Andrée's War (9 page)

On the morning of the 11th, a small number of Parisians ignored the German directive and made their way to the Arc de Triomphe to pay tribute to their war dead. Others made their way to the statue of Clemenceau halfway up the Champs-Élysées. As Cobb has noted, ‘Clemenceau had been Prime Minister of France at the end of the First World War, and for many was a symbol of France's victory over Germany.' Edmond and Yvonne had both lost siblings in the war and the two rose early, dressed deliberately in English tweed and walked down from their flat to the Place de la Concorde and up the Champs-Élysées to pay their respects to Clemenceau, ignoring the German presence around them.

Andrée had been busy the previous day, searching for food:

Last night I went to Rochefort. Mother wanted me to go and get some food. Everyone there was delighted to see me. I brought back a chicken, some butter, some eggs and a Camembert. I was so pleased with myself because we cannot find anything to eat in Paris. I got home this morning and there was no one around.

The whole Griotteray family had arranged to sit down together for lunch on the 11th, knowing that Andrée had returned to Paris with some food the previous evening. Over lunch, Andrée and Alain told their parents about their plans for the afternoon. Despite his own act of defiance earlier that morning, Edmond was initially angry, saying that he was not at all happy about his son and daughter joining in the demonstration as it could turn very nasty and dangerous. Alain explained that his friends would be already making their way to their meeting-place and he could not let them down; Andrée similarly had rallied several of her friends to the cause, among them her close friend Margit.

Yvonne was quiet, resigned to the dangers both her daughter and son would be facing. Edmond realised there was not much more to be said.
They finished their lunch and Andrée and Alain put on their thick coats to protect them from the cold air. Hiding their faces with thick scarves to avoid being recognised, the Griotteray youngsters left their flat and hurriedly headed towards the Church of Notre Dame de l'Assomption off the Faubourg St Honoré where they had arranged to pick up Noël, Pascal and Jean. Friends joined them at different prearranged points and as they walked en masse towards the Arc de Triomphe, they were encouraged by the large numbers who had gathered on the surrounding streets. By mid afternoon the trains heading for the Pont de Neuilly were unusually full as more and more protestors got off at the Avenue Georges V
métro
station and made their way to l'Étoile. Others had cycled from the outskirts of Paris to the Place de la Concorde, where they left their bikes and walked.

The Champs-Élysées, one of the most majestic avenues in the world, waited for events to unfold. The streets emanating from the Étoile had borne witness for the last four months to the gloom of the citizens of Paris since the Wehrmacht had marched down the Champs-Élysées on 13 June 1940. Several buildings now carried the Nazi flag but, worst of all, the swastika was flying from the Arc de Triomphe.

An atmosphere of rebellion, defiance and resistance reigned as people started singing the ‘Marseillaise'. By late afternoon it was estimated that up to 3,000 students, some as young as fifteen, were there, demonstrating against the German invasion.
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The success of the demonstration took everyone by surprise. By early evening, as the Wehrmacht and the Parisian police caught up with events, they began to take control of the crowds and break up the demonstrators. The retaliation was predictably violent and as the police began to break up the crowd, Alain, Andrée and their friends split up and moved away in different directions. Alain moved quickly on to the rue Avenue Georges V. From there he walked down and crossed the Pont de l'Alma. Once over the bridge he successfully made his way to a friend's flat on the Left Bank where he could stay the night. Most of the French police and German soldiers had stayed around the Place de l'Étoile, chasing people down the main avenues and onto the small streets off the avenues.

Andrée and Margit moved away from the crowd arm-in-arm and headed
towards the Avenue Klébert. Should the girls be stopped, they planned to explain that they had been out walking along the Champs-Élysées, unawares, when they had been caught up in the demonstration. Andrée stayed the night at Margit's parents' place, not returning home until the following morning.

