Andrée's War (32 page)

25
. Dominique Lormier,
La Gestapo et les Français
(Pygmalion, 2013).

I would like to thank my husband Martin for his enormous encouragement, my son Alexander and my daughter Chantal for their continual support and interest from the conception of this project until its end, and also my close friend Jill Burton, whose good humour and technological prowess helped this book make its way to my publisher's desk.

Andrée's War
could not have been written without the long interviews I had with François Clerc and le comte Yves de Kermoal, both members of the Orion Resistance group, who shared with me many memories of their exploits in occupied France and to whom I am greatly indebted.

I am grateful to my grandmother, my mother, my aunt and my uncle for telling me so many stories about the French Resistance from an early age, and also to Alain for the various Resistance reunions he organised between 1985 and 2000, many of which I was able to attend and where I learned so much.

I want to thank my brother, Patrick, for giving me our mother's diaries and journals, from which I have quoted liberally, and I hope our mother will forgive me for publishing what was written, at the time, as a private record of her life in Paris during the years of its occupation.

La comtesse Patricia de Kermoal has provided much support in explaining the small details of some of the issues described in the story and I have warm and lasting memories of our stay at the Domaine de Rateau with her and her husband Yves.

I am grateful to Jean Pierre Jobelot, grandson of Henri d'Astier de la Vigerie, for his tireless checking and rechecking of my version of the political events unfolding in French North Africa in 1942 and 1943, in which his grandfather played such an important part.

I thank Frau Elke Jeanrond-Premauer for her warm welcome when I stayed at the Château d'Orion and for introducing me to Madame Jean (Marguerite) Labbé, who was a source of much information (passed on to her by her mother-in-law Madame Marie Labbé) about the events in the area surrounding the château in the early 1940s.

I spent many hours with my neighbour and friend in Ramatuelle, Madame Jeanine Nouveau, who told me about life in Paris during the Second World War, including her participation in the city's exodus as the Germans arrived in the city in 1940. Jeanine's unstinting interest in my book encouraged me to ask her questions I had never dared ask my mother or my uncle.

Jean Paul Gay checked many historical points and Irina Hands explained and translated several words and German expressions used at the time.

Dr Garry Savin checked my description of the symptoms of scarlet fever and André de Clermont explained the term Louis d'or.

Clyde Kent of Eos Operating Systems Ltd helped me fix any technical difficulties I had in recording my interviews and Erica Donnellan reread the whole manuscript several times at different stages; I would like to thank her for her ongoing encouragement and support.

Sarah Burton, my tutor on the life writing course I attended at the University of Oxford department for continuing education, encouraged me to tell my story in writing. And I would also like to thank the Society of Authors for reviewing my contract.

I would like to thank the Service Historique de la Défence for sourcing copies of the information registered by Alain Griotteray and the Centre des Archives du Personnel Militaire in Pau for obtaining copies of the certificates relating to the medals awarded to several members of the Orion group. The staff of the Service des Archives of the Préfecture de Police in Paris, the Mémorial de la Shoah and of the Musée du Général Leclerc de Hautecloque et de la Libération de Paris-Musée Jean Moulin were all very helpful with my numerous enquiries.

It is difficult to know how to thank my editor Olivia Bays for helping me turn a fascinating story into such a readable, understandable and enjoyable one.