SOFREP RadioFrancelle Bradford White first learned about her mother’s exploits in World War II when she was six years old and has been fascinated by her achievements ever since. She is a Director of the international art and antiques transport company Gander & White, and lives in England with her husband. As a fundraiser in her spare time, she has raised thousands of pounds for charitable causes, including Alzheimer’s, the disease from which her mother now suffers.
Movingly written by her own daughter, this captivating and intimate biography chronicles the astonishing courage Andrée Griotteray, a teenage girl in Nazi-occupied Paris who would become a hero of the French Resistance through her harrowing work as an underground intelligence courier. For readers of Three Ordinary Girls, A Woman of No Importance, Lis Parisiennes, The Girls Who Stepped Out of Line, and the many other untold stories of WWII’s “hidden figures.”
As if it doesn't work, you're just not using enough. You're listening to Software Radio, Special Operations, Military Nails on straight Talk with the guys in the community.
And wonderful at got Up Video. I am your host Rat and today I have a very cool guest who's reaching out to me from London. But before I introduce you to her, well you already know who she is because you clicked on the link and the name is in there and you're like, let's watch this episode. But first I got to tell you about the merch store. Okay, so make sure you go to softwap dot com forward slash merch go check out all of the branded goods. You know. We've got the coffee mugs, We've got the branded torch lights that you can go use around your home that say softwarep on them, and some shirts that I mentioned the shirts, so thanks so much for purchasing those. We also have a book club and that soft rep dot com Forward slash book hyphen Club. That's book Hyphened Club. Now, to my listener that has listened for the last five or six years, thank you for being there. To the new listener out there, I want to welcome you to the program and welcome you to the soft Rep family. And I also want to welcome, without any further ado, Francelle White, who has written the book The Paris Girl, and it is about her mother in the French Resistance, and I would like to welcome her all the way from London on our show this morning.
Welcome, good afternoon. Thank you.
You noticed with you, You're very welcome. I was so excited to have you on. And you notice how I said good morning and you said good afternoon. That's because right now I'm filming this and it's eight am in Utah and it's about what three pm instory.
Is three pm here? Yeah, yeah, I've already been to the gym and I've done the cook and everything else.
That's funny. And have you already had some tea today?
Sorry?
Have you had tea today?
No, not tea yet. It's only three o'clock. We don't have tea till four.
Oh four o'clock. Is tea time is about four o'clock?
Yeah?
Oh, so I've got you until about tea time. Perfect now, now, Anne, you know your publicist reached out and said, hey, Rad, we'd love to have you know, francell on and talk about a Paris Girl and the book Paris Girl, it kind of it's very captivating when I start reading it and I realize that it's your mom. Yes, it's my mother, and that's like you're like the daughter of the French Resistance.
Yeah, it's her story, it's her wartime story. She's an amazing person. But this part of her life is which I've written about, was between the ages of nineteen and twenty four, which is when she was in the resistance and probably through some of the most dangerous times of her.
Life, the actual Gestapo, you know, like she was living through the Gestapo and like you know, nineteen thirty nine and nineteen forty, you know, she was working at the passport office, trying to well.
That's the extraordinary think. She was working at police headquarters when Moore was declared and the Germans marched into Paris. And when they marched into Paris, they took over police headquarters because obviously they became responsible for the police, and she was she had to stay there. She was a civil servant, and she wasn't allowed to sort of resign, which she probably would have liked to have done, and it worked her advantage. She stayed there for four years. She had to work with the Nazis who were there, and by working with them, she was able to fool them around a bit, and she was able to become a courier type type up an underground newspaper under their eyes without them noticing what she was doing. It was quite remarkable looking back on it.
You know, she was just involved in all of the chatter going on. Right She's in the office. She's like in the police headquarters or police station of any facet right where we didn't really have the internet, didn't have you know, radio communications, but she's in there listening to it. All that's right over here and so and so down the street over there, and so she's able to like just capture all this intel.
Yes, yes, so well, I think her resistance work was separate to what she was doing at police headquarters. She was at police headquarters because she was responsible for issuing passports and ID cards to the people of Paris or the people who needed them.
So yeah, yeah, and it's a very detailed job, as you talk about in the book, where you know, there's just like little things on the passports that they have to always be you know, in all details, yes, all the little details, because people are coming in and they're like, how long are you staying here? Are you here for two months? Three months? With your purpose?
Yes? Yes, yes, but I think that was her, That was her cover because as the war progressed kind of by nineteen forty, late nineteen forty, my uncle who was her brother, started up and started up an underground newspaper and they needed somebody who would type up that newspaper. So they needed a kind of typewriter, and then they needed paper, they needed ink, they needed roneo machines, ronio machines with the machines that built today it's photo copying machines to print out this this newspaper that they had drawn up and that she typed up and then printed, and having done all that, they took it out into Paris and distributed, distributed.
And it's like the students mainly at that time, right, because here she is eighteen, nineteen twenty years old, right, and her circle of influence is a younger generation of her friends.
Right, Yes, that's right, that's right, and they see what's going on. They see the infant station, infestation of like fascism and communism coming in and.
Yeah, well, they earmarked, they earmarked the students, They earmarked the youngsters because they knew that they were young and they were the ones that they were trying to entice to join the resistance and join them. And also what her group were doing as the war progressed, they were trying to get young men who were mainly students, to escape France, and so they would arrange for their travel down to the Pyrenees in between France and Spain and get them across the Pyrenees and then they'd make their way to French and North Africa where they join up with the French army. So this was another very big part of the work that they were doing.