German soldiers moved in everywhere, breaking up the crowds. The
métro
stations were shut so that no one could escape to the trains. Many of the protesters were trapped. The soldiers drove their troop cars and lorries into the crowds of demonstrators, shooting indiscriminately. Some students were wounded by gunfire while others were physically attacked by the soldiers.
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The French police recorded the names of the individuals they had rounded up, while some of those detained by the Germans spent weeks in the Cherche-Midi prison.

News of the demonstration and the vicious response of the German armed forces had quickly made its way around Paris and Edmond and Yvonne were beside themselves with worry about Andrée and Alain. They sat up all night, unable to sleep. At six o'clock in the morning, half an hour after curfew had been lifted, Andrée walked in through the front door.

Her calmness over the previous afternoon's events soothed her parents' worries, but Andrée had to move quickly. After reassuring her parents that all was well, she had to get ready for work. No one knew whether Alain had been arrested or escaped, nor was there any news of her other friends, although all had previously planned escape routes and earmarked several safe houses they could go to should events turn nasty. Andrée had a quick bath, put on a black suit and ate breakfast. She wanted to get to work swiftly to find out from her police colleagues the turn of events and the number of arrests.

As the news of the day started to circulate beyond Paris, the young knew the demonstration had been a huge success. They had shown the world their defiance and their willingness to fight for freedom. There were consequences, however. The chancellor of the Sorbonne was made to resign, and the university itself was closed. Those students from outside Paris were sent home while those living in the capital had to find work to stay on. Thanks to the help of his brother-in-law, Alain managed to find a
position working at the ministry responsible for managing food supplies across France.

The demonstration may have been broken up by the Nazis, but many of those involved would go on to become the founding members of the French Resistance. It gave people the confidence they needed to believe that the Nazis could and would be defeated, though the Germans' retaliation and brutality towards the student protestors had been frightening to behold. As Alain would later be told by his new mentor, Henri d'Astier de la Vigerie: ‘Your demonstration on the Champs-Élysées was perfect… Now you must start thinking about even more important things. It is revenge we must aim for.'
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*
‘Resist the invader. The Étoile around 4 p.m.'

G
eorges Piron was restless. His train was due to arrive in Paris late morning, but as with most wartime trains it had been heavily delayed. It was late afternoon as the engine noisily steamed into La Gare du Nord.

In Brussels everyone had heard of the success of the student demonstration at the Étoile on 11 November 1940, Armistice Day, and Piron knew the time was ripe to recruit younger members into his fold.

During the First World War Piron, while a serving officer in the Belgian Army, had been a successful British intelligence agent. After the war ended, he became President of the Belgian War Veterans' Association and also of the Belgium Reservists' Association. Now with Belgium and Germany again at war, Piron was once more working for the British intelligence services. Piron and Yvonne Griotteray were old friends: through her brother-in-law Major Auguste Geno, a close friend and fellow officer, Piron had met Yvonne Stocquart as a young woman, and was impressed by her language skills and assured confidence. She went on to work for him as an intelligence messenger on British ships, taking information from Belgium via Holland to England.

Following the German occupation, Piron went home to his family in Parmiers, near the French/Belgian border, where, over the next twelve months, he recruited thirty members into a Resistance group he had created after the fall of France. Piron and his team had been stockpiling arms left by the retreating forces in the area surrounding Parmiers, in the Ariège region of France, and over the next few months had conducted acts of sabotage with these weapons whenever the opportunity arose.

Protecting himself from the cold, damp December weather, Georges stepped off the train onto the platform wearing a heavy raincoat and his favourite check-patterned hat. In his hand he carried a brown overnight
bag, out of which was hanging a copy of Belgium's national newspaper. He walked down the platform and out onto the Place Napoleon. He sensed the change in atmosphere since his last visit to Paris, before the fall of the city. As he turned towards the Place Roubaix, he decided to walk down to the Place de la Madeleine. It would take him over an hour, but the exercise would do him good. Arriving at the rue la Fayette, he turned into the boulevard Haussman and thought back to Paris at the end of the 1914–1918 war; the empty shops, the look of sadness on the faces of so many Parisians who had lost their sons in the Great War. History was repeating itself.

