Andrée's War (27 page)

The dress was made of fine, almost silk-like, navy-blue cotton. Large pearl-coloured buttons were sewn down the front, and the material was gathered at the waistline. She also had a hat from Lemonier, one of Paris's most famous hat designers, which she had won in a raffle in aid of prisoners of war at the races at Le Tremblay.
*
To complete her outfit, she had her shoes from Bordeaux and the brown crocodile handbag she had been given for her twenty-first birthday. All in all, considering what lay ahead, she looked remarkably poised and calm as she ate her breakfast.

Yvonne, who suffered from asthma and was not feeling well that day, sensed that something important was happening. Andrée had not told her parents anything about the plan, to avoid any risk to them, but her mother suspected that it was to do with Martial. She watched her daughter nervously as she dipped bread into her coffee. Edmond, who had returned unexpectedly the previous evening from Rochefort, was restless. He had wanted to listen to a BBC broadcast, but as soon as Yvonne realised that he was setting up the radio, she told him furiously to put it straight back in the cellar. If the flat was ever searched and a radio was found, there would be serious repercussions for the whole family.

Andrée looked at herself in the mirror, adjusted her belt and felt confident that the result was what she had hoped for. Edmond looked up from his paper and complimented his daughter. Yvonne sensed danger, but hugged her daughter goodbye and didn't ask questions.

Andrée walked purposefully into The Claridge and made her way to the large salon. The General
*
had been asked to stand by the mantelpiece and wait for a young lady to approach him. The Claridge was unusually quiet. Andrée saw the tall, stiff military-looking man and felt sure he was her target. She walked towards him and greeted him confidently. Despite wearing civilian clothes, he looked so German. The cloth may have been British, but the suit had not been made in Savile Row.

Andrée suggested they move into the restaurant and as she led the way, the General asked where she had learnt her German. François was already at the table. He stood up to greet his guests and as they sat down they took stock of each other discreetly. The dining room was small, with only a few tables, spaced to give guests some privacy. The tables had been formally laid with thick white linen tablecloths. The head waiter did his best not to show any surprise at the young French pair having lunch with a German who appeared to be in his late forties.

François offered the General a drink and they settled on a bottle of Bordeaux. He was pleased to see that his guest appeared to know his wine. The hotel was noted across Paris for its foie gras, and so it was agreed they should start with that. François told the General that the béarnaise sauce was also outstanding and suggested Charolais to follow. As they discussed the menu, Andrée forgot to be nervous; she was too busy contemplating the amazing meal they were about to have.

After ordering, François came straight to the point. He spoke quietly but clearly in French, which Andrée translated. After assuring the General that they were in a trusted environment where no one could overhear them, François explained that a friend, Martial de la Fournière, was to be taken to the Gare de Pantin within the next few days and put on a deportation
train for Buchenwald. They were prepared to offer the General a substantial amount of money in return for his help in securing Martial's escape.

The General was prepared for the proposal. He named his figure, to which François agreed, and he said simply that he understood the request and knew how he would implement it. Andrée opened her handbag discreetly and passed to the General a piece of paper with the date and time that Martial and the other prisoners were to be moved. They agreed to meet at The Claridge Hotel on the day the train was due to leave, from where they would drive together to the Gare de Pantin.

François stated rather delicately that the General would only be paid once Martial had been freed. The General agreed. As the foie gras arrived and they began to eat, Andrée and François exchanged glances; both knew they had no option but to trust their dining companion.

The day arrived. Their pre-arranged plans began smoothly; the General picked up François from outside The Claridge. That morning Andrée went into her father's study and took the key to the cellar from his desk. In the cellar she carefully moved aside the wine bottles and took out some of the gold coins. Back upstairs she packed a bag with some of Alain's old clothes for Martial. Then she left for François's flat on the rue de Bourgogne; once they had Martial, they would take him there to rest for a few hours before moving him to a safer location.