And then she became a mom with you, you know, I mean, let's think about all of this for a second, like the whole spectrum here, she lives through all of this, does all of what she does in your book, which we could talk about it all the time. I want my reader, I want my listener to go and get your book, right, it's going to be out there.
That's wonderful. It'd be great if they'd buy it.
Yeah, yes, yes, yes, buy the book and read about her mom. But her mom then became her mom like and had to deal with, you know, raising a family and raising well, it's.
Unusual what happened because she was French and at the end of the war, when the Americans and the British arrived in France, she started going out with the Gis and the British officers, and along the way she met my father who was British. So she married him and then came to England and left France behind.
Yeah, she's okay, time for a new life. And what was your what is your dad? What was your dad's what was he was?
He was he was in the Royal Air Force at the time. He was in the Royal Air Force. He served for four years and Royal Air Force. He was in the Middle East first and then he came back to Europe and he was sent to France to arrange for the RAF the logistics to leave France, not the aircraft, but all the land land things that belong to trucks and things to leave France. But that that's how they met because of she because she'd been in the resistance. She was on the French embassy I'm sorry, on the British embassy list. And so when there was a party. She was invited to go to it where my father was also.
Right, and then also your mom was kind of hanging out with social lights of the scene and you know actors and playwrights, right, did I read about that?
That was earlier on?
That was that was that was earlier on. But I mean she did have this just ability to.
All. She had an amazing life. I mean, she was living in central Paris. Her her half sister was one of France's leading actresses at the time, her brother in law was one of France's leading playwrights. So she had access to an awful lot of what was going on artistically in Paris at the time, apart from her resistance work and her work at police headquarters. Yeah, so it's quite an involved life. But she loved America. She loved America because after my father died in nineteen sixty six, she took over his business and she used to have to go to New York on business and just loved her time there.
She's just all over. And so your father passed away relatively young on her.
He was sixty one, and he was in art logistics. He had an art logistics company called Gandra and White, and she took it over from one day to the next. She was only forty five, and one of the first things she had to do was go to the United States to talk to her clients who were in America, and she just loved it. And they were so kind to her and helpful and kept her going.
You know, and just to kind of like talk about your book a little bit here, you know, I'll read the press release out loud, and so if you'll bear with me, the Paris Girl, the young woman who outwitted the Nazis and became a World War two hero by francell Bradford White. And you know, of course that's who we're talking with, is France. All so let me read this paragraphs here. In the dark days of World War Two, as millions of people were suffering, a powerful resistance movement was being established in France. Citizens were starving, German soldiers patrolled the streets of Paris. French scigns were replaced by their German equivalents, and the French flag was hidden away. It was during this time as the Gestapo took control of Paris. That is it andre gritature.
Yes, yes, then.
We would make a remarkable contribution to the war effort with a dazzling combination of bravery, modesty, and energy. She would go on to become one of the most highly decorated women of World War Two. Her success in outwitting and fighting the Nazis knew no boundaries. The Parish Girl, written by Andre's daughter Franzel, which we have will be based upon her mother's journals written in detail throughout World War Two from nineteen thirty nine to nineteen forty five. So not only is this a fascinating glimpse into life during wartime through these vivid journal entries, but an examination of the character of bravery by one of the most decorated women women of World War Two for her role in defeating the Nazis. So what makes a resistance fighter? How does one become a fearless patriot? Is it genetics, language, presence of mind, access, being eccentric, having initiative? The book uses Andrea as a look into characteristics of someone waging a personal fight for the greater good with a combination of wit, cunning, bravery, and courage. You know your mom is awesome and I've learned to say that Mom's rock. You know I'm a huge. I love my mom, and you know, and I know you love your mom, and this is your way of being able to put your mom out there and immortalize more of her in a book. From your first hand account of mom, you know, she'd probably talked to you, she'd probably sing to you. She'd probably say little things to you that now that you're older, you pick up on.
Well, that's quite interesting what you're saying. Because I grew up with the French Resistance, I mean right from being a very small child, and she would tell me anecdotes and stories, but I never really understood the bigger picture of what she was doing. And it was when she developed dementia and I decided that I was going to write her wartime story because I thought I would write this book and I would make it. I would use it to raise money for dementia research and support Lovely. So that's what happened. And when I started to write the book, obviously I had the anecdotes, I had the journals, the diaries, I had several books which had been written about the war and the group by my uncle and his friends. But I still didn't understand the bigger picture. So I had to research it. I went to Paris, I went into the archives of police headquarters. I went into the archives of the Ministry of Defense, which explained exactly why she was so highly decorated. I went down to the Pyrenees to the Chateau d'urion, which was their center where they used to go to and take the intelligence too, from where it was taken over the mountains to the British and the American consulates in Spain in Santandero, Bilbao. So it was quite a journey writing this story because, as I say, I had all these little stories which kind of I couldn't write a book with just a lot of hearsay stories. I needed the constructive back up to it. I mean, for example, she told me that she'd slept in a brothel one night, and she told me about that because she was annoyed at that where I slept when on a trip and I slept somewhere where I was worried about, you know, mosquitoes and malaric airing mosquitoes, and so she suddenly told me about having to sleep in a brothel. But I didn't understand why she'd had to sleep in the brothel during the war. I thought she slept in the brothel because the train got delayed. But it was much more than that. She was traveling from Paris down to the south of France, down to the Pyrenees, and you know that the train got delayed and she had nowhere to go, so she went, as she told me, she went to the local police station and they said to her, well, all the hotels are full, but we do have a safe house, which is a brothel, and you could go and stay there. And because she had a police headquarters, I d and in France you always have id on you. You still did this day. She was able to say who she was, and she was looked after.
