The Unspeakable Crimes of Dr. Petiot

by Thomas Maeder

  Petiot was questioned and beaten all night. The next day he was driven to Fourrier’s, where the Germans hoped to capture other group members when they came to collect Madame Dreyfus. Guélin had made arrangements with Fourrier and Petiot for her departure that Saturday and had even paid F50,000 of the Gestapo’s money for her passage. He had not, however, brought up the matter with Paulette Dreyfus herself, and neither she nor the Resistance comrades Jodkum expected arrived. Petiot was then returned to Jodkum’s office and savagely beaten once more—by Péhu, he later affirmed. He was taken to the prison at Fresnes, seven miles south of Paris, but was almost immediately returned to the rue des Saussaies for more beatings. He confessed that he was part of an escape organization, but maintained that he knew nothing about its other members or operation, and that the actual passages were effected by a man known as Robert Martinetti, whom he had no way of contacting. Petiot was sent to the German army center for counterespionage on the avenue Henri-Martin and was there tortured for three days without a break. He was plunged into a freezing bath until he was almost drowned, his head was crushed in iron bands, his teeth were filed down three millimeters, and he was beaten so severely that he spat blood for a week and had dizzy spells for six months. The Germans showed him a dead man, and a man writhing in agony on a stretcher, his face beaten to an unrecognizable pulp; he was told they were members of his group.

  Periodically over the next six months, Petiot would be taken from the Fresnes prison, where he, Fourrier, and Pintard were held, to the avenue Henri-Martin or the rue des Saussaies for questioning. Petiot repeated the same story about Robert Martinetti again and again, but steadfastly refused to supply further details. The Germans searched the rue Caumartin apartment once more, as well as 52 rue de Reuilly, the only other one of Petiot’s properties they seem to have located. This was a curious oversight, since there were bills and other documents concerning 21 rue Le Sueur at Petiot’s home, and a quick check in the Paris municipal archives would have given them a complete list of his properties. The Germans were thorough in everything else, and even arrested a woman Petiot had sent to a rest home on May 1, believing that this establishment—filled only with old people and women—might be part of the escape route.

  Nézondet, who had loudly proclaimed his innocence and waved his theater tickets, was released from Fresnes after two weeks since there was no evidence that he was implicated in the “network.” He was taken to the rue des Saussaies for final processing. When it was complete, the Germans jokingly asked whether he wanted to go straight home or return to Fresnes for a visit. Nézondet placidly said that he would like to go back and get his shoelaces, handkerchiefs, and tobacco. “Damned if that isn’t the first time we’ve seen anyone ask to go back to Fresnes!” said a Gestapo man, and they gave him F100 and a pack of cigarettes and sent him home.

  The Germans cautioned Nézondet to stay away from Petiot’s family and apartment. Several days before leaving Fresnes, he had been momentarily left alone with his friend Petiot, who had whispered, “Tell my wife to go where she knows to go and dig up what is hidden there.” Just before Nézondet’s release, left alone again, Petiot told him to forget the errand—it was no longer important.

  Nézondet, for some unexplained reason, decided to ignore Petiot’s injunction, and one afternoon in June, as she was about to leave for Auxerre to visit Maurice and his family, Georgette Petiot received a mysterious telephone call asking her to prepare a sandwich and go to the entrance of the Gare Saint-Lazare métro station. She followed the strange instructions and to her surprise found Nézondet, who had not been fed before his release from Fresnes; while devouring the sandwich, he gave her news of her husband and passed on Petiot’s original message. She said she did not understand what her husband meant, but nonetheless she mentioned it to Maurice when she arrived in Auxerre.

  Georgette also told Maurice what the Germans had said to her when they searched the rue Caumartin apartment: that Marcel was suspected of having either smuggled Yvan Dreyfus out of France or murdered him. Maurice was acquainted with several members of the Dreyfus family, all of whom were in the radio business, like himself, and in a curious, rather incoherent attempt to help his brother, he wrote to Yvan Dreyfus’s father.

