Americans in Paris: Life & Death Under Nazi Occupation

by Charles Glass

  p. 243 ‘My brother … spoke to me’ Ibid., p. 75.

  p. 243 ‘undertake a study’ Robert Murphy to the Secretary of State, ‘Interview with Mr. Charles E. Bedaux’, 30 October 1942, Document Number 851T.OO/52, US National Archives, College Park, Maryland.

  p. 243 ‘You are comfortably lodged’ Ibid.

  p. 244 He witnessed guards beating Hal Vaughan, Doctor to the Resistance, p. 56.

  p. 244 ‘The Boches continued … came to get me’ Clemence Bock diary, quoted in Ibid., pp. 54–5.

  p. 244 ‘Several Americans Released’ ‘Several Americans Released in France, Dr. Jackson of Hospital at Neuilly Is Among Those Freed’, New York Times, 3 October 1942, p. 6. The paper added that another released detainee was Mrs Charles Bedaux, ‘but her French-born husband is still interned at St. Denis’. Bedaux was by then at Compiègne.

  p. 245 He sent ambulances Hal Vaughan, Doctor to the Resistance, p. 62.

  p. 245 Through trusted friends Goélette-Frégate’s nomenclature was distinctly nautical. Goélette is French for schooner, frégate is frigate; and a chaloupe is a rowing boat. Saint-Jacques is a scallop. Although they helped résistants and Allied soldiers to go by sea from Spain and Portugal to England, all their operations were on land in France.

  p. 245 Charles Bedaux, meanwhile, turned Robert Murphy to the Secretary of State, ‘Interview with Mr. Charles E. Bedaux’, 30 October 1942, Document Number 851T.OO/52, US National Archives, College Park, Maryland. Box and Serial Numbers unknown.

  Chapter Twenty-five: ‘Inturned’

  p. 246 ‘the Gestapo would come’ Interview with Sylvia Beach by Niall Sheridan, Self Portraits: Sylvia Beach, documentary film on Radio Telefis Eireann (RTE), Dublin, 1962.

  p. 246 ‘I must pack up’ Sylvia Beach, ‘Inturned’, in Jackson Mathews and Maurice Saillet, Sylvia Beach (1887–1962), Paris: Mercure de France, 1963, p. 137.

  p. 247 ‘dressed as though’ Sylvia Beach, Shakespeare and Company, London: Faber and Faber, 1960, p. 137.

  p. 247 ‘Caroline Dudley had been’ Craig Lloyd, Eugene Bullard: Black Expatriate in Jazz-Age Paris, Athens, GA and London: University of Georgia Press, 2000, pp. 100–102.

  p. 247 She was taking care of Gertrude Stein Donald Gallup (ed.), The Flowers of Friendship: Letters Written to Gertrude Stein, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953, pp. 370–71.

  p. 247 ‘After they had … we were the only’ Lansing Warren, ‘1,400 Americans Seized in France’, New York Times, 30 September 1942, p. 1.

  p. 247 ‘The arrests began’ ‘Report of the Swiss Consulate at Paris Regarding the Internment of American Citizens at Vittel’, Enclosure No.1 to Despatch No. 3652 of 26 October 1942, from American Legation, Berne, US National Archives, College Park, Maryland, RG 389, Box 2142.

  p. 248 ‘in a minute garden’ Sylvia Beach, ‘Inturned’, p. 138.

  p. 248 ‘A crowd was gathered’ Drue Tartière, The House near Paris, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946, p. 103.

  p. 248 ‘On Sunday visitors’ Donald A. Lowrie, YMCA representative, ‘Report on Camps at Vittel and Compiègne’, 29 October 1942, Enclosure No. 1 to Despatch No. 3732 dated 3 November 1942 from the American Legation, Berne, US National Archives, College Park, Maryland, RG389, Box 2142. The accounts of the internees, like Sylvia Beach and Drue Tartière, contradict those of the observers from the Red Cross and the YMCA on one important point. The women wrote that they were held in the monkey cage, and the observers’ reports said they were held in the Salle des Fleurs or the restaurant of the zoo. The observers, however, appear not to have seen the women until they were sent to Vittel.