Right and probably caringly too, Like you know, I understand the word brothels sound scary, but you know it's it's full of ladies inside the place that are going to be like, hi.
We couldn't tell me everything because I remember when she tells us the story I was telling about twenty one, but I remembered it.
Yeah, yeah, right, you're just you were a young woman right there at twenty one listening to mom and you're like mosquitos and she's like back in my day, let me tell you, right, Yeah, now. Now, the other crazy thing is like, let's put ourselves in the mindset of a nineteen year old girl who's working in the police department as a passport reception and meeting all these people, and now she's going down towards the Pyrenees where they are obviously knowing that this is probably a crossing, right, people are trying to escape. So I'm sure the Gestapo has like set like a net of like, you know, the train's coming through. It's like, why are you going to the Pyrenees? Right? So your mom?
They didn't they didn't. I mean, they couldn't be on top of what everybody was doing obviously and a scar where as she was concerned, They thought she was just somebody working at police headquarters. Because she was working at police headquarters, she had the advantage of being able to obtain Auschwitz Aspitz were permits to allow you to travel around France, which unless you had a very good reason, you couldn't get them. But because she was working at police headquarters and she knew that the Germans and the Nazis, she'd say, I want to go and see my aunt in the Pyrenees. She's not well or whatever, and she'd said, can I have a permit and they'd say, yes, you can, here you go. So that was unusual. So her position the police headquarters really helped her traveling around.
That's what I was wondering, right, because if you're just trying to wander around like head that way on a train, there would probably be nets, you know, like certain checkpoints like but she was already working, and so they were just like, oh, she has a pass, she's good to go. Yeah, and she I love that. I love that.
Yeah. Yeah. But one of the lovely stories that I love again, it was an anecdote and it's never been written about anywhere. So it's what she told me is that as time moved on, the group were working for the OSS, which is today's CIA, And my uncle was parachuted blind into occupied France by an American an American Air Force aeroplane, and he was parachuted with a suitcase full of dollar notes this is into the Pyrenees in an area called Orion, and also with a kind of bagful which he had in his pocket of gold coins which was to be used for their what one would call wartime chest, so that they could bribe people, they could pay for their expenses. Anyway, she got all this money, which her job was to take it back to Paris. So my uncle was parachuted blind into occupied France. The money had to be got back to Paris, and the gold coins had to be sewn into a girdle, so that issue was searched, nobody would find them. So if she had them in her handbag and someone searched a handbag or the dollar notes, they would have thought, well, what are you doing. So she wrapped all this around her. Now, this story was something she told me. It hasn't been written about in any books. It's just an anecdote which happens to be true because she joked about the fact that with one of the gold coins which she tried to get into a gird or, she couldn't get into it. She couldn't get gold coined into it. And so my uncle said to her, well, why don't you go and buy those shoes you so wanted, And so she went and bought the shoes, and we still have the shoes that she bought during the Second World War, courtesy of the OSS.
I love that. I love that.
Okay, there's some of the anecdotes, yeah, which did you ever wear them?
Did you ever get them?
No?
I don't wear them.
Have you ever though? Were you ever a size to fit in your mom's shoes? No?
I did not know, right, No.
No, I know why.
I just haven't. I've worn the jewelry, but I haven't. Not those jees that's.
Tried on the ruby slippers. No, no, you haven't tried that. No. I just went and saw that last night with my family. Wicked, and that was a really great uh you know, Wizard of Oz and I'm just thinking, oh, well, special shoes.
Yeah, I think they sold for a lot of money, didn't they. Julie Garland's shoes so much. Shoes they sold recently for I think millions millions.
Yeah, those ruby shoes, those ruby shoes, and what a great show. I do suggest going to see Wicked if you haven't seen the movie. It was really entertaining. Yeah. Yes, as well as buying your book, The Paris Girl. Okay, let's put it out there to my listener. You know it's going to be it's going to be out and you can probably get it at any popular place, and especially local bookstores. If somebody local in your area is supplying the books. Try to buy it from a local bookseller. That would be the first place I would recommend.
Am I about to say, who mean bands and Noble? I know have it and it's on Amazon. I don't know your shots very well. Walmart. I think it's at Walmart.
Oh yeah, yeah, you're probably all. Have you made it to the airport yet? Are you at the airport?
It would be great if it was at the airport, that would be wonderful.
I don't know a Heathrow or something where they're going through, you know, great A lady in Red Virgin read walking by grabbing your book, you'll be able to maybe you'll be able to go in. So I talk to authors all the time, right, and so uh, maybe you'll be able to go in and just sign a couple of copies.
That would be wonderful. I love I love meeting people who buy the book because those who buy the book are so interesting, and they come and tell me all sorts of extraordinary stories, their wartime stories, and lots of them tend to be older, but they still tell me all sorts of stories about their parents and their grandparents. Be they American, be they British, be they French, the French tend to be more reserved, but the Americans in the British are very open about things.
