Rosie's War (31 page)

Marek got away from Marseille in April 1942. He sent me a telegram from America of just one word: ‘Safe.’ He enlisted in the US Army the following year. The last time I heard from him was a letter in late 1943 from ‘somewhere in England’.

Hoytie Wiborg arrived safely in America not long after I got back to England. I received a kind letter from her in May of that year; the headed notepaper was (appropriately) from one of the Vanderbilt mansions on Fifth Avenue, New York. I never heard from her again. She died in 1964.

Nancy Wake went back to Australia after the war. On the death of her second husband, she settled in the Stafford Hotel in London, selling her collection of medals to finance her stay. For the past few years she has been at a home for ex-service people in Richmond, West London, financially supported (according to press reports) by Prince Charles.

Sofka Skipworth was released from the camp at Vittel in 1944. She returned to work for Laurence Olivier after the war. She remained a committed Communist, retiring to Bodmin Moor in Cornwall. I would see her from time to time when I visited my sister, Joan, who lived near by. Her life story,
Sofka: The Autobiography of a Princess
, was published in 1968 by Hart-Davis.

Mr Sutton sent me a charming letter in August 1945. He was by now at the British Consulate General in Strasbourg. He wrote: ‘As you may observe … I survived.’

The Caserne Vauban at Besançon continued as a military camp until just a few years ago. It now belongs to the municipality of Besançon, which plans to redevelop the seven-acre site as a housing complex. It is in a derelict condition and seems to be a favoured place for local youths to hold (unauthorized) parties.

The Vittel camp was used in the latter stages of the war to house Jewish prisoners en route to almost certain death in concentration camps in Germany and Poland. It was liberated by the Allies in September 1944. The Grand Hotel is now part of the Club Med organization.

After leaving SOE, Rosie worked first for the Labour MP Tom Driberg and then for the editor of the
New Statesman
, Kingsley Martin. She later became a professional journalist and was for many years a theatre critic at
The Sunday Telegraph
and the
Financial Times
. She was married twice: first to the political journalist Ian Mackay, who died in 1952, and then to the newspaper and BBC journalist Julian Holland, by whom she had two children. She stayed a North London girl all her life and, after her divorce from Julian, lived in Primrose Hill until her death in 1996.

Picture Acknowledgements

Thanks to David Woodroffe for the wonderful illustrations
(I)
,
(II)
and
(III)
.

Thanks to Jimmy Knight for permission to use the evocative sketches by his mother Frida
(I)
,
(II)
,
(III)
,
(IV)
,
(V)
and
(VI)
.

Thanks also to the following agencies who supplied images for the plate section.

(I)
: Guerre 1939–1945. Besançon.

Camp d’internés civils. Vue des immeubles.

© Photothèque CICR (DR) (Image reference: V-P-HIST-E-00793)

(II)
: Mémorial de la Shoah/CDJC

(III)
: Mémorial de la Shoah/CDJC

Footnotes

¹
 Germany was at war with Britain and France from September 1939 but there was hardly any fighting that winter of the so-called Phoney War. The following spring, however, the German blitzkrieg campaign saw its army overrun much of Western Europe in a few weeks.

²
 A reference to the Bank of France’s 200 largest shareholders (who represented virtually all the great French families). Until 1936 they were the only shareholders allowed to vote in its General Assembly. There was a widespread feeling that the country was effectively run by these families.

³
 The brainchild of the Norwegion explorer Fridtjof Nansen, these were internationally recognized identity cards given initially to refugees from Russia fleeing the Bolshevik Revolution. They were issued under the auspices of the League of Nations by various countries, in this case the United Kingdom.

⁴
 The Marquis of Vauban, an adviser to Louis XIV in the seventeenth century, was one of the greatest military engineers of all time. He upgraded or constructed hundreds of fortresses in France, a number of which are now UNESCO World Heritage sites.

⁵
 The food situation was worsening. Substitute products – known as national or ersatz – were increasingly used. There was bitter resentment at German requisitioning of French goods and foodstuffs.

INDEX

Index Note: Rosemary Say is abbreviated to RS in parts of the index. Where the full names of people have not been included in the book an identifying note in parenthesis has been added to their entry.

Alain (workman at Vittel)
(1)
,
(2)
,
(3)
,
(4)

America
see
United States of America

American Ambulance Corps.
(1)

American Hospital, Neuilly
(1)
,
(2)

arrest (RS’s)
(1)
see also
Caserne Vauban barracks; escape; Vittel

art and artists
(1)
,
(2)
,
(3)
,
(4)
see also
Manguin, Père

Atkins, Vera
(1)

au pairing
(1)
,
(2)
,
(3)
,
(4)
,
(5)

Australia
(1)

Avignon town
(1)
,
(2)
see also
au pairing; Manguin, Odette and Claude

Balkans
(1)

Bank of France
(1)

Barcelona
(1)
,
(2)

BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation)
(1)
,
(2)
,
(3)
,
(4)
,
(5)
,
(6)

Besançon
(1)
,
(2)
see also
Caserne Vauban barracks

black market
(1)
,
(2)
,
(3)
,
(4)
,
(5)

blackouts
(1)
,
(2)

Blitz
(1)
,
(2)

Bluebell Girls
(1)
,
(2)
,
(3)

boarding school
(1)
,
(2)
,
(3)
,
(4)
,
(5)
,
(6)

Bobby (boyfriend in London)
(1)
,
(2)
,
(3)
,
(4)
,
(5)
,
(6)

Boinet, André
(1)

books
(1)
,
(2)
,
(3)
,
(4)
,
(5)
,
(6)
,
(7)
,
(8)

boyfriends
(1)
,
(2)
,
(3)
,
(4)
,
(5)

Bobby
(1)
,
(2)
,
(3)
,
(4)
,
(5)
,
(6)

Marek
(1)
,
(2)
,
(3)
,
(4)
,
(5)
,
(6)

Patrice
(1)
,
(2)
,
(3)

Brierly, Penelope
(1)
,
(2)
,
(3)
,
(4)
,
(5)
,
(6)
,
(7)
,
(8)

Britain, Battle of
(1)

British Embassy and Consulates

France
(1)
,
(2)
,
(3)
,
(4)
,
(5)
,
(6)

Portugal
(1)

Spain
(1)
,
(2)

British forces
(1)
,
(2)
,
(3)
,
(4)

British Government
(1)
,
(2)
,
(3)
,
(4)
,
(5)
see also
Churchill, Winston; RAF

bronchitis
(1)
,
(2)
,
(3)
,
(4)
,
(5)