With a soldier at the wheel, François and the General drove to the station. They arrived on the platform as the prisoners were herded onto the carriages. Soldiers were shouting at the prisoners to move faster and François was alarmed at the chaotic scene; how would they even find Martial in the midst of all this, let alone extract him? But the General seemed to know exactly where to stop the car. Telling François to remain seated and on no account to draw attention to himself, he stopped a German army captain and demanded that prisoner de la Fournière be brought to him immediately.

The captain was taken aback. He protested that he had not received any orders instructing him to hand over any of the prisoners. The General shouted at him to obey the order immediately or face the consequences:

‘I want that prisoner handed over to me. We have not finished with that one yet.'
¹⁷

The captain did not dare to argue further with a general of the Wehrmacht, and called for Martial de la Fournière to be found and brought forward.

Unshaven, hungry and weak, Martial did not understand what was happening when he was pulled out of line and marched away from the train. He assumed he was about to be killed as he ended up in front of the General, who promptly told him to get into the back of the car. He was so disoriented that when he saw François in the car he simply did not react at all.

The General instructed the driver to continue to the rue de Bourgogne. As they drove off, he muttered to François that he had taken a great risk and that the rest of their plan had better go smoothly. François assured him that they would meet Andrée with the money as promised.

Andrée was waiting anxiously inside the entrance to François's flat. She was worried the concierge might take an interest in what was going on, despite François's assurances that, although he might be curious, he was trustworthy and discreet. She listened for the car's arrival, hoping desperately that the general had not betrayed them. François was confident that money was the motivating factor at play and had told Andrée he expected no trouble, but she still feared a trap of some kind. As the car drew up, she took a deep breath and stepped out onto the street. The General and François got out of the car. Andrée handed over the gold coins, which she had placed in a small black bag. The General picked a few out and looked at them in silence for a while. He then gave the bag to François, saying he needed no payment. François, utterly taken aback, quickly opened the car door and ushered the bewildered Martial out.

The General reminded François and Andrée of their agreement. No one was ever to mention his identity to anyone. ‘I kept my part of the bargain. I hope you will always keep yours.'
¹⁸
They assured him that this would be the case and the General departed. François left immediately; it was too risky for them all to be seen together.

Still in shock, Martial followed Andrée into the flat. She led him into the bedroom and explained they had little time to waste. She ran a bath,
told him to shave, wash and then put on Alain's clothes. They were to leave shortly for her parents' flat, where Martial could stay for a little while.

Within the hour, they left the flat. Martial was able to walk to the
métro
and in total silence the two friends made their way to the Griotterays' residence. As they walked through the front door, Yvonne came out into the hall; she had been waiting for her daughter to return. As she saw Martial, she gasped, before hushing herself from asking any questions. Instead, she took him into the kitchen, sat him down and prepared an omelette, assuring him that he would be safe with them and could stay as long as he wanted.
*

It was an unlikely happy ending, but one that – as with many episodes in François de Rochefort's complicated life – raised questions that remain unanswered. How did he know the General? Why did this German officer decide to help a Frenchman at great personal risk – and why did he negotiate payment, then refuse it? None of Martial's colleague's ever knew exactly what had happened, as François refused to discuss it. Alain simply described it as ‘a miraculous escape organised by de Rochefort and Andrée with the help of a German officer.
¹⁹
In 2004, Biaggi asked me if I could shed any light on exactly how François had managed to pull off this extraordinary escape. Andrée knew her part of the story but could offer no further explanation in later years; at the time she simply accepted it at face value, feeling it could only be dangerous to think too much about it. Besides, there was no time to waste.

 

*
In late July 1944 it was becoming clear that the Nazis were losing the war; with the American forces almost in Paris, the Gestapo decided that all remaining political prisoners in Parisian gaols would be deported to concentration camps in Germany to prevent them falling into Allied hands. The prisoners at Buchenwald were not liberated until 11 April 1945 by the US Third Army division.

