The Test of Courage: (A Biography of) Michel Thomas (63 page)

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Authors: Christopher Robbins

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  1. Gardes Mobiles: A section of the police ‘notoriously’ reactionary and brutal, according to the writer Arthur Roestler, ‘both in human material and tradition’, in
    Scum of the Earth
    , p 116.
  2. Refugee goes mad: Marrus & Paxton,
    Vichy France and the Jews
    , p 66.
  3. Concentration camps: The term camp du concentration was the official term, first used by Interior Minister Albert Sarraut in 1939. Marrus & Paxton,
    Vichy France and the Jews
    , p 165.
  4. French Dachau: This was the headline of the first article to appear in the international press in the
    New Republic
    on 11 November 1940. Other reports decrying conditions in the Vichy camps soon followed in the
    New York Times
    , the British papers the
    Daily Telegraph
    and the
    Sunday Times
    , and the Swiss paper
    Journal de Geneve
    .
  5. Le Vernet: The description of Le Vernet appears in the memoirs of the novelist Gustav Regler,
    Owl of Minerva
    , pp 333, 352-3. In 1941 Arthur Roestler published an account of his time in the camp after escaping to England. Undesirable foreign refugees are the ‘scum’ referred to in his title. Roestler’s description of the camp tallies closely with that of Michel Thomas. The account here is an amalgamation of Thomas’s memory and Roestler’s written record, made only months after his internment. See
    Scum of the Earth
    , pp 101-65, passim.
  6. Thirty-one camps: The totals were reported by the Rundt Commission, a Gestapo tool authorised under the Franco-German armistice to visit French camps and extract any prisoner the Germans wanted under a system known as ‘Surrender on Demand’. Marrus & Paxton,
    Vichy France and the Jews
    , pp 165-6; Fry,
    Surrender on Demand
    , passim.
  7. Honour of France: André Jean-Faure, Vichy inspector-general of the camps, prepared reports for the Chief of State, Marshal Pétain himself, although it is doubtful that he ever saw them. A member of the marshal’s staff scribbled in pencil across a report on Gurs, ‘Not to be acknowledged’. Marrus & Paxton,
    Vichy France and the Jews
    , pp 172-3.
  8. Unit C: The huts of Unit C were finally rebuilt in October 1942 but there were no Jewish inmates to benefit from the improved conditions. They had all been deported ‘to the East’. Marrus & Paxton,
    Vichy France and the Jews
    , p 175.
  9. Dysentery of the soul: Regler,
    Owl of Minerva
    , p 336.
  10. Walking skeletons: Michel Thomas has photographs in his possession taken of inmates for a later report on the camp. Their shrunken, emaciated forms are identical to the survivors of the Nazi death camps.
  11. Man of bad reputation: The report stated: ‘Mauvaise reputation, moralite doutesse. A fait I’objet d’une information pour trafic d’influence. N’a pas obtempere au refus de séjour. Decision Ministerielle d’internment, 7 Mai, 1941.’ Report provided from the archive of Serge Klarsfeld.
  12. Bureaucratic obstruction: See Marrus & Paxton,
    Vichy France and the Jews
    , pp 162-3; Fry,
    Surrender on Demand
    , p 157.
  13. Arrival in Les Milles: Michel Thomas’s arrival in Les Milles was registered with the authorities on 22 December 1941. He was given the number 2539.
  14. Les Milles: For a history of the camp, see Ryan,
    The Holocaust and the Jews of Marseille
    , pp 95-6.
  15. Saint Louis: Great Britain, Belgium and France finally agreed to grant asylum to the passengers, taking a third each. Only the refugees admitted to Britain survived.
  16. Powerful deterrent: Ryan,
    The Holocaust and the Jews of Marseille
    , p 104.
  17. Never saw the sun: Many years after working in the mine Michel Thomas discovered that the respiratory problems he had been suffering were as a result of black lung. X-rays showed that his left lung manifested ‘increased interstitial fibrosis... a complication of exposure to coal dust’. Report by Gerald Salen MD, New York, 1993.