Oh I bet, I bet right? Wow. So do you speak French as well?
I do speak French.
Yeah, I need to learn that.
I need to learn because my mother was French.
So yeah, exactly, Yeah, I love that. Well, my ancestry is French. I'm very yes, very much European right here, Yeah, very much. Yeah, I think I'm related to Louis the fourteenth.
Oh, that's good. That goes back a long way. Well, he did amazing things. He built beasaill Is, you know, right.
Right, right right, yeah right. And it was as I'm reading through your book, I'm like, wait a second here, I'm like, why do I feel so French? Well?
The book, the book takes you through Paris an awful lot. It takes you to all the main places in Paris. It takes you past the lourever, it takes you to police headquarters, it takes you to Notre Dame, which you know your future president or your incoming president has just been to. It takes you along the river, it takes you down to the Pyrenees. It's very much a journey through France. Through a resistance fighter in the eyes of the resistance fighter.
And as I read it, as I was reading your book, it feels like it just kind of came to life in my head. And I'm just thinking about that as you're talking even more because you know, when I said, I feel like I'm kind of French more French. It's pulling something out of me as I'm reading it, almost like I'm able to see your mom walking down the street or like look over her shoulder, or you know, just whatever the like in the passport office, you know, maybe walking with a clipboard because there was no technology of like cell phones, you know, there was nothing or the typing, you know, like my father in law, my father in law was a typewriter guy in the sixties, and so when he went to Vietnam, it was very coveted that he is a US Marine got a typewriter, like here's your gun, here's your bayonet, and typewriter, and he had to take that everywhere. Fact in fact, my dad called him a Remington Raider because he knew Remington Raider. Okay, okay, because the typewriter was called Remington, and so he'sator, you know, And so your mom had a skill set to type. Yes, yes, I mean that wasn't normal back then.
I suppose so, because you know, by the time I was her age, the whole system had changed. I mean, we were into computers, we were into completely different.
Changing ribbons on the machine and just pulling the letter backs because it's so we're doing it.
Yeah, they have these things in museums. We don't have them anymore.
I still have my dad's typewriter, yes, yes, oh yeah, yeah.
But one of the things that people have enjoyed about my book is is the fact they say that the journals, which is she was writing about some of the things she did, and a lot of people have told me it's the journals that bring the story to life. You get a lot of historical novels, or you get a lot of history written by historians, but it's the diaries that really bring it to life. The fact that she says, I can't tell you how much I hate the Germans. I wish they oway, you know, and different things like that.
There's inserts like that, well she talks to her journal, Well we made it this far journal, we made it into the police station, or we made it here journal, you know, like well, you know, she's like today, I think there's a quote in there that says war was declared. Yes.
She describes how she describes on the I think it was the fourteenth of June nineteen forty the Germans walked down the Chancelicia and marched into police headquarters. And she talks about her diary entry that day is she said, I've been so brave until now, and then I completely fell apart and I cried for ten minutes. I cried solidly because it was so awful for them.
Yeah, yeah, and what just and then there was a couple of days where there's like maybe there was injuries, but you just didn't put them in the book. Right. It was like there's like a three day period where there was no jury of I think it was like the eleventh or the fourteenth of a certain time frame, and I was like, oh, what do w I should? So I'm captivated by her daily life. I'm like, wait, wait, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, where's the days that these other days there's like, you know, you feel what I'm saying.
Like yeah, yeah, But she would she would say that a lot of living was very normal. You know, life was normal. You might have had the Nazis and they were awful and the situation was horrible, but life was normal. You just had to carry on in a normal way and you went about your business. You went to work by bicycle, or you went on the metro, or you went on the bus, and life carried on and the country was occupied and went from time to time you just, I suppose burst out crying and think, how is it ever going to finish?
You know, there's so much of like how history seems to repeat itself in this world, and how you're saying we have to still live life and keep moving forward and not just let it drag us down. Even though the situation may seem dire, we still have to keep internally upbeat about it. And you know, yeh boy, you know, because we don't need history to keep repeating itself.
No, and it does, sadly with what's going on in Europe at the moment with Ukraine, it's really history repeating itself. It's horrendous.
And here in the US with our with our politicians just not seeing any agreement like you know we got, they're just completely split. It's like, you know, stop it sound Yeah, And England's definitely, like, hey, we back everything going on with Ukraine. We're here for support for you, and I also support them as well. So I don't want it to come to your shores. I don't want it to come to our shores because it's just going to be that's just a crate. It's late. London's already had enough.
Yeah, I went.
I went down to Southampton with a friend of mine and my wife a few years back, and we were looking at the Isle of Wight and you see kind of like the coastline of France. Yes, And then they were telling me the story about how back in the World War two time frame, the LUFWAFFA, the Air Force would fly over to do bombing raids and just indiscriminately bomb right, just drop bombs on lights or whatever they think they want cities. And when the when they would fly back over Southampton, they would try to drop bombs on those lights, but they were ships. There were fake lights out in the water. They made a fake city. So I think, how many bombs are just all over that place? You know, like just from all these previous conflicts.
You know, it's horrendous, horrendous what people do to people. Yeah, and.
What a beautiful country.
Though.
I love England. I tell you what, you know. I got to travel over there with my wife and go down the tray and see my friends and go eat it the Mad Hatter, Holy cow, it was so good. A lot more.
