Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris (51 page)

Toesca, Maurice.
Cinq ans de patience 1939–1944
. Paris: É. Paul, 1975.

Tomlins, Marilyn Z.
Die in Paris: A True Story of Compulsion and Murder
. New York: Raider Publishing International, 2010.

Tooze, Adam.
The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy
. New York: Viking, 2007.

Varaut, Jean-Marc.
L’abominable Dr. Petiot
. Paris: Balland, 1974.

Vaughan, Hal.
Doctor to the Resistance: The Heroic True Story of an American Surgeon and His Family in Occupied Paris
. Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s Inc., 2004.

Veale, F. J. P.
War Crimes Discreetly Veiled
. New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1959.

Villiers, Gérard de.
La brigade mondaine: Dossiers secrets révélés par Maurice Vincent, officier de police principal honoraire
. Paris: Presses de la Cité, 1972.

Vinen, Richard.
The Unfree French: Life Under the Occupation
. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

Wagman, Fernande.
The Demarcation Line: A Memoir
. Xlibris, 2004.

Walter, Gérard.
Paris under the Occupation
. Translated by Tony White. New York: The Orion Press, 1960.

Weisbrot, Robert.
The Jews of Argentina: From the Inquisition to Péron
. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1979.

Werth, Léon.
Déposition: Journal 1940–1944
. Paris: Viviane Hamy, 2000.

Wetterwald, François.
Vengeance: Histoire d’un corps franc
. Paris: Mouvement Vengeance, 1946.

Yonnet, Jacques.
Paris Noir: The Secret History of a City
. Translated by Christine Donougher. London: Dedalus, 2006.

Zasloff, Tela.
A Rescuer’s Story: Pastor Pierre-Charles Toureille in Vichy France
. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2003.

Zimmer, Lucien.
Un Septennat policier: Dessous et secrets de la police républicaine
. Paris: Fayard, 1967.

Zuccotti, Susan.
The Holocaust, the French, and the Jews
. New York: BasicBooks, 1993.

  1
A thick black smoke
Brigade Criminelle Report, March 14, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° II;
Le Matin
, March 13, 1944.

  2
unusually warm weather
Robert Delannoy to Alain Decaux,
C’était le xxe siècle: la guerre absolue 1940–1945
(Paris: Perrin, 1998), 257.

  3
burnt caramel, burnt rubber Le Pays
, March 5, 1946, and Albert Massui,
Le Cas du Dr Petiot
(Brussels: E.D.C., 1944), 10.

  4
“Do something”
Andrée Marçais,
Audition
, undated, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° II.

  5
two-and-a-half-story
Many books refer to the building as four or four and a half stories. This was not the case in 1944. The town house had an extensive renovation in 1952.

  6
“Away for a month”
Charles Deforeit, Report, March 11, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° III.

  7
The concierge … informed them
Marie Pageot,
Nouvelle Audition
, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° III.

  8
“Have you entered”
Joseph Teyssier,
Audition
, undated, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° V;
Report
, March 15, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° V.

  9
second-floor balcony Rapport des pompiers
, March 11, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° I. All references to floors, unless otherwise noted, are by the American convention.

10
human hand
Avilla Boudringhin,
Audition
, March 16, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° III, and Charles Deforeit, Report, March 11, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° III.

11
one of the younger men leaned
Jacques Delarue and Anne Manson,
“L’affaire Landru de la Libération: Docteur Petiot 21, Rue Lesueur
,” in Gilbert Guilleminault et al. (eds.),
Les lendemains qui ne chantaient pas
(Paris: Denoël, 1962), 15.

12
“Gentlemen, come and take a look”
Avrilla Boudringhin,
Audition
, March 16, 1944, and Joseph Teyssier,
Audition
, same day, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° III.

13
walked up to the fire chief
Robert Boquin,
Audition
, March 17, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° III.

14
“Are you good”
Joseph Teyssier,
Audition
, undated from 1945, and Joseph Teyssier,
Audition
, undated, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° V.

15
“What kind of question” … “I must destroy”
Ibid.

