Speaker 1: M M M diversion audio. A note this episode contains
Speaker 1: descriptions of violence and torture that may be disturbing for
Speaker 1: some audiences. Please take care in listening. This series is
Speaker 1: based on historical characters and real events. Some dialogue has
Speaker 1: been imagined for dramatic purposes when no primary source material
Speaker 1: is available. Poland has been again overrun by two of
Speaker 1: the great powers, which held in bondage for but we
Speaker 1: are unable to queen of the After Germany conquered Poland
Speaker 1: on September, just twenty six days after they invaded, Hitler
Speaker 1: announced his plans to continue westward, setting his sights directly
Speaker 1: on France. It seemed at first that many French were unbothered.
Speaker 1: The severity of the news took some time to sink in.
Speaker 1: Germany's goals seemed impossible, but Virginia Hall was hesitant to
Speaker 1: write off the Nazis power so flippantly. In the early days,
Speaker 1: this became the subject of much debate. What Hitler wants
Speaker 1: is impossible, Virginia. It doesn't matter if it's impossible, Claire.
Speaker 1: People are dying and they will keep dying so long
Speaker 1: as the Nazis believed the so called impossible is possible? No,
Speaker 1: I am not saying we shouldn't fight. We should. I
Speaker 1: just think that, given with my brother has told me
Speaker 1: the Germans aren't a true threat, it doesn't mean we
Speaker 1: shouldn't squash them. If they managed to cross the border,
Speaker 1: a victorious Nations still counts there dead. You don't have
Speaker 1: to be so preachy, Virginia. What do you want to fight? Well,
Speaker 1: I think we should. They won't allow it. Then we
Speaker 1: find a way. I'm Steven Talty and from diversion. This
Speaker 1: is good Assassin's Season two. Being killed would be the
Speaker 1: easy part. Being tortured would be the hard part. Our
Speaker 1: intel suggests she is behind many of the prison bricks
Speaker 1: all over the country. She is dangerous, so sabotage plus
Speaker 1: a little espionage paramilitary operations make things blow up. The
Speaker 1: message for Captain Bobby, and I believe I have found
Speaker 1: the nest of the Limping Lady. Episode two, The Death
Speaker 1: of Old Lives. Exhausted by the debates and weeks of inaction,
Speaker 1: Virginia Hall and her best friend Claire de Latour decided
Speaker 1: to enlist in one of the few ways women could
Speaker 1: at the time, by joining the Service Sanitaire de l'armi
Speaker 1: and the organization akin to the Red Cross that provided
Speaker 1: medical assistance to French soldiers on the battlefield. Being an
Speaker 1: ambulance driver was widely seen by French women at the
Speaker 1: time as the most militarized role they were allowed to have,
Speaker 1: because the French Army did not allow women to join
Speaker 1: until just days before the collapse of the French Army.
Speaker 1: That's Andrew Or, a professor who runs the Institute for
Speaker 1: Military History at Kansas date University, and so someone like
Speaker 1: Hall is engaged in the outer edge of what the
Speaker 1: French will let a woman get away with in terms
Speaker 1: of national defense. So this was a group of very
Speaker 1: highly motivated women who were pushing the boundaries of what
Speaker 1: they could get away with to help defend against Nazi Germany.
Speaker 1: It would be a grueling endeavor and it would separate
Speaker 1: them totally from the peaceful lives they've been living before.
Speaker 1: In just four weeks, Virginia and Claire were given basic
Speaker 1: medical training, learning how to apply tourniquets and bandages on
Speaker 1: some of the worst wartime injuries recorded in human history.
Speaker 1: They were supposed to work in the echoes of gunfire
Speaker 1: long after the battle was over, but often found themselves
Speaker 1: closer to firefights and exploding shells than they ever expected.
Speaker 1: They were also given self defense lessons, but no weapons.
Speaker 1: Guns were in short supply and out of the question
Speaker 1: for civilians. Only soldiers carried guns instead. Virginia kept a
Speaker 1: knife on her and learned to use it in secret,
Speaker 1: aided by the wounded soldiers she rescued. At the end
Speaker 1: of their training, Virginia and Claire were given jobs as
Speaker 1: ambulance drivers and stationed near the Magino line. They were
Speaker 1: about to witness hell. It's not like they were turned
Speaker 1: on lights and sirens and going seven minutes down the
Speaker 1: street to your local hospital. Right. These ambulance riots were
Speaker 1: often long. They're going super slow because the roads are terrible.