  June 17, 1943

  Monsieur,

  I obtained your address through the director of S.I.R., since I knew that your son was director of this firm’s branch in Lyon.—My brother has been arrested by the German police in Paris, and I think it is because he helped your son.

  According to what the police told my sister-in-law my brother stands accused of assassinating your son.

  I can scarcely see how this is possible, since such things are not easily done in Paris, and particularly considering my brother’s character—a doctor well loved by his patients, among them some people who are presently offering the most unbelievable things and even their lives to save that of my brother. And my brother has, before my eyes, during raids, sheltered Jews with their entire fortunes in his own apartment. (They were neighbors of his whom I know well: they are still living in the same building.)

  Finally, my brother earned about 500,000 [francs] a year in his profession, a profession which he adored, and he did not need any money since he lived very modestly (he was even accused of being miserly).

  His only expenses were for the purchase of art objects and especially of books, but he has always had this passion and has not been spending more than he spent before.

  I have always known my brother to be likeable, regular in his habits, and never liable even to raise his voice in anger—nonetheless he has had periods of extreme exhaustion and depressions which he overcame with difficulty.

  What’s more, people say that we resemble one another closely, and your relative Camille Dreyfus (American apparatus import—rue Saulnier) can tell you who I am.

  All of these reasons must lead one to believe that the accusation is false.

  I can see only one way to save my brother from this serious accusation, which is that your son must be found. I have asked everyone I know, and the only response they will give is: if I knew where he is I wouldn’t say.

  This is why I am writing to you. If you know where your son is, tell him to change hiding places if he doesn’t want to be found, and tell witnesses who have seen him since May 20 to go to the police or a government official who can take their deposition.

  If he is overseas and you have letters from your son, send them to me or remove the return address and send them to the police, since I do not want to have anyone else implicated in this affair—too many people are in trouble already.…

  Maurice wrote to other members of the Dreyfus family as well, and his strange letters were turned over to Paulette Dreyfus, who never answered them. Maurice also pursued Nézondet’s message to Georgette. The only hiding place he could think of was the rue Le Sueur, and he went there in late May to investigate. He told police that he found nothing, but it was during this visit, according to Nézondet’s statement to Judge Berry, that Maurice supposedly found mountains of clothing and a pile of bodies. The most recent body, Nézondet reported, the one lying on top of the mound, Maurice had recognized as that of Yvan Dreyfus. In this case, at least, one must begin to doubt Nézondet. It seems unlikely that Maurice would have written to the Dreyfus family asking the whereabouts of someone he already knew to be dead. In addition, Maurice would have recognized Dreyfus with difficulty, since the two had never met.

  Petiot suffered his eight months of prison stoically. He was allowed no visitors, no mail, no tobacco, no Red Cross packages, no newspapers, clean clothes, or soap, and was poorly fed and periodically interrogated. Cellmates would later testify that his courage and spirit were incredible. He spoke to them of his Resistance organization, which he called “Fly-Tox,” and indeed seemed to have intimate knowledge of Resistance operations. He had methods for smuggling messages out of the prison, and he gave his companions names of people to whom they might appeal for help in the event th
at they escaped. None had the chance, since they were all later sent to German labor camps, where some of them died. It was miraculous that Petiot was not shot for the evident sarcasm and loathing with which he invariably addressed the Germans, and his utter unwillingness to treat his jailors as anything but worthless enemies, even at great personal risk, was a source of amusement and inspiration to his fellow prisoners.

  Finally the Germans decided to release him, but they demanded a large sum of money for his liberty. A woman Resistance member who was being questioned on charges of espionage in Jodkum’s office while Petiot was there said Petiot acted proud and scornful to the German officer and said he didn’t give a damn whether they released him or not—that he had terminal cancer and whatever they did to him could scarcely matter. Negotiations for his release were conducted through Maurice, who pretended his brother and he had less money than they actually did and gradually worked the release price down to F100,000.