16
Sympathetic to the work
Teyssier, or “Olive,” was a member of the police resistance group Honneur de la police.

17
Later, when Teyssier Paris-Soir
, April 13, 1944.

18
“I still remember”
Georges Massu,
L’enquête Petiot: La plus grande affaire criminelle du siècle
(Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1959), 7.

19
“stabbing in the vicinity of Montmartre”
Massu,
L’enquête Petiot
, 9.

20
“somber and deserted” … “uneasy curiosity”
Massu,
L’enquête Petiot
, 12.

21
The French actress
Cécile Sorel interview,
Le Matin
, March 14, 1944. She did not discuss this fact in her book,
Cécile Sorel: An Autobiography
(New York: Staples Press, 1953).

22
“The name Marcel” … Dante’s Inferno
Massu,
L’enquête Petiot
, 13, 15, 18–19.

23
a decomposed body
Charles Deforeit, March 11, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° III.

24
a polished desk
Report, March 13, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° III.

25
His assistants, however
Massu,
L’enquête Petiot
, 23.

26
Commissaire Massu had made
Jean-Marc Berlière, with Laurent Chabrun,
Policiers français sous l’occupation: d’après les archives de l’épuration
(Paris: Perrin, 2009), 140.

27
but he had never seen
Massu,
L’enquête Petiot
, 15.

28
“nightmare house”
Massu
L’enquête Petiot
, 22.

29
“the crime of the century”
The epithet would become the subtitle of Massu’s memoir. See
L’enquête Petiot
, 229 and 244.

  1
The duke of Windsor
David Pryce-Jones,
Paris in the Third Reich: A History of the German Occupation, 1940–1944
(New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981), 8.

  2
“the laboratory of the”
Frederic Spotts,
The Shameful Peace: How French Artists and Intellectuals Survived the Nazi Occupation
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 11, 7–8.

  3
no farther than Portbou
Lisa Fittko,
Escape through the Pyrenees
, trans. David Koblick (Northwestern University Press, Evanston, 1991), 113–115.

  4
On the afternoon of
Edmond Dubois,
Paris sans lumière
(Lausanne: Payot, 1946), 57. The air raid is used with effect by Irène Némirovsky in the opening of her novel
Suite Française
, trans. Sandra Smith (New York: Vintage, 2006), 3–5.

  5
“like a badly-cut”
Alexander Werth,
The Last Days of Paris: A Journalist’s Diary
(London: H. Hamilton, 1940), 124.

  6
from the north, the east, and
Charles de Gaulle,
The Complete War Memoirs of Charles de Gaulle
, trans. Jonathan Griffin and Richard Howard (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers Inc., 1998), 59.

  7
More often, residents
Roger Langeron, préfect de police, watched from his window, June 11–13, 1940,
Paris juin 40
(Paris: Flammarion, 1946), 16, 28–29.

  8
Rumors thrived
See, for example, the telephone conversations intercepted by commission de contrôle de Dijon, Antoine Lefébure,
Les Conversations Secrètes des francais sous l’Occupation
(Paris: Plon, 1993), 58–62.

  9
estimated six to ten million
Julian Jackson,
France: The Dark Years 1940–1944
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 120.

10
Paris saw its population
Jean-Pierre Azéma,
De Munich à la Libération 1938–1944
(Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1979), 62.

11
“a boot had scattered”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,
Flight to Arras
(New York: 1942; edition 1968), 68.

12
“There never has been”
Robert Murphy,
Diplomat Among Warriors
(Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1964), 42.

13
At least sixteen
This figure only includes known cases in Paris, and not those outside, including Albert Einstein’s nephew Carl in the Pyrénées. Ian Ousby,
Occupation: The Ordeal of France 1940–1944
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 170–171.

14
stuck his arm
Nossiter,
Algeria Hotel: France, Memory, and the Second World War
(Houghton Mifflin, 2001), 3. There is some question on his method and the reasons for his suicide. See, for instance, Thomas Kernan,
France on Berlin Time
(Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1941) and Herbert R. Lottman,
The Fall of Paris: June 1940
(New York: HarperCollins, 1992), 354–355.

