As the year end approached, MacWhite reported on the increasingly difficult security situation:
After some weeks of tranquillity disturbances have again broken out in Rome. The shooting of two Fascist officials provoked reprisals and counter reprisals. Some Germans were also killed by hand grenades … since then, bomb explosions are more frequent and a few soldiers were killed in front of the German headquarters.20
(MacWhite, 23 December 1943)
A census of population has now been taken in Rome in order to force from their hiding places all those who are on the run of whom it is estimated there are one hundred thousand Italian soldiers, three thousand escaped prisoners of war and some hundreds of Jews. Only those whose names figure on the census paper will get food tickets. The concierge of each house must keep a list of the names of the occupants on each floor posted up at the entrance so that in case of a raid the supernumeraries may be seized. Nobody can change his or her residence without having first obtained permission from the police.
The food situation is getting out of control. Due to cessation of rail transport and German requisitioning commodities no longer arrive. So far, there has been no distribution for the month of November of butter, sugar, rice etc … vegetables come from neighbourhood at present but as fighting approaches this source will dry up.21
(MacWhite, 30 December 1943)
Meanwhile Ristic Cedomir submitted an end of year report to O’Flaherty.
In connection with the mission entrusted to me i. e. distribution of funds in supporting English and American prisoners of war hidden in the valley of the river Arda … I am honoured in submitting to you the following statement asking for your kindness to hand it over to all interested persons.
He goes on to report on those who were being assisted to escape from the north of Italy to Switzerland.
The departure to SWITZERLAND is organised by groups under the direction of special guides – professional smugglers working for money … The spot from which they parted was PEDINE near MORFASSO, from the house of AUGERI GIANETTA who lived in ENGLAND for 7 years and has spent till now about 260,000 Lire from her private means in supporting prisoners.
The informal nature of the organisation is well illustrated later in that report:
In FLORENCE I left the sum of 1,000 Lire for two British Officers who were hidden together with Yugoslav Officers. I handed the money to the Serbian Orthodox Bishop INICI DORDOVIC former President of the English Club at SEBENIK, living now in FLORENCE.22
8
A Night At The Opera
The Lucidis were keen opera-goers and they, together with Simpson and Furman, went fairly regularly. Of all their visits to the opera, the initial one on New Year’s Day 1944 was the most memorable. That first night of the new year in the Rome Opera House – one of the most beautiful in the world – was a very grand affair. The box that the Lucidis had booked was second to the left from the Royal Box in the centre. The Royal Box was empty because of course the King and his family were no longer living in the city. Simpson’s description is interesting and conveys to some degree at least the unreal situation that pertained in Rome:
The box between us and the Royal Box started filling up with high-ranking German Officers. Seated closest to them in the open curving front of our own box Adrienne too had seen them. In fact, from where she sat, she could have leaned over and touched the nearest German. With her profound hatred for the Nazis, she was finding it difficult to remain calm.
John Furman, craning over to see what was going on, pointed. Down the centre aisle walked Captain ‘Pip’ Gardner and Lieutenant Colonel ‘Tug’ Wilson … In the left of the stalls, Rendell and Dukate … were waving to us. All around them sat German uniforms. To avoid the curious glances of the Germans in the next box, John and I moved back.1
On the programme that night was Puccini’s Tosca. The cast was an outstanding one including Maria Caniglia, Beniamino Gigli and Tito Gobbi. At the interval, the boxes emptied as people moved for refreshments. Simpson noted that one of the German officers was clearly a high-ranking one. The programmes which had been issued to the audience were on rich parchment with gold embossed lettering and long silk cords. Simpson decided that he wanted to keep his as a souvenir. He also said to Renzo Lucidi that he would like to get an autograph, but the Italian was somewhat surprised when Simpson said the autograph he wanted was of the German General. So when the audience resumed their seats:
Adrienne flashing a glamorous smile gave the programme to the General three feet away. Would he be so gallant as to autograph it, she asked in French. I watched the General’s face light up with pleasure as, slightly embarrassed he took the hastily proffered pen off one of his aides and scrawled his long signature across the front of the programme.2
Simpson now had the autograph and signature of General Mackensen, Commander-in-Chief of the German Fourteenth Army. This could have been very valuable but as it happens it never proved to be necessary as the organisation’s forgery efforts under the direction of Princess Nini were now so expert. Indeed, John May some time later got even better passes for them by taking advantage of the Vatican Secretariat.
The Vatican Secretariat, from time to time, submitted to the German Ministry requests for passes for officials of the Vatican who had to travel through Rome during the hours of the curfew. May managed to be in the right place at the right time in the office of the Secretariat when they were preparing a pile of passes for consideration by the German Ministry. Of course he had no business hanging around such an office but this was part of his talent, and while he was there, he secreted within the pile three in respect of Furman, Simpson and Pollak. The subterfuge worked to perfection. Passes for the three British officers on official documentation were made out and signed by the German Minister and returned to the Vatican Secretariat where May managed to be hanging around again and recovered them and passed them on to Derry. Accordingly, all three were now in possession of genuine – as distinct from forged – passes.
