Americans in Paris: Life & Death Under Nazi Occupation (65 page)

p. 136 ‘neutrality that we … There were no sentries’
Ibid
., p. 2.

p. 137 Later, it was revealed
Note: Coster went to North Africa as one of the vice-consuls in the spy network that Robert Murphy had established under the Murphy–Weygand Agreement ostensibly to monitor American relief shipments. Afterwards, he took part in the Normandy landings as an intelligence officer. After the war, he had a career with the CIA in Vietnam and Algeria.

p. 137 ‘I remember Dr Jackson … this ethnic group … The nurses imposed … I went out regularly’
Guillon, ‘Testimony of a French PoW on His Time at the American Hospital of Paris’, p. 5.

p. 138 ‘He was taken to’
‘U.S. Hospital Aid Expanded in Paris’,
New York Times
, 29 June 1940, p. 22.

p. 139 Dean Jay and his wife
Americans in France: A Directory, 1939–1940
, Paris: American Chamber of Commerce in France, 1940, p. 126. Jackson lived and maintained a medical practice at 11 avenue Foch, just up the hill from the Jays.

p. 139 Mr Post had been
‘Reshuffle’,
Time
, 23 December 1935.

p. 140 ‘At present … we have’
‘Minutes of a Special Meeting of the Board of Governors of the American Hospital of Paris’, 26 July 1940, American Hospital of Paris Archives, File: Bound book: Minutes of the American Hospital of Paris, 1940.

p. 140 The Count de Chambrun
René de Chambrun,
Sorti du Rang
, Paris: Atelier Marcel Jullian, 1980, p. 224. Gresser was from Thurgovie and Comte from Vaud.

p. 140 ‘should endeavor to slow’
‘Minutes of a Special Meeting of the Board of Governors of the American Hospital of Paris’, 22 August 1940, American Hospital of Paris Archives, File: Bound book: Minutes of the American Hospital of Paris, 1940.

p. 141 ‘in the event of’
‘Minutes of a Regular Meeting of the Board of Governors of the American Hospital of Paris’, 19 September 1940, American Hospital of Paris Archives, File: Correspondence and Reports, 1941, and Minutes, 19 September 1940 to 7 November 1941.

p. 141 The last item of business
The 31-page report was published two months later under the title ‘The American Hospital of Paris in the Second World War’, and was used for publicity and fund raising in the United States. American Hospital of Paris Archives, File: German Occupation by Kathleen Keating and Various Other Histories, 1940–1944. The report stated on p. 9, ‘Too much praise cannot be given to Dr. Sumner Jackson, who has been a member of the Attending Staff since 1925 and who accepted the professional supervision of the wounded for the period of the war.’

p. 142 ‘sevices or municipal’
‘Minutes of a Regular Meeting of the Board of Governors of the American Hospital of Paris’, 21 November 1940, American Hospital of Paris Archives, File: Bound book: Minutes of the American Hospital of Paris, 1940.

p. 142 ‘The Winter 1940–1941’
Otto Gresser, ‘History of the American Hospital of Paris’, 28 September 1978, 14-page typescript, p. 5, Archives of the American Hospital of Paris, File: History by Otto Gresser.

p. 142 ‘Then I noticed’
Interview with Otto Gresser in Kathleen Keating, German Ocupation and Various Other Histories, p. 9.

p. 143 ‘After more questions’
Ibid
.

p. 143 With no gas for cooking
Otto Gresser, ‘Histoire de l’Hôpital Américain–4ème Partie’,
American Hospital of Paris Newsletter
, vol. 3, no. 11, March 1975, Paris, p. 4.

p. 144 ‘Thus we sailed’
Polly Peabody,
Occupied Territory
, London: The Cresset Press, 1941, p. 177.

p. 144 ‘The room was full’
Ibid
., pp. 179–80.

p. 145 ‘The curfew hour’
Ibid
., pp. 180–81. Polly’s idiosyncratic punctuation is in the original.

p. 145 ‘We cannot dance’
Ibid
., p. 181.

p. 145 ‘A new hope’
Ibid
., p. 185.

p. 145 ‘At the camps … In any event’
Ibid
., p. 187.

p. 146 ‘they either hadn’t heard’
Ibid
., p. 194.

p. 146 ‘With no more work’
Ibid
., p. 197.

p. 146 ‘The first of October … You can’t have him’
Ibid
., p. 203.

p. 147 ‘One day in September … The following days’
Thomas Kernan,
Paris on Berlin Time
, Philadelphia and New York: J. P. Lippincott Company, 1941, pp. 182–4.

p. 147 ‘The newspaper
France
’
Peabody,
Occupied Territory
, p. 205.