Speaker 1: That's Dr Justin bar the surgeon and historian of medical
Speaker 1: military history from episode one. Sometimes they're actively getting shot
Speaker 1: at by the Germans, and so you're dodging our tolaries
Speaker 1: shelves yourself. It's not like it's a nice little spring
Speaker 1: later ambulance, right. These people are just piled in the
Speaker 1: back of the truck, which is bouncing on potholes. So
Speaker 1: they're screaming because their legs are broken. So every time
Speaker 1: you go over a pothole, some poor kid behind you
Speaker 1: is shouting out in pain. So I'm sure they had
Speaker 1: a tremendous psychiatric toll on on the driver's On top
Speaker 1: of that, Virginia found it tough to drive with the
Speaker 1: prosthetic leg. Though she had grown used to it over
Speaker 1: the years, she struggled to manage the speed of the
Speaker 1: car and the weight needed to push down the accellery.
Speaker 1: Virginia began tending to men not unlike herself, applying tourniquet
Speaker 1: after tourniquet too bloodied stumps and mangled limbs. She hoped
Speaker 1: she could bring some solace to them, displaying an able
Speaker 1: bodied role model who was still on the battlefield serving
Speaker 1: the country. Instead, most of the men felt like she
Speaker 1: was patronizing them. Oh, don't trash you make it worse.
Speaker 1: In her preparation, Virginia was trained specifically with saving lives.
Speaker 1: The rehabilitation aspect of recovery was a second thought. We
Speaker 1: can't do anything for them, Sah, shut up, gets them
Speaker 1: home on their own. It only took a few months
Speaker 1: for the work to become overwhelming, both physically and emotionally.
Speaker 1: Virginia and Claire found their dreams, haunted by the dislocated
Speaker 1: bones and missing limbs of the blood soaked soldiers they
Speaker 1: loaded into their trucks, their clothes and aprons existed in
Speaker 1: a perpetual state of lingering. Gore Virginia found the pace
Speaker 1: of the work dehumanizing. Any of these major battles, they
Speaker 1: could drop off a thousand patients at your doorstep, and
Speaker 1: you have you have to get through them as as
Speaker 1: efficiently as possible, and patients would die waiting to have
Speaker 1: surgery because you can only move so fast. Rarely did
Speaker 1: she learn these men's names, but she heard their screams
Speaker 1: in her dreams, and news across Europe kept looking bleaker
Speaker 1: and bleaker. Hitler added another to his bag of small nations.
Speaker 1: Today the fifth and fourteen months when the Dutch army
Speaker 1: laid down its arms everywhere except in the extreme southwestern
Speaker 1: part of the country, and this week the King of
Speaker 1: the bell Ducks asked commands in chief of the Belgian
Speaker 1: process made an unconditional surrender on the Hawker's troop. Holland
Speaker 1: surrendered to Germany on May fourteenth in Belgium. On every
Speaker 1: Nazi victory stripped Virginia's morale and increased the odds of
Speaker 1: a German triumph over ants. Oh but I'm a thirty ninety.
Speaker 1: Virginia's volunteer work as an ambulance driver became much more personal.
Speaker 1: Working in a medical tent in the hot sun, she
Speaker 1: encountered a man whose entire head was bandaged, blood seeping
Speaker 1: through the cause. I'll take this one, doctor, don't bother.
Speaker 1: Get that one down at the end there there's already
Speaker 1: blood coming through. It won't take me along to wrap it,
Speaker 1: I said, don't bother. It. Took a shell to his face.
Speaker 1: There's nothing there. He still has a pulse. You didn't
Speaker 1: hear what I said. It took a goddamn shell to
Speaker 1: the face. He's got nothing there to save, No eyes,
Speaker 1: no nose. Get down to the end of the line
Speaker 1: where his DAGs. I already have them. Jean Paul de Lator,
Speaker 1: what's his name? Let now get down to the end.
Speaker 1: There's a line inside the man's boot. Virginia found a photo,
Speaker 1: laughing happily at the camera was a handsome young man
Speaker 1: in uniform. Standing next to him, laughing just as happily,
Speaker 1: blonde hair ruffled by a breeze, was Claire. And they're
Speaker 1: in the tent just feed away from Virginia. Claire's brother
Speaker 1: died just a few minutes later. It wouldn't be long
Speaker 1: before Germany could declare yet another victory. In Virginia's patients
Speaker 1: was being pushed to a breaking point. She wanted to
Speaker 1: do more, She wanted to face the Nazis head on.
Speaker 1: After the break, Virginia's frustrations bubble up in a more
Speaker 1: public setting. Yeah, and within just a few days, the
Speaker 1: Germans have actually pierced through a natural barrier the forests
Speaker 1: of the Ardenne region, which no one was defending. The
Speaker 1: French were on the Machino line, a lot of the
Speaker 1: British forces were kind of towards the coast on the
Speaker 1: Belgian border. No one was expecting this to happen in
Speaker 1: the Aldenne. That's Dr Ludovin Brock, a senior lecturer at
Speaker 1: the University of Westminster who specializes in World War two
Speaker 1: French history. And then they just they create this whole gap,
Speaker 1: this hole in the Aldenne, and then they just started
Speaker 1: pouring pouring in. In the photograph you to see lines
Speaker 1: and lines and lines of tanks coming into France. And
Speaker 1: the problem is that neither the French nor the British
Speaker 1: can counter attack. The French resistance has collapsed, and the
Speaker 1: imagine no line has been broken, destroying all French resistance.