It was close to six o'clock as Piron left the Place de la Madeleine and continued the few hundred yards to the rue Godot de Mauroy. Between the two wars the Pirons and the Griotterays had seen little of each other, but they had kept in touch and only a couple of years previously the Griotterays had stayed with the Pirons in Parmiers on their annual trip to Brussels to visit Yvonne's parents. During their visit Piron had been impressed by Alain and Andrée's youthful confidence and intelligence. Climbing slowly up the stairs to the second floor, he wondered how Yvonne would greet him – he had not warned her of his impending arrival. The fewer written details or telephone calls about such meetings, the safer they would all be.

Piron knocked at the front door and found himself face to face with Mémé, the Griotteray's housekeeper, who had accompanied Yvonne to France when she married Edmond back in 1919. Despite the intervening years, Mémé immediately recognised ‘Monsieur Georges' and was all smiles as she shook his hand, took his small case and led him into the small salon. Hearing the commotion, Yvonne came out into the hall and as she walked into the room was both surprised and delighted to see her old friend.

They were totally engrossed in conversation when Yvonne heard Edmond walk through the front door, followed by Andrée and Alain. Both youngsters were in fits of laughter as Andrée explained how at work she had jammed a window in an unsuspecting German officer's office, causing a cold draught to flow through the room throughout the whole morning, much to his annoyance.

As they toasted his arrival with a bottle of champagne from the cellar, Piron began to explain the purpose of his visit. Repeating the words
of General de Gaulle, he declared: ‘We have lost a fight but we have not lost the war.' He went on to talk about the need to recruit Frenchmen and women who could provide information on German activities in France, to be passed on to British Intelligence.

As Piron spoke, both Edmond and Yvonne knew what was happening. Piron had come to see them with the aim of recruiting their son and daughter to work for the British intelligence services. Their parents felt proud, but also anxious. Edmond knew about his wife's activities during the First World War, but neither had imagined that their daughter might follow in her mother's footsteps.

When Piron finished speaking, Alain immediately stood up. ‘I will do anything I can to help.' Andrée wasted no time in joining in. ‘Anything, anything to get rid of the Germans.'

Alain had just turned eighteen. Andrée was twenty. Neither could have any idea how their activities over the next four years would contribute towards the liberation of France. Neither could envisage the dangers they would face or the risks they would take. Their mother had often spoken of the German occupation of Brussels during the First World War, of the shooting of her brother, their uncle, as a spy by the Germans in 1916, and the way in which her mother, their grandmother, had reprimanded German soldiers on the streets of Brussels. Yvonne did not tell her family much of her own involvement with British Intelligence during the First World War, but they knew very broadly that she had made a contribution. They had grown up understanding that to submit to the occupation of one's country by a foreign power was not an option.

Edmond was nineteen years older than his wife. He had been born in Paris in 1874, three years after Bismarck's troops had marched in and occupied the city. During the First World War he had lost his only brother, Emile, at Verdun, and as he reached his sixty-sixth year the Germans had again invaded France. He was finding it difficult to cope with what was happening to his country and his family, and as the war progressed and his son and daughter became more involved in the Resistance, tensions would build in the Griotteray household.

The door flew open as Yvette and Claude rushed into the room. They
were returning from an afternoon trip to the theatre and were eager to tell their parents about the play. The girls hugged their parents and, as they did so, Piron stood up and prepared to leave. He spoke quietly to Alain, asking him to meet his colleague Henri d'Astier de la Vigerie. Warning him to be discreet at all times, he turned to Yvonne and said, ‘Remember, the rules have not changed.'

‘I do not like it at all,' said Edmond after Piron had left.

‘We have no choice,' Yvonne said simply. ‘The Germans have to leave France.'