p. 148 ‘pedestrians hooted and’
Ibid
., p. 210.

p. 148 Polly and the journalist … ‘The cyclist rode’
Ibid
., pp. 210–11.

p. 150 ‘The Germans were … This is probably’
Janet Flanner, ‘Annals of Collaboration: Equivalism II’,
The New Yorker
, 6 October 1945, p. 36.

p. 150 Yet Bedaux endangered his wealth
Gaston Bedaux,
La Vie ardente de Charles Bedaux
, privately published, Paris, 3 June 1959, p. 71.

p. 150 He did the same for Alexandra
Martin Allen,
Hidden Agenda: How the Duke of Windsor Betrayed the Allies
, London: Macmillan, 2000, p. 58.

p. 150 Bedaux also helped
Christy,
The Price of Power
, p. 217.

p. 151 ‘He must be speaking’
Clara Longworth de Chambrun,
Shadows Lengthen: The Story of My Life,
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1949, p. 153.

p. 151 In the meantime, Hitler
Four months earlier, Franco had asked the British Ambassador in Madrid, Sir Samuel Hoare, ‘Why do you not end the war now? You can never win it.’ See Peter Collier,
1940: The World in Flames
, London: Hamish Hamilton, 1979, p. 153. The Battle of Britain, which the Luftwaffe was losing to British fighters, changed his mind about the British: ‘They’ll fight and go on fighting: and if they are driven out of Britain, they’ll carry on the fight from Canada: they’ll get the Americans to come in with them. Germany has not won the war.’ See John Toland,
Adolf Hitler
, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1976, p. 636.

p. 152 ‘the two million French’
Toland,
Adolf Hitler
, p. 639.

p. 152 ‘This collaboration must’
Ibid.
, p. 640.

p. 152 At the same time
Herbert Lottman,
Pétain: Hero or Traitor, The Untold Story
, New York: William Morrow and Company, 1985, p. 215.

p. 152 ‘careful notes’
Pierre Laval,
The Unpublished Diary of Pierre Laval
, with an introduction by Josée Laval, Countess R. de Chambrun, London: Falcon Press, 1948, p. 75.

p. 152 ‘I was placed to the right … his differences with … Laval was happy … So long as I have’
Gaston Bedaux,
La Vie ardente de Charles Bedaux
, Paris, privately published, 3 June 1959, p. 72.

p. 153 When Laval criticized
Ibid
., p. 73.

p. 153 At this time, according
Christy,
The Price of Power
, pp. 220–21.

p. 153 ‘With unconcealed pride’
Adrienne Monnier, ‘Lust’, in Adrienne Monnier,
The Very Rich Hours of Adrienne Monnier
, translated by Richard McDougall, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, p. 169. Laure Murat in
Passage de l’Odéon: Sylvia Beach, Adrienne Monnier et la vie littéraire à Paris dans l’entre-deux-guerres
, Paris: Fayard, 2003, p. 34, wrote that Valéry’s first reading of ‘
Mon Faust
’ took place in Adrienne’s flat on 1 March 1941, for the silver anniversary of Adrienne’s bookshop.

p. 153 ‘the feminine character … an ingenuous intellectual’
Ibid
., pp. 170–72.

p. 154 Carlotta sent her a cheque
Letter from Carlotta Briggs to Sylvia Beach, 17 October 1940, Sylvia Beach Papers, Princeton University Library, CO108, Box 58, Folder 2.

p. 154 ‘In case she is’
Letter from Carlotta Briggs to Sylvia Beach, 2 November 1940, Sylvia Beach Papers, Princeton University Library, CO108, Box 58, Folder 2.

p. 154 ‘I told you’
Holly Beach Dennis to Sylvia Beach, 13 November 1940, Sylvia Beach Papers, Princeton University Library, CO108, Box 14, Folder 18.

p. 155 ‘The greatest blessing’
Noel Riley Fitch,
Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation: A History of Literary Paris in the Twenties and Thirties
, New York: W. W. Norton, 1983, p. 401.

p. 155 ‘happily till the very’
Ibid
., p. 402.

p. 155 ‘He told me between’
André Guillon, ‘Testimony of a French PoW on His Time at the American Hospital of Paris’, 13-page typescript in French, p. 7, American Hospital of Paris Archives, File: André Guillon. (My translation.)

p. 155 ‘I found myself’
Ibid
.

p. 156 ‘How the Americans’
Ibid
., p. 8.

p. 156 ‘The American doctor’
Ibid
., p. 9.

p. 156 ‘Operating by day’
Otto Gresser, ‘History of the American Hospital –Part III’,
American Hospital of Paris Newsletter
, vol. 2, no. 10, November 1974, Paris, p. 3.

