1949-07-23 — Page 9

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, JULY 23, 1949.

• What happens if you out of the picture?

are taken

The story of a bra

oman

ODETTE

The Gestapo branded her Torealize Suh-

out her nails : Gave her the

torture of the hot cell,

and still the answer

• a mi e

I have

mothing

to say

"My colleague, Lise, is going

to pull out your toe-nnits by one, starting at toe of your left fool.

one

the

little

term-1 propose to repeat my

N 1942 an officer at- From Gibraltar she wa

tachel to Naval Intelli- taken in a little fishing boat, landed one midnight gence brondenst an op- and penl to the nation. He ask- on the South Coast of

"In between each evulsion- ed those who possessed France.

to use the correct medien photographs of any part of For six months in and about Occupied Europe to write Cannes the worked brilliantly. questions. You can bring the ceremony 1 an end at any describing their pictures.

these answering She acquired" the plans of inement by

questions. Now, Among his listeners was the naval base at

where is Ar- Marseilles,

nal?" French woman carrying the precious document wrapped round her body while living in London and mar- the train was searched by the ried to an Englishman.

1

a young

She wrote saying that she had some pictures of the French coast and that she knew France.

She was summoned to ab interview.

Gestapo.

in a moonlit feld to

which

she had gone to receive the pas- sengers from an RAF Lysat- der she was within an ace capture.

of

The Germans had set a trap for her and her companions and she only escaped from A brief interval-during savage dogs by wading walat which she was secretly deep in a freezing river. screened for security-and she was interviewed again, this time by Captain Selwyn Jepson, one of the recruit ing officers for the Special Operations Executive.

WILL

you go to Franco?

I

To her astonishment, she was asked point-blank if she would consider return- ing to France as a secret agent of the British Go- vernment.

Finally, on the night of April 16, 1943, her hide-out was surrounded and, half- asleep, Lise was arrested.

CONDEMNED

to death

The man knelt at her feet, took her left foot in his left hand and settled the steel Jaws of the pincers, tightly the tip of her nail.

Then with

slow,

ren, the sadistle commandant of the comp, stand- ing at her door to tell her that the Gestapo had ordered punishment.

tha

THE sun again

In late Sep- lember she was taken into tho sunshine for the first time. For

minutea

the sprawled on the ground while her lungs And eyes. attuned

themselves

the richness of the light and nir.

She was placed in a dirty hos pital hut.

Then,

once after 3 more short time, sho

Wa3 Jed

neross the

shine

back

sun-

to the

darkness of her old cell.

For some weeks she remain- ed in the old darkness, then she was moved upstairs and given a room with a window, from which she had an uninterrupt- ed view of the entrance to the muscular crematoriun,

around

drag, he began to pull. He

shook the pincers, and her nall fell on the floor.

So It went on till every nuit was off.

2

"Well Lise," said the young cornmissar, "I think you will And it convenient to walk on your heels for some time.

I At that time sho-and she would like to offer you a drink. alone-knew' the hiding place A glass of wine,

little of other much-sought British brandy--or, better still, a cup agents. One of these was of tea." "Arnaud" (Captain A. Rabino vich, Croix de Guerre) her radio operator, the other "Roger" (Lieut.-Colonel Francis Cammuerto, DSO, Guerre).

Croix de

able

to

ODETTE CHURCHILL G.C., M.B.L.

• as she is today..

"No. I don't understand any- thing."

"Do you want to know?"

"Not particularly."

"Will you open the gates?"! "No. The war is not over."

He gazed straight ahead and She returned to her hut. caid: "I am taking you to the Early next afternoon on S.S. Americans." From that window she was man kicked open the door and

watch the mass shouted for her. "Coma with slaughter rising to a frenzy of me at Once. It will not be In the evening, at about fury as the Allies closed in on necessary to pack your things.

ten o'clock, the car slowed Germany.

Lise sald goodbye to her down to enter a village. friends. The fact that she had been told not to bring her few Lise saw a group of soldiers belongings was to her a clear in unfamiliar uniforms. One indication of the purpose of her cuddled 'n tommy gun in the

ORDER: 'Kill all'

On April 16, 1945, an order

from was received

Himinter that every living soul in the Situng, her body quivering, Bunker in which she was con- she drank her tea.

fined was to be killed.

