In December 1940, Piron told d’Astier about his new recruits. It was time for them to meet.
Alain arrived at d’Astier’s flat, aware of the concierge watching through the glass window of her ground-floor apartment. Andrée had not been invited, but told her brother to make sure he recalled every single detail of the meeting to report back to her.
D’Astier welcomed Alain into the apartment. He poured out water and then two glasses of Bordeaux. Passing Alain a glass, he invited him to look out of the window onto the street below to check his surroundings.
‘We are alone and able to talk freely here. I understand from Monsieur Piron that both you and your sister would like to join the war effort as members of the Franco–Belgian Resistance movement. There are several of us here, in northern France and in Belgium, feeding British Intelligence with anything we can gather on the activities of the German forces which could be of interest to them.
‘This is what we would expect of you. You would need to recruit young men and women who share our ideals, who want to resist the German occupation and fight for the freedom of France.’
D’Astier outlined a list of the intelligence they were looking for in particular:
1. The military fortifications around France.
2. Air movements around France.
3. German troop movements around the country.
4. The whereabouts of enemy agents around the country.
5. The way in which the Gestapo was organised and operated.
6. Information on the location and production of secret German arms.
In addition, they wanted to know more about the inner workings of the Vichy government (both military and political) and to find out whatever they could about German military plans in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. D’Astier and Alain discussed how agents needed to find ways to convey material gathered from Paris to Marseilles and on to Madrid, where it could reach the British Embassy. D’Astier was also keen to help encourage Frenchmen wanting to leave France and join up with the French army in North Africa and the Allied Forces in Britain.
Alain was well aware of the importance of the group he had been invited to join, and he was already in awe of the man who would become his mentor. After several hours, as he left, d’Astier warned Alain that the time had come to put aside what he described as silly acts of rebellion against the Germans, such as the time when Alain managed to steal a handgun from a German soldier’s holster while they were on the métro. D’Astier had approved of the student demonstration at the Étoile, but was more dismissive of La France, describing it as a game for small children: ‘C’est de l’enfantillage à nos yeux.’7 It was time for Alain and his friends to grow up.
*
At the end of 1940, on an intelligence-gathering trip to Boulogne in northern France, d’Astier was arrested by the Gestapo. He managed to escape, and returned to Paris, where he was able to warn Piron that the group had been betrayed, by whom they were never to find out.
Shortly after his escape, d’Astier decided that it was now too dangerous for him to remain in France. The Gestapo knew of his existence and of his involvement with the Resistance. In January 1941, he left for Algeria, North Africa. Before leaving, he met with Alain and spoke of his vision for prompting French North Africa to enter the war: ‘You are now to go to Marseilles and set up a group which will work alongside the one you have built up in Paris … You must organise an escape route along the demarcation line and find a way of transmitting your gathered intelligence from Marseilles to Algiers and in reverse my mail in the other direction.’8 D’Astier also warned Alain against meeting further with Piron. ‘He could be arrested any moment and since your mother is Belgian, they may link the two up. Keep well away from him.’
After d’Astier’s departure, the chronology of events is not entirely clear, but it certainly seems as though Alain did not sever all ties with Piron immediately. Piron continued to run his Franco–Belgian Resistance group for several months with Alain by his side, but in October 1941 Piron was caught, arrested and taken to Fresnes prison where he was badly tortured by the Gestapo. Although he admitted his involvement with the Resistance, he never betrayed any of his colleagues, nor did he disclose any information which could be of use to the Nazis.
Piron was eventually moved to Cologne by the Gestapo, where, on 15 October 1943, he was beheaded. In his memoirs, written over fifty years later, Alain Griotteray wrote that he learnt of Piron’s murder on the day of his twenty-first birthday. For Yvonne, the brutal murder of her old friend Georges would stay with her for the rest of her life.
After Piron’s death, Alain Griotteray remained in France alone. He was determined to build up his own group to supply Algiers with intelligence. At just eighteen, he was one of the youngest leaders of the French Resistance movement.
9
Working Amidst the Enemy
In the autumn of 1940, Andrée watched helplessly, along with her fellow citizens, as the Parisian police force began to implement the Vichy government’s anti-Semitic laws against every Jew living in France. After 3 October 1940, Jews were no longer able to join the army or the civil service, teach in schools, work in the media or go to university. Foreign Jews living in France could be interned. After 18 October, any property or business belonging to a Jew was to be confiscated by the state.
Working at Police Headquarters alongside members of the Wehrmacht was becoming increasingly unpleasant for Andrée. But it was hard for anyone in Paris, particularly this conscientious, naïve twenty year-old, to predict how the Parisian police force would move forward over the next four years.
For Andrée, there was no choice but to remain in her job; when the Wehrmacht had marched into Paris and taken over Police Headquarters six months ago, all employees who were categorised as civil servants were required to stay in place. Some of Andrée’s colleagues had chosen to disappear rather than be near the occupying forces, but Andrée needed to earn a living. Somehow she and Alain instinctively knew, even in the early days of the occupation, that her position at Police Headquarters might bring certain invaluable advantages.