Please do. Like London, I kind of like the States. I love you. I love New York. It's so lime. I know you're a new jah, but I love I love it.
Yeah, oh yeah, you know. And and staying up oh yeah, you know, staying in East London and walking around at three am trying to find fish and chips. You know.
Yeah, I put.
Vinegar on my fish and chips. And somebody would like, you put vinegar on your fish and chips. I'm like, that's what they do.
That's what they do. It's pretty horride I do, but.
I yes, And they're big pieces to east Side, and I like west Side. I walked all over Hyde Park when, all over the place. But you know, I just think about all of the conflict that's happened through the ages in England.
Well, it's it's interesting you're saying that because I refer to it in my book. But my mother, before the war was sent to England to learn English, and she spent a year in England and she at the time she came through Southampton and then by train came up to Victoria And one of the things she said that when she came back to England in nineteen forty five, she was devastated by what she saw in central London around Victoria Station because she'd left and it was a normal built up area. She came back in nineteen forty five and everything was destroyed and that must have had a huge impact on her. And I mean obviously on everybody, but somebody who'd been away from it and then comes and sees it absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Like.
Right now, let's talk about current events. I have friends that had meet business meetings in Kiev like three and a half years ago. For some reason, I just didn't make the meeting, right I wasn't like on the invite to fly out and have this nice Kiev you know, swore a for four days that everybody else went to a little jealous. But now today my friends like rabbits, you can, Ukraine's getting hit. You know, things that we saw that we went and traveled and saw are devastated.
Right now, Yes, yes.
I'm not I'm not able to fathom that because here I am sitting at my home with my fireplace on, and I'm not having any super missile blow up something randomly next door.
Yeah yeah, yeah, you know.
And and for your your your sweet mom who's hardcore, okay, for being of social life and being undercover and such a young age, you know, for her to go back and see it devastated, I'm sure there's a lot of PTSD post traumatic stress that ill.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, I think everybody with everybody went through an awful lot.
Such a violent situation, Yeah, such a war. I mean it was such a war, like of a war, right, there was more trench fighting and just like brutality and.
You know, it's it's unreal what people do to people.
Yeah, over what? Over what?
Well that the Germans the Nazis wanting to take Europe and the Russians wanting to be part of it.
Yeah, that worked out real well, didn't it for Germany? Huh? That really worked out well. They moved right into Russia and surrounded themselves.
Yeah. Once they went into Russia, the Russians weren't going to have it, and they stopped it. It was very nasty when you think that fifty five million people died during the Second World War.
Yeah, it's awful. It's awful, you know, and your mom had friends that were that were Jewish, you know, that were being hidden. There's families hiding them and gestopo everywhere.
The Jewish situation was horrendous. You know, there's nothing and it must never be forgotten. And I think that, you know, the younger people people don't really take on board what it was about. I mean, obviously I knew Jewish people who'd lost I have Jewish friends who lost their parents and their grandparents, and now it's all kind of disappearing. That generation is completely gone and you don't really hear about it first and and we mustn't ever ever forget just trrendous and what happened in France to the Jewish people, what happened in Germany, what happened everywhere in Europe?
Yeah, around like they all just got tagged, you're it and then all of a sudden, it's like wait, like the one there's a photo that really resonates about what happened, and there's so many photos, but it's a box of like wedding rings, right, and it's just like they would take them off of them before they would have before they would execute them. They would take their wedding rings off of them, all the Jewish and put them in a box. And the piles of shoes like those right there are so saddening in the distance. But what the hell why even I mean, I'm so sorry to say that like that. It's like, you know, it's like unneeded.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, surrendous.
Because somebody was just like you know, I don't know, like freaking out in his room saying I got to do this with my country and my army, and I'm freaking out. I gotta go wipe another people off the earth. It's like, bro, calm down, man glove across his face. I'm talking about Hitler. I'm saying, like that guy was nuts to go. He was nuts. He was on all sorts of amphetamines.
I didn't think it was I don't think it was nuts. I think it was evil. It was evil. And the group of them, the group of them you know who were with him, they were evil as well. They were nuts. They were evil. They knew what they were doing.
They were like power drunk. They were drunk on all of this power and no one wanted to tell him he was wrong because they were eating off the same plate exactly.
You're absolutely right.
Yeah, but they knew it was wrong, did they? It was wrong?
Oh, of course it was wrong. But how did they see it? That's they knew they what they were doing was what they wanted to do.
I don't know. I don't think that like a Jewish seven year old has any threat, No, of course not.
I mean, yeah, absolutely horrendous.
Or some guy with a gun and a leather jacket. What's the threat from that seven year old or that twenty two year old or yeah, really you know who's the one walking around with the guns?
Yeah? Yeah, it's it's the most horrendous part of history.
Well, and that's why your mom was so like, I'm this is not okay.
Well it wasn't it okay for anyone?
Yeah, but I mean like not everyone was. Well, I mean, I guess the French resistance is, you know, try to like blend in and then disrupt from within, you know, so that no one kind of picks up on it, And that's the resistance right there, right, it's like just resist the situation. But you know, I'm sure that there was some scary looking leather wearing whip hold and dude that walked in front of your mom and he was like, where are your papers? That's something I mean.