  No one involved with the Petiot case has ever quite understood the doctor’s curious release by the Germans, who ordinarily preferred certainty to justice and shot people for much less than actually admitting participation in a Resistance group, as he had. Some of Petiot’s opponents would later insinuate that he had agreed to work for the Gestapo, or else that he had told them the truth—that he really murdered his primarily Jewish candidates for escape—and the Gestapo were willing to tolerate a free-lance comrade who was, in his own modest way, doing some of their work for them. This is scarcely believable. On the other hand, one can suppose the Gestapo intended to keep Petiot under surveillance after releasing him, in hopes of discovering secrets he had not revealed under torture. The Germans were not particularly successful: just two months later, one of those secrets—in the form of piles of bodies—was found in the basement of Petiot’s house.

  When, in April 1944, Judge Berry asked Maurice Petiot about his brother’s unexpected release, Maurice described the circumstances:

  A policeman in the commissaire’s [Jodkum’s] group told me it was he who had arranged for my brother’s liberation, and that there was practically nothing left in his dossier (in fact, they could not even find my brother’s papers to return to me when the commissaire asked for them). This policeman added that he was disgusted by the whole thing, and that out of eight people they held at the time of my brother’s arrest, only two were left … the others had disappeared.

  Besides, even under torture my brother admitted nothing—he had spent eight months in solitary confinement [sic], and after everything he had gone through, the German commissaire did not think he could do anything more against Germany.

  When I went with the money, the commissaire showed admiration for my brother, and he told me there were only two things they could do with him: convict him and deport him to the salt mines, from which he would never return, or execute him; or else free him—they could no longer just hold him in prison.

  He said to me: “Your brother is sick, you will take care of him; I cannot bring myself to liquidate a man such as he. He has been deceived by his ideals, but I am giving him the chance to return to his patients, as long as he behaves himself.” He said this despite the fact that during their last interview, my brother had shouted out his hatred for the German régime.

  Fourrier and Pintard were released on January 11, 1944. They had told all they knew, and the Germans realized this amounted to nothing at all. Petiot himself was discharged two days later. Maurice and Georgette went to Paris and awaited him at the Hôtel Alicot on the rue de Bercy, and he accompanied them back to Auxerre for twelve days to recuperate. Georgette was surprisingly understanding and uninquisitive. Since she considered Nézondet dishonest and scheming, she did not mention his revelations about the corpses at the rue Le Sueur. She told Judge Berry:

  I did not speak about it to my husband, because I did not want to reveal the shameful attitude of his friend and cause trouble between them. I simply asked my husband for an explanation of the Dreyfus case and the disappearance with which they accused him. He replied, “You can’t fight a war without killing men any more than you can make an omelette without breaking eggs,” and added that he had done nothing wrong, and that the best proof of this was that the Germans had let him go. With that, my complete confidence in him was restored.

  Judge Berry found Georgette’s blind trust in her husband uncanny considering his past, but could only conclude that she was telling the truth when she said that Marcel couldn’t stand people meddling in his affairs and did not like questions; consequently, she never asked any. Throughout the investigation, despite all the facts gathered, the question of just who Petiot was remained unanswered. No image of a human personality emerged, no motive surfaced; one could scarcely even imagine simple greed or sadism in a person who seemed to exist only as an incredibly dexterous performer. Petiot had fooled the French, the Germans, the Resistants, the courts, psychiatrists, his friends, and his own wife. He had acted as a solitary enigmatic force amidst a world in which he did not participate, and which he regarded only with scorn.

  * The same tactic was successfully used for a different purpose in August 1941, when a hundred cyclists “raced” across the Belgian border carrying four tons of black-market wheat on their backs.

  * Police investigators working on the Petiot case later also found evidence that Annette Basset, who had left with Réocreux, sent her mother a money order on November 1—a month after her disappearance. This puzzle was never solved.

  * Adrien’s brother Emile Estébétéguy, who also worked at the rue Lauriston and was later shot with Lafont at the end of the war, believed Lafont had known about Petiot and had sent his brother to him as a convenient means of disposing of Adrien. There is no evidence to support this, and Lafont, who generally admitted his crimes, denied it.