15
“the rights of the occupying power”
Article III of the Armistice Convention. For more on the exploitation, Jacques Delarue,
Trafics et crimes sous l’occupation
(Paris: Fayard, 1968).

16
“working together”
Robert O. Paxton,
Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order 1940–1944
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 19.

17
There were lavish
Otto Abetz, of course, downplays this part of his work in his postwar memoir,
Histoire d’une politique franco-allemand 1930–1950: mémoires d’un ambassadeur
(Paris: Librairie Stock, 1953).

18
“dancing with false” Time
, March 27, 1944.

19
As of October 3, 1940
Serge Klarsfeld,
Le calendrier de la persécution des juifs de France 1940–1944
(Paris: Fayard, 2001), I, 29–33.

20
“Aryanized”
For more on Aryanization, see Jean-Marc Dreyfus,
Pillages sur ordonnances. Aryanisation et restitution des banques en France, 1940–1953
(Fayard: Paris, 2003).

21
“eliminate all”
Law of July 22, 1941, translation by Paxton,
Vichy France
, 179.

22
“special train 767”
Serge Klarsfeld,
Vichy-Auschwitz: le rôle de Vichy dans la solution finale de la question juive en France—1942
(Paris: Fayard, 1983), 42–43.

23
75,721
Michael R. Marrus and Robert O. Paxton,
Vichy France and the Jews
(New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers 1981), note to p. 343. This figure includes 815 Jews arrested in Nord and Pas-de-Calais, noted by Serge
Klarsfeld in
Le mémorial de la déportation des juifs de France
(Paris: Klarsfeld, 1978).

24
four darkest years
Alistair Horne,
Seven Ages of Paris
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), 353.

25
A French law
Jean-François Dominique,
L’affaire Petiot: médecin, marron, gestapiste, guillotiné pour au moins vingt-sept assassinats
(Paris: Éditions Ramsay, 1980), 99.

26
Massu could have
He had, of course, worked around the legal hour before. See, for instance, Georges Massu,
Aveux Quai des Orfèvres. Souvenirs du Commissaire Massu
(Paris: La tour pointue, undated/1951), 230.

27
a total of forty thousand agents
This figure is taken from the size of the Gestapo in 1944, recorded in, for instance, Edward Crankshaw,
Gestapo: Instrument of Tyranny
(New York: Da Capo, 1994), 95.

28
The garage at No. 22
Organization Todt requisitioned the garage on September 8, 1940.

29
“calm and order” … “attacks of the communists”
C. Angeli and P. Gillet,
La police dans la politique (1944–1954)
(Paris: Éditions Bernard Grasset, 1967), 17.

30
The subordination was to be
This was the view of Philip John Stead in
The Police of Paris
(London: Staples Press Limited, 1957), 162, and others at the time, such as Maurice Toesca, who emphasized the risks of militia taking over in
Cinq ans de patience 1939–1944
(Paris: É. Paul, 1975), 168.

31
Commissaire Massu arrived
Georges Massu,
L’enquête Petiot: La plus grande affaire criminelle du siècle
(Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1959), 30.

32
At ten o’clock
Jacques Delarue and Anne Manson,
“L’affaire Landru de la Libération: Docteur Petiot 21, Rue Lesueur,”
in Gilbert Guilleminault et al. (eds.),
Les lendemains qui ne chantaient pas
(Paris: Denoël, 1962), 22.

33
“Petiot has”
Alomée Planel,
Docteur Satan ou L’affaire Petiot
(Paris: Éditions Robert Laffont, 1978), 38.

34
“Radio Paris lies”
Fernande Wagman,
The Demarcation Line: A Memoir
(Xlibris, 2004), 112.

35
Patrolmen Fillion and Teyssier still
Teyssier
Audition
, March 16, 1944, and Fillion
Audition
of same date, APP, Série J, Affaire Petiot, carton n° III.

36
“it smells like death” … “If I told you”
Albert Massui,
Le cas du Dr Petiot
(Brussels: E.D.C., 1944), 10–12.