As the new laws came into force, many Parisians, shocked at the increasingly overt anti-Semitism on display, tentatively began trying to find ways of helping Jewish friends and colleagues leave the city. Some offered to take care of homes or help with businesses. But it was dangerous to stick one’s neck out for others, and many Jews found themselves in dire straits. For those living in the poorer districts of Paris with fewer gentile friends, leaving their homes and jobs was not an option. They had nowhere to go.
Edmond and Yvonne were trying to lead as normal a life as possible while living at the heart of a city crawling with Germans, but they could not ignore what was happening. Their friends the Bernsteins had left Paris, but they had not yet had word about their safety. Meanwhile, another friend, Joseph Rubinstein, was preparing to leave his business (an antique shop near the Place de l’Opéra) with the almost certain knowledge that the contents would be pilfered. Edmond, now retired and in his late sixties, was desperate to work out how to help his friend. After much thought and with Yvonne’s support, he decided he would offer to run the shop as his own until Joseph and his family could return to Paris.
Initially, all appeared to go smoothly, but within a month a mole alerted the Wehrmacht to the company’s Jewish owner. One morning, as Edmond sat in Joseph’s office reviewing the accounts, two SS officers and a Wehrmacht captain entered the shop. The officers demanded proof that Edmond owned the business; meanwhile they began searching the shop, looking for evidence that the company still belonged to a Jew. Edmond struggled to control his anger as files and documents were thrown carelessly onto the floor. As they went about their business, the captain accompanying the group moved quietly towards Edmond. Silently he passed him a Rubinstein wedding menu card, which the captain had picked up from the floor. Edmond knew that not all Wehrmacht officers were anti-Semitic, but was nonetheless shocked that the captain had been w
illing to turn a blind eye to such incriminating evidence. Fortunately he managed to maintain his composure and hid the card on his person.
The search lasted well over three hours, but eventually the officers left without finding any evidence to incriminate Edmond. It had been uncomfortably close though, as he told his family that evening, and there was no guarantee it would not happen again.
As the cold weather approached, Wehrmacht control over the citizens of Paris intensified and food shortages became ever more common. The winter of 1940–1941 was one of the coldest on record, with Parisians freezing without fuel to heat their homes, while also desperately trying to find food. François Clerc, a fit and healthy twenty-year-old member of the Orion Group, lost ten kilos in the four years after the winter of 1940.
In December 1940, Andrée was abruptly moved into a new section of Police Headquarters, referred to as Room 205, ‘confection et renouvellement des cartes d’identités étrangéres’, where she became part of a team responsible for renewing identity cards for the many foreigners living in Paris. Among them were a large number of Jews, many of whom had previously escaped persecution in other parts of Europe only to find themselves once again discriminated against in France.
Andrée met her new department head, Monsieur Pouillet, a rather dull but immaculately dressed middle-aged man, who in turn introduced her to Madame Caillé, his seemingly charmless yet (as Andrée was later to find out) warm-hearted assistant. It was she who took Andrée through the detailed running of the department. Preparing the cards appeared straightforward, but Andrée was curious to know why every single detail on every Jew living in Paris was to be recorded: they had special filing cards indicating their name, job, date of birth, occupation, address and their identity cards were to be stamped with a red mark to indicate that they were Jewish. Even more odd, every card was duplicated four times so that they could be crosschecked in different ways. Her new colleagues explained that the updating of these special cards had been ordered by the German commandant of Paris, who wanted immediate access to the whereabouts of all the Jews in the city.
After her first day in Room 205, Andrée returned home and, over dinner, explained to her family the manner in which the Jews were being carefully controlled and watched over by the Paris police force. Alain saw immediately that Andrée’s new job might afford the chance to steal some identity cards for future use. Andrée, defiant of authority and keen for any opportunity to outwit the Germans controlling Police Headquarters, thought it was an excellent idea and agreed to see what she could do, much to Edmond and Yvonne’s anger and concern for her safety.
Andrée soon began to relax into her new role, partly because she enjoyed meeting the large number of foreigners whose ID cards she had to renew, but also because she enjoyed being with a like-minded group of easy-going, gossipy, giggly, fun-loving girls. But that didn’t prevent her from starting to think about whether it might be possible to acquire a few blank ID cards from the cupboard where they were stored. As the weeks moved on, she observed her colleagues carefully and noted that, although once completed, an ID card was carefully checked and signed off by the department head, the actual number of cards used did not seem to be monitored as carefully. Many were torn up if an error was made or the name or details of the holder were smudged. It was clear that here was the opportunity she had been waiting for.
By the end of December Andrée had started to help herself to a few blank ID cards, discreetly tucking them into her handbag and taking them home to be stored in the cellar before being passed on to her Resistance colleagues. She must have been aware that if she was ever caught there would be trouble, but she was undeterred. After alerting François Clerc that she had successfully taken an ID card, she would be instructed to deposit it a few days later into a particular postbox, from where it would be picked up, filled out and given to someone who wanted to leave the city and needed a false ID card to do so.