One of the things in her daries she refers to a very close friend of hers who was only twenty two and he just disappeared from one day to the next. You know, he decided he ought to get into the free zone. France was divided into the occupied zone and the freezer and the free zone. You tended to be able to do a bit more what you wanted to do. You didn't have the naxies quite on top of you. And he escaped to the free zone, but he still completely disappeared. This was a twenty three year old, one of her closest friends, and that was just one person of the people she knew. And I think that would have left an awful legacy with with her and with anybody who lived through it, those people who knew Jewish people who had friends who just disappeared. And she would talk about that, and I didn't know very much about it because she didn't really talk about it. And I remember one day, I must have been in my late twenties, asking her about the Jewish situation, and she just looked at me and just went into a kind of trance because it was something she just didn't want to be reminded of or talk about because it was just so horrendous.
Yeah, it is. And I did read that in the book where her friend who went to the Freedom.
Yeah, and from the friends of my friends of my grandparents as well. I mean, my grandmother was a very sociable person. She loved people. But you know, when I knew how she didn't have that many friends, and I think it was partly because a lot of them who were Jewish, and a lot of them just disappeared. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean it's just like it's awful. You know, like you know your best friend or someone that is a really close friend and he's like, I'm going to try to make escape, and you don't ever hear from him again. You would think that they would try to reach out to a homie, like a good friend, you know, like you know, hey, Franzelle, I made it. I'll reach out to you some other way later, you know, just just to be gone, you know. And so here here you are as a legacy of your mother, you know, powerful female with a pen and you know, able to write your book and put it out there for us to have to read. Really just in the archives of the world's books. Now.
Well, I hope, I hope the readers enjoy the book. I mean, I've had I've had a lot of feedback on it, and it's it's very interesting how people look at it. The historical bit in it was very difficult to write about. Some of it was very difficult to understand the landings in French North Africa, for example. The research, I mean, just just what my family was doing was was difficult to comprehend and how they lived compared to the way we live with freedom. We are free, and I don't think we value our freedom enough. No, you lose it, but you really understand what you have.
It's true. Over here in the US people are like, oh, you know, they're coming after our freedoms and this, that and the other thing. There's a lot of like, oh, we got to protect I'm like, look, if this is me being like oppressed as freedom, I guess I'm okay with it, all right. If this is if I'm oppressed somehow or in some stimulation and I don't know it, you know, okay, cool? I love my family, I have a fireplace. I'm fortunate and I'm blessed. You know, podcast, I can say what I want. I mean, stay with you, right, And that's all I think anybody really wants, whether they're they didn't.
Realize how we are to be in a democracy.
Correct, right where your voice and my voice are equal.
Yeah, that had you can say what you want to say.
That's right. There's places where they're still oppressing women, even over here in the US, trying to like get involved with, you know, their rights. I tell people all the time, man, I can't make a human inside of me. I come from a woman. Hello, birthday should be the birth from the mom's day, but somehow I get spoiled with the presence for being born. Yeah, I'm like, I hope you see what I'm saying here.
You know, it's interesting what It's interesting what you're saying because it made me think about this young Jewish man, a very close friend who she lost. And I think it's written in the book. She says that every every year on his birthday, he used to give flowers to his mother to thank her for giving him.
That's right, you know, I read that and I I resonate with that, okay, because I'm of the same thought process that mom. Where do I start, you know, how do I tell you I love you? You know?
That's very nice?
Yes, you know? And so and I hope that others that listen to this will at least take some of this back and go and if your mom is still around, go give her a call, you know, and say I love you.
It's a lovely thing to say. It's a very lovely thing. Yes, they appreciate just enough.
There's just three words we want to hear in public from our kids, and that's I love you. Ahead and be embarrassed, go ahead and blush about it. Go ahead and say it. Say it to me in public. Maybe I'll buy you what you want. My son loves me, go ahead and give him the new car he loves and he loves me. That's that's as a father, that's what I'm after, right, And.
I got daughters, and I.
Want my daughters to see this interview and be like, hey, we can be her. We can write a book, you know. We can watch our dad go to audition for Broadway and maybe get rejected, but at least he's trying.
Yeah, yeah, you.
Know, we have to be the role models for our kids. Looking at you being so brave and so awesome for your son, right who we got to meet, who helped you get on this put together? Right, they're very.
Long suffering children.
I think, wait till he gets your diary and writes your book. The year was nineteen sixty nine and it was the summer of love. Mom. I had to stop reading your diary. What's going on? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, Oh my goodness, oh my. Now, now I have to ask you, with it being such a vivid book and you know, come into life off the pages when you're reading it, has anybody approached you about like turning this into some type of like a theatrical or a you know, or a movie or a TV.
Yeah, yeah, there is, which my publishers in America, Kensington Books, have kindly organized. And yes, of course I'd love it to become a film because if it turned into a film, I'd make serious money for adventure research. So that would be very very good. Yes, And it has the makings of a film. It's an amazing story. It is an interesting story. It's a different story. It's a different story to typical resistance fighters story because she was working at police headquarters, and that's a difference. I think that was a big difference to most resistance fighters. And also the fact that they were trying to get youngsters out of France to join the army, which I don't think a lot of the resistance groups were doing. That was not part of their agenda. They got one thousand young men out of France through the Pyrenees who went through Spain and made their way to French. Tangerian joined up the army. And this is when my uncle was recruited out of the French Army into the OSS because the OSS wanted youngsters who would work for them as intelligence gatherers in France. So that is when he was recruited by the OSS. And then he was dropped blind into occupying France with these dollar notes with him and the gold coins to carry on his wartime effort.
