Andrée's War (10 page)

Yvonne knew her children well, and her daughter particularly – and her own past experience gave her an insight that Edmond could not understand. She and Andrée had always been close. When Andrée described the first day of the occupation of Paris in her journal, she compared her position to that of her mother's in 1914. ‘It is ironic to think that when Maman was exactly my age the same thing happened to her. It was 1914, she was twenty-one and living in Brussels. It is 1940, I am nineteen and living in Paris.' The similarities between Yvonne and Andrée are astonishing: how young they both were when war broke out, how patriotic and determined to play a part, however small, in the liberation of their country. That Andrée should follow in her mother's footsteps and go on to risk her life to carry intelligence out of Paris is remarkable – and yet perhaps only logical, given the tight relationship they had.

In another diary entry, written the same year, she talked about her mother: ‘My darling Maman is without any doubt the person I love and will always love more than anyone else in the world. She has always been so good to me; she is so uncomplicated and easy-going. She has such a very unpleasant life but she never complains about anything. She is an angel and, what is more, Renée simply adores her.'

Yvonne and Andrée's mutual deep love for England, its language and customs was another strong bond. Yvonne had taken Andrée to England aged sixteen to stay with friends Yvonne had made during the First World War. Just as Yvonne had immersed herself into English life years earlier, so did Andrée follow suit for the twelve months she stayed in England. She was young to be away from home for so long, but Andrée had already learnt much from her mother's confidence, independence and initiative.
During the war, her mother remained her primary role model, inspiring her daughter with her proud contempt for the occupying forces in her country.

Henri d'Astier de la Vigerie was demobbed at the end of the First World War with the rank of lieutenant in the French army. In 1918, aged twenty, he was given the Légion d'honneur and, between the wars, he had developed several business interests and worked as a journalist in New York. Henri was one of three d'Astier de la Vigerie brothers, who were all to play an important role in the Second World War. François, the eldest, worked in London from May 1942 onwards, at the right-hand side of General de Gaulle, while Emmanuel, the youngest brother, ultimately became head of one of the major Resistance groups, Libération-sud, helping thousands of men to travel from the Occupied to the Free Zone, among other achievements.

Henri helped to organise the first US landings in North Africa, in Algeria, in November 1942, and in August 1944 he commanded a group of French commandos he had trained, dressed in British battle-dress, who became the first Frenchmen to land in the port of St Tropez since 1940.

One of his first acts of intelligence gathering had been so daring that it was recorded for prosperity. In 1935 his brother, then General François d'Astier de la Vigerie, had met the future Nazi head of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Goering, at a shooting party in Bavaria. Over the weekend the two men had become friends and, on his return to Germany, Goering had sent d'Astier a small gift, a silver cigarette case onto which he had inscribed the words ‘To my friend d'Astier' signed ‘Hermann Goering'.

Thinking the case might come in useful, Henri had decided to adopt it as his own and, spending an afternoon in Amiens in June 1940, met and began talking to a German air force officer. As the two men got deeper into conversation, discussing the political situation of their mutual countries, Henri offered his new found ‘friend' a cigarette, drawing special attention to his silver cigarette case with its inscription. The German officer was deeply impressed to discover that his new acquaintance was a friend of Goering's and invited him to visit the German air base just outside Amiens for lunch in the officers' mess.

While being entertained, Henri made a mental note of the number and
type of aircraft on the base, along with how many aircraft would be flying out of Amiens that day. In the mess he had an excellent lunch of wild boar with sauerkraut and, after drinking several schnapps and beers, found himself chatting to several German pilots, who told him about their reconnaissance flights over England and what they thought about the strength of the RAF.

Henri was already thinking about establishing an intelligence-gathering network. In the summer of 1940, in Lille, he had met a demobbed army officer named Justin Fatigue, who shared his anti-Vichy sentiments. In July Fatigue established a Resistance group named Alibi, whose aim was to hide as much military equipment as possible to avoid it falling into the hands of the enemy. Fatigue asked d'Astier to visit northern France, including the area around the Somme and the Pas de Calais, and report back on any information gained about the German plans to invade southern England. D'Astier, meanwhile, was concerned about how to transfer his newly gathered intelligence to the right people in London. Following his visit to the Somme, Fatigue introduced d'Astier to Piron, who had links with the Resistance group Saint-Jacques, which, in turn, had contacts within British Intelligence in London. D'Astier and Piron soon discovered they had many Belgian friends in common and grew close. It was not long before they began working together, gathering information for British Intelligence.

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.

I
n 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 willing 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.