Alain, meanwhile, was now actively planning his move into the Free Zone while still trying to recruit new Resistance members into his group. He began to pressure Andrée to recruit colleagues to help with the theft of ID cards and to carry out some of the courier work which would soon be needed. Despite his pleas, Andrée was not ready to take this next step. Openly discussing one’s political opinions and attitude to the invading forces within Police Headquarters was not safe and she needed to be far more confident of her colleagues’ political views, let alone whether they would participate in Resistance activities.
On 4 December 1940, Andrée wrote in her diary:
I am now working on the first floor of the building. My manager is M. Pouillet. We are responsible for renewing the ID cards for all the foreigners who are living in Paris. We have to keep careful records on these people and everything has to be double-checked. Once I have renewed their permit to remain in France, I do not see these foreigners again.
I work closely with Madame Caillé, the mother of the Deputy Manager, and three other women from the Western Room. [In 2010 Police Headquarters was still divided into north, south, east and west sections.] My colleagues include Marie Thérèse Jeanville, who is somewhat crazy, I like her but she is a flirt, she is tall, dark and rather overweight; Françoise de Boin, a blond girl who is very nice but a bit too fat; and Jacqueline Fresson, who is tall and fair and who I rather like. Today I bought myself a new record, the songs include ‘It’s a long way to Tipperary’ and ‘God Save the King’. I also bought a Judy Garland record.
On 5 December 1940, she picked up her pen again.
I am at work and here I am writing my diary again. In the last month I have changed departments four times. I will have a very clear understanding of how all these departments work. I am now in office No.205, where I am issuing ID cards again. I wonder how long I will be here? Well, it is probably of no importance.
On the evening of 6 December, Andrée was to join Renée for dinner. Her older sister was anxious to learn about how she was coping at Police Headquarters. She arrived at Renée’s flat to be greeted by a long-haired dark Siamese cat rustling up against her feet. As she bent to stroke it, she looked up and saw Renée, who explained that its owners were Jewish and had left Paris, so she had taken the cat in to give it a home.
Andrée loved going to Renée’s flat. She always enjoyed her elder sister’s company, despite her forthright comments about Andrée’s appearance and how she should organise her social life. In line with her sister’s eccentric personality, the place had a very theatrical appearance and atmosphere. Her husband, Steve Passeur, had collected over the years an interesting collection of memorabilia, including photographs of the leading actors and actresses of the day. Many of these were framed and hung closely together on the walls, alongside copies of the programmes for the plays he had produced.
Andrée was looking forward to dinner, as Renée always managed to find food, and usually good food at that. As they sat down and Renée placed a salad on the table, she asked her sister how she was coping with her job. Andrée explained that she abhorred the whole set-up on principle, but that some of what she did she found interesting and she had made a few friends. She mentioned that she had been moved from one department to another without much time to implement the skills she had learnt in each place, which seemed a little odd.
Renée listened carefully before reassuring her sister that she knew Langeron well and that if Andrée was being moved around departments, it would be for a good reason. She felt it was likely that Langeron wanted Andrée to know as much as possible about what went on within the different departments so that she could get to know her colleagues and make herself useful.
On 8 December, Andrée enjoyed a little light relief at a concert, thanks to her sister. She loved music and was grateful for any opportunity for escape.
Renée managed to obtain some tickets for Beethoven’s La Messe solennelle [the Missa Solemnis]. It was simply wonderful. Monsieur Leclercq was in the audience.
By January 1941, the Wehrmacht had b
een in Paris for over six months and no Parisian was in any doubt about the meaning of occupation. Andrée had been working at Police Headquarters for over a year and knew her way around pretty thoroughly. She was trusted with full access to the ID card supply and was allowed to request further supplies from an orderly who would deliver them directly to her office.
Some of her colleagues were aware that she had been brought into Police Headquarters by Roger Langeron, but she never referred to it and since the unsuccessful attempt in getting the police archives out of Paris, many of the staff at Police Headquarters had been careful not to be seen to be too closely associated with anyone who knew him well.
Neither she nor Alain ever told me how long they went on producing copies of La France, though it is unlikely that it would have continued after Alain left Paris. Possibly Andrée was still typing and printing copies of La France in early 1941, or perhaps it came to an earlier end. She looked back on the risks she took in working on the news-sheet with pride though: in later years she often spoke about the irony of working with members of the German military at the heart of Police Headquarters with no one ever noticing what she was actually doing.
On 1 February 1941, Andrée was moved to the Passport Department, as she described in her diary entry for that day:
I am now working in the Passport Department, where I have taken over from a woman who was responsible for those VIPs sent to us by the Head of Police who needed their passports renewed. She must have had a serious disagreement with the Germans. Monsieur Redon attempted to build up my confidence by saying that they needed a sophisticated and intelligent person to do this demanding job. Monsieur Leclercq is the manager. He is very intimidating, but I will not allow myself to be intimidated. It is going to be difficult getting around the building to see my friends and I am having trouble getting to the Copying Department, but I will now know how to prepare passports and I will have access to them.
Andrée's War Page 8