  p. 248 ‘The first person’ Tartière, The House near Paris, p. 104.

  p. 249 ‘our lovely … Noel Murphy’ Ibid., pp. 104–5.

  p. 250 ‘My attention was’ Ibid., p. 105.

  p. 250 ‘There were Americans’ Beach, ‘Inturned’, p. 138.

  p. 250 ‘busy trying to make’ Ibid., p. 138.

  p. 250 ‘Sick women were lying … did not seem’ Tartière, The House near Paris, p. 105.

  p. 251 ‘All night long’ Interview with Sylvia Beach by Niall Sheridan, Self Portraits: Sylvia Beach, film documentary on Radio Telefis Eireann (RTE), Dublin, 1962.

  p. 251 ‘As they were putting’ Tartière, The House near Paris, pp. 104–5.

  p. 251 ‘group of French collaborationists’ Ibid., p. 105.

  p. 251 ‘Mrs. Charles Bedaux’ ‘Several Americans Released in France’, United Press, Vichy, New York Times, 3 October 1942, p. 6.

  p. 251 On Monday morning, 28 September ‘Report of the Swiss Consulate at Paris Regarding the Internment of American Citizens at Vittel’, Enclosure No. 1 to Despatch No. 3652 of 26 October 1942, from American Legation, Berne, US National Archives, College Park, Maryland, RG389, Box 2142.

  p. 252 ‘I’m going to get’ Tartière, The House near Paris, p. 108.

  p. 253 ‘to a remote railway’ Beach, ‘Inturned’, pp. 138–9.

  p. 253 ‘took pleasure in throwing’ Tartière, The House near Paris, p. 111.

  p. 254 ‘As we marched along’ Ibid.

  p. 254 ‘The haste with which’ ‘Report of the Swiss Consulate at Paris Regarding the Internment of American Citizens at Vittel’, Enclosure No.1 to Despatch No. 3652 of 26 October 1942, from American Legation, Berne, US National Archives, College Park, Maryland, RG 389, Box 2142.

  p. 254 ‘While awaiting the opening’ Ibid.

  p. 254 Frontstalag 194 already Report of Red Cross delegates Rudolph Iselin and Dr Hans Wehrle, Vittel, 22 and 23 July 1942, p. 1, US National Archives, College Park, Maryland. RG 389, Box 2142.

  p. 255 ‘paper, envelopes, flashlights … There’s nothing in there’ Tartière, The House near Paris, p. 113.

  p. 255 She looked terribly … our big room’ Ibid., p. 114.

  p. 256 ‘the Giraff’ Readers should, by now, be accustomed to Sylvia Beach’s idiosyncratic spelling (and punctuation).

  p. 256 ‘All the previous reports’ Donald A. Lowrie, YMCA representative, ‘Report on Camps at Vittel and Compiègne’, 29 October 1942, Enclosure No. 1 to Despatch No. 3732 dated 3 November 1942 from the American Legation, Berne, US National Archives, College Park, Maryland, RG 389, Box 2142.

  p. 257 ‘tea, coffee, butter … a dozen eggs’ Tartière, The House near Paris, p. 116.

  p. 257 ‘fattened up considerably’ Beach, ‘Inturned’, p. 141.

  p. 257 ‘We American internees’ Ibid., p. 142.

  p. 257 ‘For the first few weeks’ Ninetta Jucker, Curfew in Paris: A Record of the German Occupation, London: The Hogarth Press, 1960, pp. 158–9. See also pp. 159–64 on American women at Vittel.

  p. 258 ‘antagonisms cropped up … The Englishwomen hissed’ Tartière, The House near Paris, p. 138.

  p. 258 ‘beautiful fruit … Set me free’ Letter from Sylvia Beach to Adrienne Monnier, 15 October 1942, in French, translation mine, Maurice Saillet Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Series II, Box 2, File 6.

  p. 258 ‘A can of condensed milk’ Beach, ‘Inturned’, p. 143.

  p. 258 In October 1942, Dr Edmond Gros ‘Dr. Gros, Headed Neuilly Hospital’, New York Times, 18 October 1942, Obituaries.

