Escape from Paris
Page 33
8. Harding-Claerebout 2017.
9. American Heroine, 165. One of the key leaders of the women’s revolt at Torgau was Jeannie Rousseau, a French intelligence agent who had been providing vital information to the Allies regarding German efforts to develop and deploy the V-1 flying bomb and V-2 ballistic missile. Arrested just days before the June 1944 Allied landings in Normandy, she ultimately survived Ravensbrück, Torgau, and the “punishment camp” at Königsberg. Her crucial role in alerting the Allies to the dangers of the German V-weapons did not come to light until the 1970s, and she was always dismissive of her important contributions to the Allied war effort, saying many others did far more. She died in August 2017 at the age of ninety-eight.
10. Harding-Claerebout 2017.
11. The village is often confused with the much larger town of Abterode, some 22 miles to the northwest in Hesse. Indeed, even the bureaucrats who managed Nazi Germany’s vast concentration-camp system used the incorrect “Abterode” on official documents, including those that recorded the transfer of Yvette and Denise Morin to the camp, which is often referred to as Abteroda-Berka because of its proximity to the town of Berka/Werra.
12. Other production sites for the BMW 003 axial flow turbojet engine included salt mines in Heiligenrode, Ploemintz, and Stassfurt. The 003 was used in prototypes of the Me 262 fighter, and in production models of the Arado Ar 234 bomber and Heinkel He 162 fighter.
13. Working around Torgau’s acid baths was so debilitating that the women were completely replaced by new groups of female prisoners sent every six weeks from Auschwitz and other camps. Surviving records indicate that more than half of the women sent back to Ravensbrück from Torgau did not survive the war. Hermann Pister, for his part, was arrested by American troops and ultimately tried and convicted for his crimes at Buchenwald. He was sentenced to death, but died of a heart attack in Landsberg Prison before the sentence could be carried out.
14. Individuelle Dokumente KZ Buchenwald, Morin, Denise (Besondere Borfommnisse) (the latter phrase is usually translated as “special activities”); Individuelle Dokumente KZ Buchenwald, Morin, Yvette (Besondere Borfommnisse). These documents carry the Buchenwald identification because Abteroda was an Aussenkommando of that larger camp. Each document indicates that the subject was actually located at Abteroda (though the word is incorrectly spelled on both as Abterode).
15. Harding-Claerebout 2017.
16. Why Abteroda’s SS commander believed that starving slave laborers from any camp in the Nazi system might be expected to perform error-free technical work for the regime that was working them to death is unclear.
17. Details on the layout, organization, and conditions at Markkleeberg are drawn largely from two excellent books: Susan Ottaway’s A Cool and Lonely Courage: The Untold Story of Sister Spies in Occupied France, and Snow Flowers: Hungarian Jewish Women in an Airplane Factory, Markkleeberg, Germany, by Zahava Szász Stessel.
18. Their arrival was documented on the same Individuelle Dokumente KZ Buchenwald, Morin, Denise (Besondere Borfommnisse) and Individuelle Dokumente KZ Buchenwald, Morin, Yvette (Besondere Borfommnisse) as cited above.
19. KL Buchenwald Arbeitseinsatz, Häftlingskommando für Junkers, Markkleeberg.
20. Harding-Claerebout 2017.
21. Ibid.
22. Snow Flowers, 168.
23. Harding-Claerebout 2017. The Jewish prisoner’s name has sadly been lost to history. Yvette described her as an “angel,” and remembered the woman telling her that when the SS arrested her they nailed her nine-month-old baby to a door and then executed her husband on the spot.
24. Yad Vashem—the Israel-based Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority—estimates that up to a quarter-million concentration camp prisoners died or were murdered on the forced death marches conducted during the last ten months of World War II in Europe.
25. The Nazis referred to the region as the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The route of the Markkleeberg death March was Meissen-Niederau-Dresden-Freital-Tharandt-Höckendorf-Dippoldiswalde-Theresienstadt. The latter is now Terezín in the Czech Republic.