  5

  THE WEIGHT OF THE EVIDENCE

  Van Bever, Madame Khaït, Guschinov, Dreyfus, the nine pimps and prostitutes—thirteen was a rather impressive number of murder victims, but scarcely the final total. Petiot had mentioned at least three other “passages” to Fourrier, and only the case of Guschinov, the rue Caumartin furrier, matched a previously identified victim. The objects found at the rue Le Sueur represented a large number of people, but few of the items were useful for purposes of identification, and those that were only led back to known victims. The man in the photograph found at the house was identified as Joseph “le Boxeur” Réocreux. Sylvia Rosa, a Marseille dressmaker, recalled making the black dress with golden swallows for a licensed prostitute named Paulette; she easily identified Joséphine “Paulette” Grippay from a police photograph. A small, round woman’s hat with a feather made by Suzanne Talbot in Paris, on the other hand, had been sold to the Princess Colloredo de Mansfeld in 1934. The police report on the hat demonstrated remarkable thoroughness, coming to the plodding conclusion: “The investigation [of the hat] was not pressed further, given that the princess is alive and once lived in the building on the rue Le Sueur. Consequently she cannot be considered as one of Dr. Petiot’s victims, and one may plausibly believe that she left the aforementioned hat behind when she sold the building.”

  Interviews with Petiot’s neighbors in the rue Le Sueur provided some interesting information. Many of them claimed to have seen Petiot several times during the period when he was, in fact, in prison. At least one neighbor supplied an intriguing hint of mistaken identity. One day the previous year she had called over Dr. Petiot to give him some mistakenly delivered mail, only to realize at the last minute that it was really another man who closely resembled the doctor: Maurice Petiot, whom some of the neighbors had seen delivering the lime. They were equally certain that some time the previous summer he had come to 21 rue Le Sueur and removed a large number of suitcases. A woman who lived directly across the street was sitting in her window with her daughter during the removal, and they had counted forty-seven suitcases and trunks; she felt sure this was not the total figure, since she had noticed Maurice only after the loading began. The
removal van was a battered gray truck with a side panel reading TRANSPORTS—AVENUE DAUMESNIL.

  Commissaire Massu sent a special inspector to search the entire avenue Daumesnil, which stretches for more than two miles past the place de la Bastille, the Gare de Lyon, and off into the suburbs. The detective checked all garages and trucking firms in the neighborhood and inquired at the local commissariat—all without success. But in the course of his search he grew friendly with the truckers, one of whom thought he had heard that someone at the Hôtel Alicot on the nearly rue de Bercy had once asked two drivers to pick up suitcases in the sixteenth arrondissement. These drivers identified Maurice Petiot as the man who had approached them, but they had been unable to do the job and did not know who had. The owner of a garage next to the Hôtel Alicot said that the Manjeard Company had brought a load of suitcases to her garage, and that from there they had been taken to the Gare de Lyon by an Arab known as the Frizzy (he denied it). At the Gare de Lyon baggage office, records showed that on May 26, 1943, five days after the Germans arrested his brother, Maurice Petiot had dispatched forty-five suitcases, weighing a total of 683 kilograms, to Auxerre.

  Confronted with this evidence, Maurice admitted having removed clothing from the house. When Georgette had given him Nézondet’s strange message, he had gone to the rue Le Sueur, believing this was the only possible place where his brother could have hidden anything. He had found nothing unusual, though he was surprised, he admitted, by the large quantity of clothing. Even this could be explained by Marcel’s almost irrational drive to purchase everything and anything at auction—he had once bought a lot consisting of three hundred gabardine raincoats. Maurice removed the clothes because, quite simply, he feared the Germans would take them when they searched the building, as he was sure they would. As to the present location of the suitcases, the same driver who had helped with the lime, Jean Eustache, had driven them to Courson-les-Carrières, where they were stored in the attic of Albert Neuhausen, the mysterious friend Maurice first claimed had spent the night at his rue des Lombards house in Auxerre.