  p. 259 ‘There is no one’ Red Cross cable from N. D. Jay and E. B. Close to Mrs Edmund L. Gros, 20 October 1942, American Hospital of Paris Archives, File: Correspondence, 1940–1945.

  p. 259 ‘English, Canadian or Free’ Letter from Eugene J. Bullard to Army Information Office, Washington, DC, 22 September 1941, US National Archives, College Park, Maryland, RG 59, Box 5027, Document 842.2221.222 PS/PLS.

  p. 260 ‘Your extended sojourn’ Carisella and Ryan, The Black Swallow of Death, Boston: Marlborough House, 1972, p. 250.

  Chapter Twenty-six: Uniting Africa

  p. 261 ‘The German authorities … the required raw materials’ Gaston Bedaux, La vie ardente de Charles Bedaux, Paris: privately published, 3 June 1959, p. 81.

  p. 261 Dr Franz Medicus’s Department Janet
Flanner, ‘Annals of Collaboration: Equivalism III’, The New Yorker, 13 October 1945, p. 34.

  p. 262 ‘This peanut scheme’ Ibid., p. 32.

  p. 262 ‘When I put myself’ Ibid., p. 34.

  p. 263 ‘The bewildered man’ Robert Murphy, Diplomat among Warriors: Secret Decisions that Changed the World, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1964, p. 121.

  p. 264 ‘I explained how seriously’ Ibid., p. 123.

  p. 265 ‘Mr. Bedaux’s release’ Robert Murphy, Memorandum to the Secretary of State, ‘Subject: Interview with Mr. Charles E. Bedaux, Strictly Confidential’, 30 October 1942, Document Number 851T.00/52, US National Archives, College Park, Maryland.

  p. 265 ‘had been definitely abandoned … According to this plan’ Ibid.

  p. 266 ‘a leading member’ ‘The Dangerous Middle’, Time, 27 June 1955.

  p. 266 ‘sleek Jacques Lemaigre-Dubreuil’ ‘Despair on the Even’, Time, 12 June 1944.

  p. 266 A few days after this interview Janet Flanner, ‘Annals of Collaboration: Equivalism III’, The New Yorker, 13 October 1945, p. 35. Jim Christy, The Price of Power: A Biography of Charles Eugene Bedaux, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1984, p. 257.

  p. 266 ‘Here opinions are divided’ Ibid., p. 257.

  p. 267 ‘I am on the right side’ Federal Bureau of Investigation interview with Frederick Ledebur, Telemeter, 21 January 1944, US Department of Justice Communications Section, from FBI files supplied under Freedom of Information Act, unnumbered file, pp. 64692, 64693 and 64694. FOIPA No. 1088544-001.

  p. 267 ‘The last word’ Bedaux, La vie ardente de Charles Bedaux, p. 85.

  Chapter Twenty-seven: Americans Go to War

  p. 268 ‘He treated me politely’ Drue Tartière with M. R.Werner, The House near Paris: An American Woman’s Story of Traffic in Patriots, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946, pp. 121–2.

  p. 268 Jean Fraysse, Drue’s friend … ‘I can understand’ Ibid., pp. 124–5.

  p. 269 ‘Darlin’, it’s awfully nice’ Ibid., p. 127.

  p. 269 ‘Have a crise’ Ibid., p. 145.

  p. 270 Von Weber came into my room … ‘I was thoroughly scared’ Ibid., pp. 130–32.

  p. 271 ‘I think it’s a disgrace’ Ibid., p. 133.

  p. 271 ‘So, for two hours’ Robert Murphy, Diplomat among Warriors: Secret Decisions that Changed the World, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1964, p. 146.

  p. 271 ‘seized the telegraph … After a resistence’ A. J. Liebling, The Road Back to Paris, London: Michael Joseph, 1944, pp. 197–8.

  p. 271 Charles Bedaux was … the German officer Janet Flanner, ‘Annals of Collaboration: Equivalism III’, The New Yorker, 13 October 1945, p. 35.

  p. 272 ‘By that time’ Murphy, Diplomat among Warriors, p. 154.

  p. 272 ‘Only a few hours’ Ibid., p. 154. p. 273 ‘I am sending word … Dr. Lévy and Dr. Pigache’ Tartière, The

  House near Paris, p. 134.