26. The Line of Contact was simply the demarcation between the Soviet forces and those of the American, British, and French armies, and in many areas was far to the east of the occupation zone boundaries agreed to by the Allies at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. Following the German surrender on May 8, 1945, the western armies withdrew to the stipulated areas. The new line ultimately became the border between East and West Germany.
27. Located at 19 avenue Kléber in Paris’s 16th arrondissement, the building was occupied by the Germans’ Militärbefehlshaber Frankreich (Military Commander in France) until the liberation. It then housed various Allied organizations, and is now the luxury hotel Peninsula Paris. The MIS-X office was usually entered through the rear of the building, at 30 rue La Perouse, which is now a separate establishment known as the Majestic Hôtel-Spa Paris.
28. Visit of Madame and Mademoiselle Morin.
29. Declarations, Morin, Madame Denise.
30. MIS-X to IS9 (Donald Darling, Awards), Ref: Mme and Mlle Morin. The sum of FF 22,000 would be worth approximately $6,000 in 2018 dollars.
31. Madame Gladys Oriot had given Yvette English lessons after Joe left Paris. The missive was sent via Major John F. White’s office at MIS-X in Paris, with a foreword by Madame de Larminat asking the officer to forward the letter to Joe, “of whom no one of us has any news.”
32. Deportee Questionnaire, Subject Georges Julien Morin.
33. It remains unclear exactly who authored the letter, though it may have been either Germaine Mercier or André Schoegel.
EPILOGUE
1. Final Payment Roll, USAAF Separation Center, Roster No. 15, Group D, Cornwall, Joseph E.
2. Letter, M. J. Furness, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, to Joseph E. Cornwall.
3. Details on Joe Cornwall’s USAF service are drawn from his Official Military Personnel File and his National Archives Form 13164.
4. Harding-Gypin 2017. See also State of Colorado, County of El Paso, Marriage License 44008.
5. Death Certificate, Joseph Ellison Cornwall, Adams County Colorado, February 2, 1993.
6. Letter, Major John F. White to Madame Veuve Denise Morin, May 14, 1946.
7. General Order 362, HQs., U.S. Forces European Theater, December 26, 1946.
8. General Order 364, HQs., U.S. Forces European Theater, December 27, 1946.
9. The award grades and dates of presentation are detailed on MIS-X (Paris) copies of IS9 note cards “Morin, Denise,” “Morin, Yvette,” and “Morin, Georges.” Why Georges could not have been posthumously awarded a decoration of higher grade is unclear.
10. France’s highest order of civilian and military merit has five grades of increasing distinction, with progression through the first three normally based on the time an individual has held each grade. According to records provided to the author by the Legion’s Grande Chancellerie, Denise Morin was created a chevalier (knight) by decree on July 13, 1961, an officier (officer) on October 30, 1963, and a commandeur (commander) on July 9, 1981. The most recent was bestowed on Denise by General Albert Marie Gabriel de Galbert, who was at that time the governor of the Invalides. Yvette Morin-Claerebout was created a chevalier by decree on January 25, 1967, and an officier by decree on December 4, 1975. Note that several months can pass between the time of the decree and the actual presentation of the award.
11. Harding-Claerebout 2017.
12. The description of Raoul Claerebout is based directly on his daughter’s memory of him. In a 2017 interview Ellen Hampton conducted on the author’s behalf with Yvette Morin-Claerebout and her daughter, Denise Weil, the latter described her father as “a gambler, a cheat and a violent drunkard.” Moreover, Mme. Weil remembered Raoul’s mother as “a monster” who abused everyone and tried to get any money coming to Denise Morin and Yvette from war benefits.
13. Justification du Projet et Definition des Tra
vaux Proposes.
APPENDIX
1. Details drawn from the May 14, 1945, letter to Louise M. Dickson from John Harding.