*
Andrée told me about the lunch they had together with a general to discuss Martial's release. She didn't name the hotel but I have assumed here that it was The Claridge – a small, discreet hotel in the smart part of town. In February 1943, Andrée was invited to the hotel for a sumptuous meal with the hotel manager's secretary. She didn't know the hotel management personally, and there was no obvious reason for such an invitation (she doesn't say why in her diary), so she may well have had some Resistance-related connection to the establishment.

*
Although horse racing in France was widely interrupted during the war, some races still took place. Normally held at Longchamps, the prestigious Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe was moved to Le Tremblay – a small racecourse on the outskirts of Paris – in 1943 and 1944. Photographs from the period show attendees enjoying a rare day out in elegant attire. The course at Le Tremblay no longer exists today.

*
Much about the General remains unknown, including his name. As Alain said in his memoir, ‘No one has ever been able to explain this extraordinary story. Martial is dead, Rochefort is dead, and my sister remembers nothing about anything.' He first described it in another book as ‘a miraculous escape organised by François de Rochefort and Andrée'. [
Qui étaient les premiers résistants?
, page 247.]

*
Martial de la Fournière was like the proverbial cat with nine lives. After his escape from the deportation train to Buchenwald, he was the only person to emerge alive from a burning apartment block in Hanoi in 1956. In yet another extraordinary event, he survived a helicopter crash in Vietnam in 1957, where all the other passengers were killed. He became a member of the Orion Resistance Group at the age of twenty-three after he and Alain Griotteray met in Vichy in 1941, and throughout the war he supplied the group with intelligence from the heart of the Vichy government. At the end of the war he received no award or recognition for his wartime services from the French Government. He did not want any. Eventually, twenty years after the end of the Second World War, Pierre Messmer (Prime Minister from July 1972 to May 1974) arranged for him to be awarded the Légion d'honneur for services rendered to his country.

O
n 10 August 1944, many of the railway workers in and around Paris went on strike, followed by many utility workers. When Yvonne returned home on 13 August from a trip to Rochefort in the countryside near Paris, it was to a city with virtually no electricity, fuel or gas, let alone food.

Andrée arrived at work on the morning of 15 August to find the building occupied by the Forces françaises de l'intérieur. To reach her office, she had to walk past a group of Resistance fighters shooting – and being shot at – from the streets. As she tried to take stock of what was happening so that she could report back to Orion she was relieved, although unimpressed, to learn that the Parisian police force – which had openly collaborated with the German occupying forces and the Vichy government for the last four years – had finally decided to change sides and support de Gaulle and the Resistance.
*

From mid August, open fighting broke out on the streets of Paris. Alain and his male colleagues were keen to be a part of the action. Andrée, meanwhile, remained focused on her role as the group's Chef de Liaison, coordinating activities and attempting to continue normal life as far as possible. Despite the events unfolding around her, she recorded in her journal going to an Edith Piaf concert on 18 August with her boyfriend Roger at the Moulin Rouge.

On 20, 21 and 22 August 1944, Andrée noted that firecrackers (‘pétarade') were being set off in the streets. Despite the gunfire and the grenades
exploding on the streets around where she lived and worked, she still felt safe enough to cycle to work on 22 August from her flat near the Place de la Madeleine to the Place de la Concorde and along the Seine to Police Headquarters, where Matthew Cobb noted, in his book
Eleven Days
, that fighting had erupted in certain parts of the building (although Andrée doesn't mention this in her journal).

Together the US and French armies, which had fought together through northern France, moved into the outskirts of the city, as thousands lined the route to cheer them on. The German forces had been fighting hard to maintain control over Paris, and it was a dangerous time for civilians and soldiers alike. The FFI were armed with guns and grenades and wore armbands to identify themselves as such. They helped the American and French armed forces enter Paris, fighting on street corners in an attempt to take over the capital's strategic landmarks.