A number of the escapees became very fond of the opera and made regular visits, to such an extent that the Germans became aware of them. One night O’Flaherty was tipped off that the audience was going to be checked one by one for their papers. So two of the daughters of Mrs Chevalier found themselves attending a performance of The Barber of Seville in the Opera House on the tickets that had been secured for Furman and Simpson. They had never been able to attend before because of the price of the tickets.
Garrad-Cole meanwhile had been issued with false identity papers and began to move around Rome.
There were plenty of German soldiers in the street. Most of them seemed to be sight-seeing and were probably on Christmas leave from the front in the south. They paid no regard to me when I stood alongside them admiring the beauties of Rome, and this encouraged me to get over the feeling of being a fugitive on the run … We used to foregather occasionally for lunch in a restaurant called ‘The Bear’ which stood in a narrow side-street close to the River Tiber. It was quite a fashionable establishment and the barman, Felix, had once worked in the Savoy Hotel in London. He knew us to be prisoners of war and kept our secret. If we walked into the bar when Germans were present, all we had to say was ‘schnapps’ and Felix would pour out a whiskey from a bottle under the counter. In most of the restaurants in Rome it was necessary to produce a ration coupon before it was possible to obtain a meal. The proprietors of ‘The Bear’ however, obtained most of their food from the black market and did not ask for coupons.3
Garrad-Cole found money to be a problem when he came to Rome originally but he had made contact with a person who was prepared to cash cheques made out on pieces of ordinary paper. These cheques were all presented to his bank in London and honoured without any question. He does not record the name of this person but it was almost certainly John May.
Early in the new year the Vatican authorities, having received a complaint, closed the gate which led from the street into the courtyard beside the Holy Office and t
hen onto the German College. This meant that every visitor to O’Flaherty had to pass through the heavily guarded checkpoint at the Arco delle Campane. It also meant that O’Flaherty, in taking anyone from the German College into the Vatican, had to go the long way around and cross some Italian (as distinct from Vatican) property, so he was at risk of being captured. Aside from the guards, the disadvantage of this location was that it was far more public. This new arrangement was put in place without any prior notice shortly before Joe Pollak was due to call one day. Unaware of the change, he hammered so persistently and so loudly at the gate that eventually a Roman policeman walked up and demanded to know what he was doing. The best that Pollak could think of on the spot was to say ‘nothing’ and he walked away. Quite why the policeman did not suspect this, and question him further, is not clear. John Furman was due to arrive next but O’Flaherty was able to arrange for Fr Sneddon to go out and intercept him. He was able to show Furman a way through the Porto Santa Marta behind the colonnades on the left of St Peter’s but this entrance meant he had to produce his Italian State identity card and inform the Swiss Guard whom he wished to see.
On 6 January Furman, Simpson and Pollak arrived together at the Porta Santa Marta, itself a most unusual step to take and very risky as the three were more likely to draw attention to themselves than if they arrived singly. As luck would have it, from his usual position at the top of the steps, O’Flaherty saw them coming and took them into the Guardroom which May had arranged could be used in those circumstances. Then, waiting for an opportunity when the coast was clear, he dispatched them one by one into the German College and up to his room where Derry was based. The situation, as it was explained to O’Flaherty and Derry, was extremely grave.
The previous evening, quite by chance, Furman and Renzo Lucidi had met in the street the French officer Henri Payonne who had come into Rome with Iride. He reported that a breach of security among escapees in the north of Italy around the Sulmona Camp had led to the arrest of eighteen Italians and there was a danger that information in relation to the work of O’Flaherty and his colleagues had leaked out either through bribery or torture of some of these Italians. As it was almost curfew time, Furman and Lucidi had to head back to the latter’s apartment but they gave Payonne the telephone number. They warned him not to give it to Iride or anyone else because the security procedures that Derry had put in place required that as few people as possible knew of the activities of others. However, early the next morning a telephone call came and it was from Iride. She asked to speak to Pollak and she told him she must see him at once. While he was debating whether or not he should meet her, with Simpson, Furman and Lucidi, two further telephone calls came from her imploring him to come to her. When the telephone rang for the fourth time Lucidi’s wife, Adrienne, answered it and it was from Payonne warning that everyone was in danger and they should clear out of the apartment at once. Simpson, Furman and Pollak immediately moved all their belongings into the rented apartment on the Via Chelini. They then rushed from there to meet O’Flaherty.