  18. Round-up of French Jews: The BBC had announced the deportation plans to the Résistance on 24 July 1942. Ryan,
    The Holocaust and the Jews of Marseille
    , p 120.
  19. Drancy: All but twelve of the seventy-nine deportation trains left from Drancy, as did over sixty-seven thousand of the seventy-five thousand Jews. Marrus & Paxton,
    Vichy France and the Jews
    , p 252.
  20. Extra beer and cigarette rations: Porch,
    The French Secret Services
    , p209.
  21. Vichy ambassador married to a Jewess: The wife of Fernand de Brinon, Vichy’s representative in Paris, was exempted from having to wear the Star of David, but virtually condemned to house arrest. The Germans insisted that the exemption was only good for her residence in the family property in the Basses-Pyrenées near Biarritz and suggested she live continuously on the estate. Her brother was later arrested, despite being in possession of an official paper stating he did not belong to the Jewish race. Marrus & Paxton,
    Vichy France and the Jews
    , p 237.
  22. Jews constitute a national danger: Le Matin, 16 December 1941.
  23. Violation of armistice: The Prime Minister was quoted in the article ‘Laval Losing Confidence’,
    Manchester Guardian
    , 30 September 1942.
  24. Without brutality: Ryan,
    The Holocaust and the Jews of Marseille
    , p 121.
  25. Security strengthened: Ibid, p 120.
  26. Police chiefs statement: Ibid, p 122.
  27. Turkish citizens protected: Michel’s friend Nic Levy, interned with him both at Le Vernet and Les Milles, was one such Turkish Non-Deportable. He witnessed deportation after deportation at Les Milles but was never touched. After the war he opened an elegant men’s shop - Dorian Guy - opposite the Georges Cinq Hotel, and another -Soirees Elysees - in the Champs Elysees. The experience of Vichy convinced him to reverse his name to Yvel.
  28. Number of children deported: These figures have been painstakingly compiled by Serge Klarsfeld from camp records in France and Germany. The figures for 1942 are: one thousand and thirty-two under six; two thousand, five hundred and fifty-seven between six and twelve; two thousand, four hundred and sixty-four between thirteen and seventeen. Klarsfeld,
    Le Memorial de la deportation des Juifs de France
    , unpaginated.
  29. Quota requirement: By the end of 1942 a total of forty-two thousand, five hundred Jews were sent from France to Auschwitz, a figure the Germans found disappointing. For a detailed analysis of this period, see Marrus & Paxton,
    Vichy France and the Jews
    , pp 217-69 passim.
  30. Willpower: One of the legacies of the camps, Michel Thomas jokes, is an ability to go for superhumanly long periods without feeling hunger or the need to urinate. Nigel Levy, the producer of the BBC documentary on Michel, remembers: ‘I went in at nine in the morning and left at eight at night. In all that time he did not move from the armchair, ate a single packet of crisps and, as far as I remember, never used the bathroom.’
  31. Escape attempt: Many years after the war Michel Thomas met one of the children who had been taken from Les Milles on the bus that he had tried to board. The man had survived the war, and remembered the adult prisoner who had tried to escape by riding with them. The guards quickly found the escapee and arrested him.
  32. Children separated: Donald Lowrie, who was active in relief work for the World Alliance of the YMCA, wrote a memorandum in August 1942 based on eyewitness accounts of this incident. Ryan,
    The Holocaust and the Jews of Marseille
    , pp 122,254.
  33. Sam Fischer: Not the real name, which Michel was unable to remember.
  34. Bummed a cigarette: The cigarette was given to Michel by Nic Levy, the Turkish Non-Deportable (see note 28).
  35. ‘What silence!’: The observer is quoted in Bower,
    Barbie
    , pp 29-30.
  36. Lyon’s history of rebellion: See Morgan,
    An Uncertain Hour
    , pp 18-19.
  37. Communist Résistance: The secret agenda of the FTP was revealed in archives released by Moscow in the first half of the 1990s. Porch,
    The French Secret Services
    , p 214.
  38. Lyon and the Résistance: See Aron, France Reborn, p 546; Porch,
    The French Secret Services
    , pp 175-264 passim.