p. 156 General Huntziger and his wife
Le Journal Officiel de l’Etat Français
of 19 November 1941 recorded that four other hospital employees had been granted the Médaille d’Honneur du Service de Santé, Medal of Honour of the Health Service: volunteer driver Gertrude Hamilton, an American; Marie Thion de la Chaume, French director of ambulance services; and Else Rye, the chief night nurse, Danish.

p. 157 ‘I read them’
André Guillon, ‘Testimony of a French PoW on His Time at the American Hospital of Paris’, p. 12.

p. 157 ‘She had the grace’
Ibid
., p. 11.

p. 157 ‘He was alone’
‘Personnel Reste à L’Hôpital le 14 Juin 1940’, p. 5, American Hospital of Paris Archives, File: Testimony of a Wounded French PoW on his time at A.H.P, 1940, and Personnel, 1940. Mlle Svetchine is the only nurse listed whose name is Russian and begins with an S.

p. 157 ‘You undress … There was obviously’
Guillon, ‘Testimony of a French PoW on His Time at the American Hospital of Paris’, p. 12.

p. 158 Mademoiselle D. was probably
‘U.S. Acts on Clerk Jailed by Gestapo’,
New York Times
, 7 December 1940, p. 2.

p. 159 On 12 December
Herbert Lottman,
Pétain: Hero or Traitor, The Untold Story
, New York: William Morrow, 1985, p. 227.

p. 159
L’Aiglon
, or ‘the little eagle’
‘The Dead Eaglet’,
Time
, 23 December 1940.

p. 159 Laval warned Abetz
Yves Pourcher,
Pierre Laval: Vu par sa fille d’après ses carnets intimes
, Paris: Le Cherche-Midi, 2002, p. 207. Herbert Lottman, a reliable historian, writes in
Pétain: Hero or Traitor
, p. 227, that Laval drove from Paris to Vichy with Fernand de Brinon, without giving a source.

p. 160 ‘I had scarcely entered’
Pierre Laval,
The Unpublished Diary of Pierre Laval
, with an introduction by Josée Laval, Countess R. de Chambrun, London: Falcon Press, 1948, p. 82.

p. 160 At the Hôtel du Parc
Fernand de Brinon,
Mémoires
, Paris: La P. Internationale, 1949, pp. 52–4. See also Yves Pourcher,
Pierre Laval
, p. 210, quoting Josée Laval’s diary. Historian Herbert Lottman explained, ‘If Action Française [the extreme rightist, Catholic and monarchist group founded by Charles Maurras], a major influence in the cabinet, was anti-Semitic and anti-Freemason, even a certain degree anti-British, it was above all anti-German.’ See Herbert Lottman,
Pétain: Hero or Traitor
, p. 233.

p. 160 ‘a palace revolution’
Pourcher,
Pierre Laval
, p. 209.

p. 160 Pétain announced his
René de Chambrun,
Pierre Laval: Traitor or Patriot?
, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1984, p. 59.

p. 160 He sent Hitler
David Irving,
Hitler’s War and the War Path, 1933–1945
, London: Focal Point, 1991, p. 333.

p. 160 ‘This is a heavy … Even if we now’
Ulrich von Hassell,
The von Hassell Diaries: 1938–1944
, London: Hamish Hamilton, 1948, p. 150.

p. 161 Hitler accepted Ribbentrop’s
Lottman,
Pétain: Hero or Traitor?
, p. 231.

p. 161 On Sunday, 15 December
Ian Ousby,
Occupation: The Ordeal of France, 1940–1944
, London: Pimlico, 1999, p. 117.

p. 161 The ceremony was
‘The Dead Eaglet’,
Time
, 23 December 1940.

p. 161 ‘I saw for the first time’
Pourcher,
Pierre Laval
, p. 212, quoting Josée Laval de Chambrun’s diary.

p. 161 ‘The people from … where he is safe’
Pourcher,
Pierre Laval
, p. 213.

p. 161 ‘I spent the saddest’
de Chambrun,
Pierre Laval: Traitor or Patriot?
, p. 65.

p. 161 Worse came the next
Jim Christy, in
The Price of Power: A Biography of Charles Eugene Bedaux
, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1984, p. 222, writes that ‘on December 15, Joseph von Ledebur left for the Russian front’. There would be no Russian front until Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

p. 162 On Tuesday morning, 17 December
Pourcher,
Pierre Laval
, p. 213. Josée Laval in her diary for 20 December 1940 reports seeing Lisette de Brinon in Vichy with a friend named Fernande. Bernard Ullmann,
Lisette de Brinon, ma mère: Une Juive dans la tourmente de la Collaboration
, Paris: Editions Complexe, 2004, pp. 116–18.