"How do you feel?" he asked, when she had finished. "I have nothing to say,"

Lise was taken to Paris, and

Then I shall now cause to She lodged in Fresnes Prison, was left in solitary confinement be done to your finger-tips tho for several days before

fust operation that has being same interrogation" been carried out on your feet." Summoned "for

At that moment the commis- shr sprang to attention.

It was a problem of the first magnitude for the to the notorious Gestapo hend- mother of three small quarters, 84, Avenue Foch, daughters of nine, seven, and five. Many anxious

days passed before

made her decision.

Parts.

Nho

THE AUTHOR

She went to the secret school for agents in the New Forest and, when ready for work in France, ahe given the code name "Lise."

Was

The incidents that sur- rounded her.departure were ominous enough to deter

anyone.

First

she boarded Whitley plane at an airfield in the West Country. As it was taxi-ing to rise a plane coming in smashed into it. Lise returned to London.

JERRARD FICKELL

WHE con-

Her interrogation ducted by a pollte young man in an impressive ofiles. After a splenild lunch she was asked the whereabouts of Arnaud and Roger. She repeated again and again: "I have nothing to say,"

summons.

BURNING

of the records

crook of his arm ns he stood in the middle of the road, and shouted for the car to stop.

thic

Fritz Suhren jerked the gear She walked to the gale. lever into neutral, put on the The order was faithfully Three large cars walted, the brake, and switched off carried out with seven excep- first and last full of uniformed engine. tions. And she was one of the S.S. At the running board of the middle car she saw Suhren. Ніб car was a superb black deliberately:- April 20 was her birthday, Mercedes-Benz

Seven

"Get in front, beside me," he said curtly, then, sitting down beside her, he pressed the start er and the convoy moved off,

the day when she would be 33,

At midnight

27th, on the Fritz Suhren came to her cell, He stared at her, stretched out A man in civilian clothes one finger, slowly drew who had come in spoke rapid-ull-Up across his throat. Then "You will be leaving ly, in German, and then walk- he said:

tomorrow morning

six at -cd--out.--The-commissar-said;-

D'clock

the

"The major says that I am wasting my time, and that you She was ready at six o'clock, will never talk. I do not agree in a sort of calm hopelessness, with him, but he has ordered At eight o'clock, Suhren strodo that you be taken upstairs. You into her cell. are a very fortunate

Lise.

woman,

Ife took

the her through frantic melco of the compound

to a Black Marla.

A week lator she was taken before a tribunal and condema-

ed to death.

Then the great doors of Ra- vensbruck swung

the Black Maria

open, and swayed out.

As she looked back through

For a year she was kept the grille, Lise saw nsight ber heart. 'The

which lifted

at Fresnes, not knowing at ss. were running away lo es- what hour of the day or cape the approaching. Russians. night her executioners

nightfall on Lise's birth- She was in- might come.

rumbled into day, the convoy terrogated continually. Her the concentration

nt camp answer was always the same Neustadt,

"I have nothing to say."

It was late April when she was arrested. It was Inte Octo-

A few days later, while the Lysander in which she was to travel was warming up on the airfield, news came that the Gestapo had swooped on the reception are three questions' favour, allowed her first bath,

committee Awaiting her.

'THERE

Next morning she went back Three were dead. Again to 84; Avenue Foch. The same

commissar Lisa roturned to London. .young

table,

gat al

On the third occasion she sat for hours, with a Cata three questions to which I re- "Lise," he said, "there are lina flyingboat standing by, 'quire the answers. Where is Ar waiting for · a atorm to naud?.. abate.

"No hope," said the met. officer at Inst. Once more Liso returned to. London.

The fourth time it was a Whitley again. She climbed aboard in Cornwall in rain and high wind. A

the machine rose there was

"Where is Roger?"

In the morning of May 1

FRITZ SURREN

They drove

in silence

for

Lise got out stiffly. She said

"This is Fritz Stuhren, Com- mandant of Ravensbruck Con- centration Camp. Please make him your prisoner." To Suh- ren she said: "Give me your revolver."

He took it out of its holster, handed it to her. Then..... sho turned on her heel and walked into the village.

A little inter she went back to the car, got into the front seat, and spent the whole of the first night of freedom puz- ing into the 'dorkness without moving a muscle.

That is the story of what happened to one of the out- standing British women agents sent to France. Lise was then Odelte Sansom.

She is today Odolte Chur- chill, wife of Captain Peter Churchill, a British agent cap- tured with her, whom she has since married.