Just him, just his story alone of all right, you're the chosen guy, you're the uncle. We could meet your mom in the movie, but his own getting the gold to her is its own.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's well, it was. There were several of them in the group. I mean it was a group of there were fifteen of them who were recognized by the Goal at the end of the war as having been in the resistance, and he integrated them at the end of the war into the French army. And the reason he integrated them into the French army so that they could be given back pay for having been in the armed forces. I mean, it's the most extraordinary thing. I gave a talk in London and there was a general in the audience who was just in fits of laughter. How do you give people back pay and pull them into the army But it's after they joined. It's a lovely story, but yeah, it is. I mean, I reread the book today again because I knew I was talking to and it does cover very many aspects. It covers the relationship of my uncle and my mother with the overseas Strategic Services, which is very interesting to the Americans because the Americans didn't have many agents in France because France was supposedly intelligence wise the territory of the British intelligence services, so that was an unusual situation. And my uncle, who was called al Angriatry, was the first foreign journalists working for the figure Row to be interviewed or who was a to interview President Reagan when he became president. And I can't remember the name of the chap who was in charge of the chap who was in charge of the CIA at the time. It was a chap called William Casey, and he organized the meeting. So it was all wow things.
Yeah, yeah, and there's so much and I would love to see this come to the screen, you know, the big sh yes. And if you're listening and you happen to have the means to get this done, you should check out this book and and give it a read. Yes, yes, and then and reach out and get Yes.
It does make it's a good story because there are so many aspects to it.
It could be a series. It could be like a series. You know, you could have like you know, you could binge sixteen episodes.
Yes, yes, it could work that way as well.
Oh yeah, because I just want to see I just want to see your mom, like you know, kind of being your mom in the passport and like I can see it already, like someone who like all if there's if there's a a film company in Hollywood that wants to recreate all of the gear of the police officers and had that on them and all of the set dressing and like that whole period. Man, what a show to be a part of that would be. And you have to be in it. You have to have a camera, you have to even like a regular like oh yes, uh huh, yes, you need to send this letter over to the Gestapo.
Yeah. Well, the military people in the military in this country who've read the book, like, is that the chapter about when my mother was arrested by the vermart and subsequently interrogated by the Gestapo. And they loved that because they loved the soft while the way she handled the people interviewing her or people questioning her, and she just didn't put up with any nonsense. She wasn't going to be intimidated by them. She was a strong personality, she was young, and she just treated them with content and she got away with it. And she basically told the Gestapo chat who had been sent to interview her, but he didn't know how I was to do his stop that he wasn't doing his job properly. And the reason and she's as an explanation, she said, if you were doing your job properly, you would phone my senior offices at police headquarters and you would find out what I did at police headquarters and how I'm not involved in any form of resistance. And that's a very good chapter.
You know, you yourself have kind of followed along with metals in like your mother, right, talk about how your mother had medals on and they're like checking out her medals. Okay, okay, I put my hands in air quotes if you're listening to this. Her mom would wear her medals, and I think someone would get jealous about the medals because they were like in the area of her bosom buzza Maria, her cleavage and she knew what she was wearing a low cut dress and she'd have her medals.
They went to a ball, and I don't know how it works in the United States, but in the UK, if you go to official evenings, you're allowed to wear your medals. And obviously at the time, not many women had medals of that nature. And she was at an RAF. She was at an RAF ball with my father and somebody in the RAF. An RAF officer saw this medal, which is the quadiger and was a bit surprised that she had it, and I think he was half looking at the medal, half looking.
At her yes, exactly right.
Good story. But that's how I first learned about the whole whole episode of what she'd done.
And then you received an honor as well. Would you want to explain what that is from? Was it from?
Yeah? It was very nice. I was given what's called a British Empire Medal. I don't know how you compare it in America, but it was given to me by the Queen and it was given to me for services to charity. So I've done a lot of fundraising in my life. I did a lot for cop death babies who died within the first three or four months of birth. I did a lot of fundraising for that. And then I've done a lot of police work. I've done a lot of political work, and more recently this raising money for dementia research and support. And so I don't know how works in the United States, but in the UK, somebody puts you forward, they write reports on you, and it goes to the Prime minister. Prime Minister at the time agreed to give me the award, and therefore he puts it forward to the Queen, who then signs it off and gives you the medal. The last queen, sorry, Queen Elizabeth.
Yes, yes, and I was at her jubilee, so it was a very yes yeah, good time, right, yes, yes, love that and we love Duran also. Okay, so I'll let you know. Okay, very very much. Western boys and wess Western girls, the Eastern boys. No, very much.
But it's very interesting. It's very interesting you you asking me about about the medal, because I don't know if it's because we're kind of more reserved in England. But people don't really often ask me about it. They know about it, but they don't really ask why I got it. And yet when I was in the United States on business last when was it in April? I was at San Francisco, one of our clients had looked me up and said, what was all that about? How did you get it? But nobody would normally do that. In England. It's unusual. They don't ask about it. I don't know why.
Well, maybe you should just wear it, you know, so you're not.
Meant to you're only a laugh. There a strict conditions. The queen has these conditions. Yeah, you're only meant to wear medals. It must be the same in the United States. You can only wear medals at certain functions, so they have to be official functions, so I wouldn't wear it in the street.