  Chapter Twenty-eight: Murphy Forgets a Friend

  p. 275 ‘knocked on my door … not knowing whether’ Keeler Faus, Diary, Sunday, 8 November 1942. (Faus’s meticulous daily diaries for the years 1940 to 1944 were made available to me by his wife, Mme Colette Faus, in Paris.)

  p. 276 ‘The night before the Germans’ Margaret Collins Weitz, Sisters in the Resistance: How Women Fought to Free France, 1940–1945, New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1995, p. 198.

  p. 276 ‘one goon had’ Adam Nossiter, The Algeria Hotel: France, Memory and the Second World War, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001, p. 163.

  p. 276 ‘a German stuck the point’ Keeler Faus, Diary, Wednesday, 11 November 1942.

  p. 277 ‘not retard French’ Jim Christy, The Price of Power: A Biography of Charles Eugene Bedaux, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1984, p. 268.

  p. 277 ‘I am carrying out’ John MacVane, ‘Department of Amplification’, letter to the editor, The New Yorker, 3 November 1945, pp. 80–81.

  p. 278 ‘Carrying through the study’ Christy, The Price of Power, p. 270.

  p. 278 ‘It is almost impossible’ A. J. Liebling, The Road Back to Paris, London: Michael Joseph, 1944, p. 198.

  p. 279 The New York Metropolitan … ‘the Fighting French’ ‘Photo of the Week’, Life, 7 December 1942, pp. 40–41.

  Chapter Twenty-nine: Alone at Vittel

  p. 280 ‘His eyes filled’ Drue Tartière with M. R.Werner, The House near Paris: An American Woman’s Story of Traffic in Patriots, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946, p. 139.

  p. 280 Noel Murphy and Sarah Watson The Foyer International des Etudiantes had been founded by Mrs John Jacob Hoff, an American who had been president of the Detroit YWCA. She gave it to the University of Paris. See ‘Mrs. Labouchere, A Welfare Worker’, New York Times, 14 April 1943, p. 23.

  p. 280 A Hungarian priest with Drue Tartière said a Hungarian priest had arranged Miss Watson’s release, and Sylvia Beach wrote that the person responsible was the rector of the University of Paris.

  p. 280 ‘Suddenly, on Christmas … Ours [the Hôtel Central]’ Sylvia Beach, ‘Inturned’, in Jackson Mathews and Maurice Saillet, Sylvia Beach (1887–1962), Paris: Mercure de France, 1963, p. 140.

  p. 281 ‘Dis à notre ami’ Letter from Sylvia Beach to Adrienne Monnier, 30 December 1942, Maurice Saillet Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Box 3, Folder 2 (Vittel).

  p. 281 Wilkinson had assured Letter from Tudor Wilkinson to Adrienne Monnier, 7 November 1942, Maurice Saillet Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Box 3, Folder 3.

  p. 281 Christmas at Vittel ‘Report on a Visit to the British and American Camp, Vittel, on Monday, January 4th, 1943, by Mr. August Senaud, War Prisoners’ Aid of the YMCA, Paris Office’, p. 2, US National Archives, College Park, Maryland, RG 389, Box 2142, Camp Reports: France, File: Vittel Vosges (Frontstalag 194).

  p. 282 ‘Every day I went’ Sylvia Beach, ‘Inturned’, p. 141.

