her life with several operations. Odette agreed, but good-byes were scheduled nevertheless.
Odette ran the medical gauntlet, however, just as she had the Fresnes–Ravensbrück–Neustadt trail—with dogged determination. Major Buckmaster’s judgment back in 1940 had been accurate: this woman was tenacious. Odette’s survival, of course, was due in no small part to the competence and swift action of Dr. Markowicz. By Peter’s account, this young doctor saved Odette’s life on more than three occasions.
Yet Odette’s health would require specialized treatment long after the operations. A year later, Dr. Markowicz was still treating her for a nervous condition and anemia, and Odette was awarded a full disability pension.
* * *
ASIDE FROM MEDICAL CARE and rest, Odette had one remaining obligation: to assist in the prosecution of Ravensbrück war criminals. In 1945 someone had offered her $2,00050 for Sühren’s photographs but she declined, handing them over to the War Office. These photos, she knew, would be necessary to identify and capture camp officials, many of whom now went under aliases and had blended into the German landscape.
At the top of the list was the commandant himself.