They live

today with her

over two hours. When they three children in Londou."

come to n

wood the convoy

her when she was moved from Lise and her companions stopped. Suhren her solilary cell for the first took again to the teeming "Get out" time, and, D5 n very great roads.

followed by ten ininutes of out- into yet another

In the evening they limped camp. Here door exercise.

the inst. shred of discipline And gone.

Liso saw

said to Lise!

In recognition of her work and her ordeal Odelle Chur- chill holds the George Cross

15

So this was where they were and the M.B.E. going to do it.

Her story, of which this He opened the back of the only a brief outline, is told in cur, look out an armful of full for the first time in a book ofclai papers, walked to the just published. It is called the turmoll foam fringe of the trees, and made a

tho, Story of a British windows, heard the pile. Then he set fire to

and la written by Jer- machine-guns of the S.S. begin whole heap. of slutter and bang os the guards raked their targets.

THREE months in darkness ther

On May 12, 1944, handcuffed to another

captured British, woman agent. (Yolande Beck- man; Crolx, de' Guérre), Llso travelled to Karlsruhe, in Ger- she was the terrible

"It is known to us that you obtained the lay-out of the base of Marseilles. I want to know many. From there the whereabouts of this docu- takon lo ment. I give you and

minute Ravensbruck concentration camp to provide the answera."

for women, arriving in July. "I have nothing to say," she

At Ravensbruck she was put replied.

in an underground cell.

Another man had come and

For three months and 11 daya

They were the recorda

human Ravensbruck. Then he said

Lise: "Are you hungry?"

NEWS ́comes of victory

blouse back so that the corruga she was to live in that cell in a radio stood behind her. Ho drew her

A

the

"Yes,"

*There are sandwiches the car and a bottle of wine. will get thern."

GOING.

the kell, author of this series.

to the Americans

rord

of

on the training and exploits of to Chapman and Hall: the price our agents. The publishers are

155.

· ត

were wrap-

SUHREN

waits for justice

It is a most moving human document, and will surely rank among the greatest of the war books.

of May 2 she left the hut and, At some hour in the morning

stepping over the bodies of the dend, mado her way to

the camp. offices of

She do- manded to see Suhren.

The sandwiches

It tells not only the story of a paralysing jolt, the air-

While she walled she heard ped a snowy napkin and Odoito's recruitment, training, -craft hit, "the" carth. The

ret blaring out the they were made of meat and work in the deld, and torturo tlons of her spine were bare. On darkness.

nows. Berlin had fallen to the lettuce caves. He showed her in prison, but also how she to- door was wrenched open. the third vēriebra ho tald

Russians. The Cerman armies the Inbol on the wine bottle. It turned to Germany after the red-hol poker. The commis- And all through the hours in Italy had surrendered. As Liso stumbled out she Far's voice came from a

The was a Nulta St Georges and he war to give evidence that sent long the sustained herself by dream- British had reached Lubeck. said: "There, you are. A ́real many of the sadistic women any that the plane had way away.

Ing of her children in England.

French Burgundy. It goes very and mon who staffed Raven- crashed, barely ten yards

came out, tears well with these." "You know the three

bruck camp to the scaffold or In mid-August, na n reprisal streaming down, his face, from the top of a high cliff tlons. Are you now prepared for the Allled landing in

to long terms of imprisonment. the "Adolf Hitler, Fuchror of He niso brought out a for of beneath which was the to answer them-after the hors

Fritz Suhren, the comman- tumultuous sen. Back to duvres or do you want the South of France, the central Germany, is dead. He died as a crystallised, cherries, and

dant; escaped from prisen be- heating In her.cell was turned bero in

battle."

foretrial, and - was eaught fa full strength until the cell

again only a few weeks ago.. become on Inferno. No food "Really."

Ho now awaits Justice. On his orders she sild her was brought to her. That went

London again,

at the fifth attempt she went to Gibraltar by troop

full meal?"

"I have nothing to my."

ques-

Suhren

the forefront of the ate them mincingly,

"Go back to your huf.

finished with

you!

feet out of her shoes and look on for four days and nights have not off her stockings.

until she sank into a coma.

yet.!

he

? Then the convoy started ngain Lleo, In utter exhaus Uen, closed her eyes..

"You know, where I am tak ink you to7"

(THE END)

~~(London Expresn Service) ·

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