They debated the situation. Derry and O’Flaherty were of the view that the request to meet Iride was a trap whereas Pollak felt he should go because it was the only way to find out what was happening. Finally, at noon, he left to keep his meeting with her. The arrangement was that if the Monsignor had not heard from him by mid-afternoon, they could assume that he had fallen into a trap. At 4.00 p. m., a young Italian arrived with a note which was to be handed only to Patrick (the code name for Derry). This caused great alarm because they felt now it was another trap. Eventually they agreed that the best one to go down was Furman. Derry had very little Italian and it would be too risky to involve the Monsignor. When Furman went down he managed to persuade the young Italian to hand over the note. It confirmed that Iride had been captured, as had her mother, her sister and her own child. She had asked Pollak, using his codename Giuseppe, to come to see her because it was the only way to ensure the survival of her family. In the letter she stated:
I won’t talk unless threatened that I endanger the life of my baby by not doing so – in which case I shall poison myself. I beg you, however, to save the lives of my baby and my poor mother. You must not believe that if they take Giuseppe that it is a betrayal – he is of no interest to them – they only want to know who supplies the money and I repeat that they will never know from me – I prefer death – I am only afraid Giuseppe may talk if he believes himself betrayed.4
When Pollak arrived at Iride’s boarding house he immediately sensed that he was going into a dangerous situation and made a run for it. A chase through the city ensued, ending when Pollak attempted to enter a building. He spoke to the porter in Italian: ‘I am an escaped British soldier. Please help me.’ Since he was small and dark, very Italian-looking and dressed in civilian clothes, the porter thought he was a thief on the run from the police and replied in Italian ‘and I am the Pope’. Pollak was captured. In the excitement of the phone call which Adrienne Lucidi received, she had forgotten that Payonne had mentioned that Pollak should not keep this appointment.
O’Flaherty and Derry realised this was a time of great danger for the organisation. While they were certain Pollak would never betray them, Iride’s situation was particularly difficult bearing in mind that her entire family had been captured. Of all the various local helpers they had, she was one of those who knew most about the activities of Monsignor O’Flaherty and Major Derry. The fact that Iride and Pollak had been taken back to Sulmona the next day was reassuring to some extent. It almost certainly meant that the Germans were still investigating what was happening in that area and had not managed to obtain information about what was going on in Rome, either from Pollak or Iride. However, it was always possible that Iride would disclose information in the days ahead, so Derry made the decision to clear out the Via Chelini apartment.
The next blow to the organisation, ironically, was not aimed at it at all. One of the major preoccupations of the Gestapo at that time was to try and capture as many of the Italian Communists based in Rome as they could. During the morning of Saturday 8 January, two plain-clothes officers called on a widow whose Communist son was in the Regina Coeli prison. They introduced themselves as members of the Resistance and she of course did not realise they were actually from the Gestapo. They told her they had just been released from the prison and they had arranged a plan to assist with the escape of her son who was being constantly tortured. The plan was that her son would pretend to break down under questioning and offer to lead the Germans to the hideout of his Communist friends. His friends, however, would be ready and, in the ambush, the Germans would be killed and the prisoner, her son, would escape. Her part in this scheme was to get all her son’s Communist friends together and arrange for the ambush. This she agreed to do, in her innocence. She took them along to meet Nabolante, who was a leader of the Italian Resistance, but also was one of those who regularly housed people for O’Flaherty. At that stage, he had living with him the two British army men, ‘Tug’ Wilson and ‘Pip’ Gardner whom Furman had waved to on the night of the opera. Within minutes, uniformed SS men arrived and arrested Nabolante, together with Wilson and Gardner. They left behind some Gestapo agents with Nabolante’s cook, who was an old man and not difficult to frighten. This old man knew of the existence of the apartments in the Via Firenze and Via Chelini and indeed, even more dangerously, knew of the secret code via the doorbell which was used to gain admission. Furman in the meantime had arrived at the Via Chelini billet to arrange for it to be vacated in accordance with Derry’s decision. Shortly afterwards, Nabolante’s cook arrived with the two men who had originally deceived the widow. When they arrived, Furman answered the door and the cook told him that Gardner and Wilson had been arrested. It struck Furman as curious that two men were there also because obviously the cook could have delivered that message himself.
I did not like the look of the cook’s two companions. They did not strike me as individuals who would go out of the w
ay to help anyone. I could not define my suspicions but I knew I did not like them. We entered the empty dining room and I said ‘I can’t understand why the cook brought you along with him. It was nice of you to keep him company but it seems so unnecessary … Before you go’, I said, ‘would you mind showing me your identity cards?’ Everything that followed happened in a flash. There was a roar of German voices in the passage outside and the two men pulled, not identity cards but revolvers from their pockets … a half dozen SS men, armed to the teeth, poured in.5
Arrested immediately were five officers, two privates, one American Air Force sergeant, Bruno Buchner the Yugoslav and Herta the Austrian girl who acted as housekeeper and, of course, Furman.
Herta was magnificent. Her prospects were far worse than ours. While we could at least hope to establish our identity as prisoners of war, she was an Austrian and, as such, would be regarded as a traitor by the Germans. She stood there calm and self-possessed.6
His first thought was how to get a message of warning to Derry and also how to keep Simpson away because the latter was due back at that apartment within the next few minutes. As all those who had been captured were lined up, he noticed that two soldiers who had been in the basement, Lance-Corporal Dale and Gunner Jones, had not been captured. He hoped that they had got away to convey the information to Derry. He also heard the doorbell stutter once or twice and then stop.
It sounded as though there might be a faulty connection. Another soldier asked my guard, ‘did the bell ring then’? He replied, ‘I thought so, but I am not sure’. One of the soldiers walked slowly to the door and opened it. Nobody was there. He tried the bell. It did not ring, lucky Bill, the failure of the bell had saved him. It was he who had rung before.7
The Vatican Pimpernel Page 11