  Chapter Thirty: The Bedaux Dossier

  p. 283 ‘From acquaintances in’ Edmond Taylor, Awakening from History, Boston: Gambit, 1969, pp. 327–8.

  p. 284 ‘Charles Bedaux, the stretch-out’ Commander Harry C. Butcher, ‘Diary–Butcher (November 30, 1942–January 7, 1943) (2)’, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Papers, 1916–1952, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas, Principal File, Box 166. (Ellipses in the original.)

  p. 284 ‘I tried to broadcast’ John MacVane, ‘Department of Amplification’, letter to the editor, The New Yorker, 3 November 1945, pp. 80–81.

  p. 285 ‘German, Italian, French’ Percy E. Foxworth to Director, FBI, 18 February 1942, Serial 100-49901-5, US National Archives, College Park, Maryland.

  p. 285 Bedaux’s name ‘Paraphrase of Telegraph, Vichy (Paris) to Secretary of State, September 29, 1941, Subject: Charles E. Bedaux’, File Number 100-49901, Section Number 1, Serials 1–100, US National Archives, College Park, Maryland.

  p. 285 ‘no futher action’ P. E. Foxworth, Assistant Director, New York, to Director, Washington, 29 April 1942, 100-49901-6X, US National Archives, College Park, Maryland. Foxworth enclosed a verbatim copy of a report on Marie Claude Carpenter, ‘formerly secretary to Henri Bidaux’. This gossip included her answer to a question in New York about ‘Bidaux’s’ current activities. ‘Working for the Germans, of course,’ was the laconic reply. The conversation further revealed that at that particular moment Bidaux [sic] was ‘working for the Germans in Spain’. If he wanted to close the file at that time, his enclosure was bound to keep it open.

  p. 286 ‘where they frequented … Mr. Bedaux’s brother’ Worthing E. Hagerman, Lisbon, ‘Memorandum to Secretary of State, Whereabouts of Charles E. Bedaux, a naturalized American citizen’, 9 June 1942, 100- 49901-8, US National Archives, College Park, Maryland.

  p. 286 ‘It is also requested’ J. Edgar Hoover to Special Agent in Charge, New York, 1 August 1942, FBI Files, unnumbered, released under Freedom of Information Act, FOIPA No. 1088544-001.

/>   p. 286 ‘He is reported’ N. L. Pieper, FBI, San Francisco, to Director, FBI, 2 September 1942, FBI Files, unnumbered, released under Freedom of Information Act. FOIPA No. 1088544-001.

  p. 287 ‘Fred Ledebur is alleged’ G. R. Levy, FBI, New York, ‘Memorandum for Mr. Ladd, Re: Frederic Ledebur, Espionage–G’, 31 July 1942, FBI Files, unnumbered, released under Freedom of Information Act. FOIPA No. 1088544-001.

  p. 287 ‘Will you please forward’ Wendell Berge, Assistant Attorney General, ‘Memorandum for the Director, FBI, Re: Charles E. Bedaux’, 16 October 1942, FBI Files, unnumbered, released under Freedom of Information Act. FOIPA No. 1088544-001.

  PART FIVE: 1943

  Chapter Thirty-one: Murphy versus Bedaux

  p. 291 ‘there are six documents’ John Edgar Hoover, Director, FBI, ‘Memorandum for Mr. Tolson, Mr. Tamm, Mr. Ladd’, Document 100- 49901-[illegible], Federal Bureau of Investigation Archives, file provided under a Freedom of Information Act request. FOIPA No. 1088544-001.

  p. 292 ‘inquire of General Eisenhower’ John Edgar Hoover, Director, FBI, ‘Memorandum for the Attorney General’, 4 January 1943, Federal Bureau of Investigation Archives, unnumbered file provided under a Freedom of Information Act request and unnumbered. FOIPA No. 1088544-001. (The FBI and Department of Defense declined to supply the author with the War Department’s file on Bedaux that Ladd had attached to the memorandum.)

  p. 292 ‘lodged comfortably in a villa’ Gaston Bedaux, La Vie ardente de Charles Bedaux, Paris: privately published, 3 June 1959, p. 85.

  p. 292 ‘I have had photostatic’ D. M. Ladd, ‘Memorandum for the Director’, 10 January 1943, Federal Bureau of Investigation Archives, file provided under a Freedom of Information Act request and unnumbered. FOIPA No. 1088544-001.

  p. 293 ‘Mr. Foxworth attempted’ G. O. Burton, ‘Memorandum for Mr. D. M. Ladd’, Federal Bureau of Investigation Archives, File 100-49901-30 provided under a Freedom of Information Act request. FOIPA No. 1088544-001.