In the US. So when I went over to England a few times, and I would see all my sas friends and all these other blokes, if you will, in their suits all proper, and they'd have like a big rack of their ribbons. But they've been retired. Over here, we don't really have that. They don't the former military. They don't really wear anything to social events like that. For example, I just did a social event for a huge military charity and everybody was just kind of like in Texas, but nobody had like except for the guy that won the Medal of Honor. He was wearing that on stage to kind of signify he had earned that, right yeah or yeah, And I was awarded. But when I went over there, I thought it was so cool that if you wore them on one side, it means you earned them, right, yeah, exactly, but you could represent like your husband on the other side. Yes, with the medals.
It's quite interesting you saying that, because I got all my parents' medals, which I think I can wear on that side, and then mine, which is very very insignificant, but sad.
I love that.
I love it's very insignificant, you know.
And and also like, you know, right here, I have this as a remembering. I have the poppy right here, you see, like the little Oh yes, this is a Royal Irish regiment. Give it to me.
It's very special wearing that very special.
Oh yeah, this is a gift by a friend of mine over in uh you know, and I just keep it, buy me, give it a kiss there.
It's the one. It's a wonderful charity. It raises money for the military.
I wish we still did that over here. You know, back in the day, we used to have the poppy. You know, there would be veterans Remembers Day. Yeah, in the US they would have. I looked it up. I was like, how come England has the poppy everywhere every time I go over there. I've been over there a few times and it's always around Remembrance Day and I've done special events and everybody's got so many poppies and they're at the airport. You can give them, you put a couple of bucks in the.
Yeah, it's very clever raising money.
Yeah yeah, And I'm like, how come we stopped wearing it? In the US, and I'm like, bring the poppy back. Yes, it just kind of it fizzled out, is what I learned from reading about it one time. So yeah, yeah, but I still wear it. I still have a beret that I wear that I haven't it, you know. And I just want to say, you know, I've had you for just about an hour of your time, and I know we're across the pond and across the world to talking to each other. And this is the first time you and I have ever met. And I want to show people that you can have a totally normal conversation with another human being on this earth after just meeting them.
Yes, yes, it's been lovely chatting to you, really interesting. As you say, it's strange that you're so far away.
Yes, but yeah, here we are. Like when I get on an airplane and I fly over there, I just close the window on the plane and then I open it up and I guess I'm there. Is it a simulation? I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm very lucky to be able to travel so freely. Because coming back to my mother, she'd been in England, as I said, for a year before the war. That then come the walls. She wasn't able to travel. So for five years you couldn't go across the channel. I mean, now you just go to Paris, you know, at the drop of her hat at that time that at the time you couldn't because it was very expensive anyway. But during the war you couldn't travel, You couldn't go anywhere. So yeah, yeah, we don't value our freedom enough.
No, No, I think I do, but I don't think I do enough. So I'm just born into the situation. You know, as an American, Right, there's people who come to this country that know more about this country than I know about my own country.
That's true.
That's true, and I'm honest about it. Okay, the test that somebody has to naturalize themselves to become a naturalized citizen here, the test, I would be scared.
Yeah, yeah, they know more about it. The people who naturalize know more about the country than we do.
And I'm like, why are we Like it's just like helloy, And they're so proud too. It's like, oh, the thirteenth Law of the Land is and I'm like, what what is it? What is it? What's the thirteenth We just know the first of the second, what's the third, fourth, fifth, thirteenth? What?
Yeh?
I'll tell you what. We need to appreciate what we have.
Don't we You know we do? We need to.
We're very lucky and friendships, so I want to appreciate this. Okay, So you and I will be friends. And I just want to say thank you so much for being on the show today. And I want to talk about one more time The Paris Girl, the young woman who outwitted the Nazis and became a World War two hero, which is out at all bookstores, Barnes and Noble, It's on the Amazon. It's probably at your local airport, and if not, just go there. Oh, you want to know a trick her before I sign off? You want to know a trick I heard a really popular author do. He will take his book and take it to the airport and it has a UPC number on the back of it. You'll have one, and if there's not one there, he'll hand it to the lady or whoever's at the checkout and they'll scan it and it'll say like last one, and it'll make them reorder it.
Oh good, Oh, that's wonderful.
You see that.
You see how thank you very much for helping me promote the book. I really appreciate it hugely. It's my first book to be published in the United States, so it's very exciting.
Well, congratulations and congratulations to being a mom as well, and to your family Okay, and your lovely pearl necklace, and you're lovely. Okay. I just want to lady, so you know that.
Thank you so much.
I don't want to have to sign off, but I'm about to sign off. I want to say thank you to my listener for taking the time to hear mine and Friendsell's discussion about her mother in the French Resistance and how powerful women are in this world. And you're always welcome on the show. And if you ever get this into theaters or in a movie or a TV show, and if you ever need a long bearded Viking frenchman, you just let me know and I'll show up in that Okay, And you're awesome.
Well, thank you so much. Thank you for the opportunity of chatting to you and meeting you in particular. I really enjoyed it.
Same and behalf of France. El White and myself here at Soft Rep Radio and my producer Callum who's over in London? Okay, why am I not in London right now? Anyways, if you're watching this during the holidays, happy holidays. And if not, go check out her book everywhere books are sold. And this is rad On behalf of France El saying peace.
Thank you.
You've been listening to self Red Radio