  39. The Maquis: The term that came to describe the whole underground movement in France. The word is Corsican and describes the rough gorse into which the bandits of the island disappear.
  40. Abbe AlexAndré Glasberg (1902-82): Redward,
    Résistance in Vichy France
    , pp 175-6; Marrus & Paxton,
    Vichy France and the Jews
    , p 207; Morgan,
    An Uncertain Hour
    , p 170; Zuccotti,
    The Holocaust, the French and the Jews
    , pp 73, 131.
  41. Hitler’s communication with Pétain: Irving,
    Hitler’s War
    , pp 444-8.
  42. Italian zone: See Zuccotti,
    Italy and the Holocaust
    , pp 75, 82-3.
  43. Lyon and UGIF: Morgan,
    An Uncertain Hour
    , pp 199-216.
  44. Disappointing results: The report is quoted in Morgan,
    An Uncertain Hour
    , p 207.
  45. Michel at UGIF office: One published account of Barbie’s life identifies Michel at the UGIF office as ‘Michel Kroskof, a Polish artist’; see Bower,
    Barbie
    , p 58.
  46. ‘Without them’: The quotes by Barbie are from Bower,
    Barbie
    , pp 41, 51.
  47. Darnand’s quotes: Morgan,
    An Uncertain Hour
    , p 105.
  48. Background to Milice: Kedward,
    Occupied France
    , pp 66-7; Marrus & Paxton,
    Vichy France and the Jews
    , p 335; Ousby,
    Occupation
    , p 267-75.
  49. Arrested by Milice: Michel’s arrest was in Grenoble on 30 March 1943. Report on the service and activities of Mr Michel Kroskof-Thomas in the Résistance and Maquis, French Forces of the Interior, Isere, Section IV: signed by Captain Dax, St Ismier, 4 December 1944. Copy read and certified by Secretary General of the Departmental Committee of National Liberation of Grenoble, 22 August 1957 (signature illegible).
  50. Michel’s betrayal: Today, Michel Thomas says of this incident: ‘I always wondered what I would do if I saw the young man who betrayed me again - and I did, on a street in Paris at the end of the war just before I went to the United States. Instinctively, I stepped forward and embraced him. And we had a very pleasant lunch together. I was happy to see him, and happy for him to see me alive so he wouldn’t have guilt. It was done and finished.’
  51. Control of pain: This is not as unusual or extraordinary as it sounds. Professor Patrick Wall, a practising London physiologist, has spent a lifetime studying pain. His research has led him to believe that whether a sensation is interpreted as painful depends on what else the brain is attending to at the same time. Soldiers in the heat of battle often do not know they have been wounded; athletes continue to play after sustaining severe injuries. The brain prioritises. See Wall,
    Pain
    , passim.
  52. Rene Gosse: For the role of academics in the Résistance, see Kedward,
    Résistance in Vichy France
    , pp 74-5. Gosse and his son were later murdered and their bodies were found in a ditch outside Grenoble. His colleagues deduced that both men had been tortured, and that the son had been killed in front of the father.
  53. Sammy Lattès: After the war Lattès, a professor of Italian literature, became a national inspector of education.
  54. Résistance positions: All these roles are recorded in the FFI (Forces Francaises de PInterieur) report.
  55. Dax: The nom de guerre of Jean Berfini, a well-known Résistance figure based in Montbonnot.
  56. BBC coded message: Kedward,
    In Search of the Maquis
    , p 174.
  57. Capture of head of Secret Army: General Delestraint survived torture and two years’ incarceration in a German concentration camp. He was murdered by the Nazis as Allied troops advanced in 1945.
  58. André Valat: After the war he became president of the veterans of the Grenoble and Gresivaudan Résistance until his death in 1996. There is a memorial to the memory of Georges Chappuy and Jean Nogues on the site of the encounter with the Germans outside Biviers. It reads: ‘French Résistance, Biviers Group. Here fell our comrades shot by the Germans on 17 June 1944 during a dangerous mission.’ The men were awarded the Croix de Guerre.

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