Speaker 1: Paris is an open city. A really important move during
Speaker 1: this major June period is the arrival of a man
Speaker 1: called Filipita, Marshal Philippita into the French government. He is
Speaker 1: a military hero from the First World War. He saved
Speaker 1: the French at Velda, so having him on board with
Speaker 1: any decision was going to be very important because the
Speaker 1: French people really respected him. He was a military hero,
Speaker 1: like a real hero. But Peta, once he's there in
Speaker 1: this inner circle, he also comes to the decision that
Speaker 1: it is best to lay down arms. At June thirteenth nine,
Speaker 1: Paris was declared an open city. The Germans had successfully
Speaker 1: invaded France, sending the capital government of Paris fleeing a
Speaker 1: hundred forty miles to the town of Tour. Virginia increasingly
Speaker 1: believed her efforts to say wounded soldiers were in vain.
Speaker 1: Over the course of a few days, she watched as
Speaker 1: French forces began to surrender, with Chief of State Philippe
Speaker 1: Paton issuing a countrywide broadcast. At June the broadcast ended
Speaker 1: with these words translated from the French. Last night I
Speaker 1: spoke with adversary and asked if they were propelled to
Speaker 1: help me between soldiers after the fight, with intact to
Speaker 1: find a way in which to end the hostilities. France
Speaker 1: became part of Germany's Empire Frances armistice allowed them to
Speaker 1: continue operating under new stipulations. Germany would occupy three fifths
Speaker 1: of the country and have influence within the French government.
Speaker 1: And so with that the new authoritarian Vichy regime with
Speaker 1: Baton at its helm, was born. And one of the
Speaker 1: first things that he does is put in staff. Jused
Speaker 1: to exclude people from certain professions, exclude people who aren't French,
Speaker 1: and especially exclude Jews for instance. So the Jews are
Speaker 1: no longer to exercise certain professions as of October, and
Speaker 1: all of these are not forced by the Germans. They
Speaker 1: also come from actually a kind of xenophobia and anti
Speaker 1: Semitism which had been swelling over the course of the
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties in France. Virginia couldn't ignore the rampant anti
Speaker 1: Semitism coming from the VG government, French citizens and the
Speaker 1: occupying Nazis anymore. On top of that, the Service Sanitaire
Speaker 1: de Lamais was soon disbanded, and Virginia found herself once
Speaker 1: again without a job. With more and more Frenchmen becoming
Speaker 1: new recruits in the German army, she decided to leave
Speaker 1: for Great Britain, where she would plot against the Nazis
Speaker 1: in relative safety. Is anyone seated there miss? The train
Speaker 1: ride to London proved faithful for Virginia Hall. It was
Speaker 1: there she met an Englishman named George Bellows. Uh no, no,
Speaker 1: you're welcome to it, Ah, bless you. Hm rather nasty business,
Speaker 1: isn't it? What well the state of everything? I suppose
Speaker 1: It's nice to see somebody living in reality. You wouldn't
Speaker 1: believe the amount of people I come across who seemed
Speaker 1: to think this is all some sort of unfortunate phase,
Speaker 1: as though occupations just dwindle away on their own. I
Speaker 1: don't know when I'll visit again. I used to spend
Speaker 1: all my summers in Paris, but the city isn't what
Speaker 1: it was. These areas afoot. I can't bear it myself.
Speaker 1: And of course the French would rather blame the depression,
Speaker 1: anything to keep the word fascism out of their mouths.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I promise. I usually have a sense of
Speaker 1: humor whenever the world isn't ending. Oh no, please, you're
Speaker 1: in the company of a kindred spirit. I just don't
Speaker 1: know how it happened. In the beginning, everywhere I went
Speaker 1: there was such a united front against Hitler, and then
Speaker 1: he appears on our doorstep, and suddenly we have the
Speaker 1: same enemies. Well, I can't tell you how many friends
Speaker 1: I've watched go from staunchly anti fascist throwing out any
Speaker 1: Jew who comes into their store. You're going to London, Yes,
Speaker 1: I could use a breather in a place where the
Speaker 1: air isn't stiff. Yes, m m hmm. I'd play to
Speaker 1: give you the name of a friend of mine. When
Speaker 1: you arrive, look up Mrs Tipton and her boarding house.
Speaker 1: I believe you were finding her excellent company. But Virginia
Speaker 1: arrived in London, she followed fellow suggestions, taking a room
Speaker 1: at the boarding house of Mrs Tipton and quickly becoming
Speaker 1: friends with what turned out to be a fascinating radical woman.
Speaker 1: In between rants about dictators and anti Semites, Mrs Tipton
Speaker 1: served tea and eggs, offering Virginia a modicum of normalcy
Speaker 1: in her uprooted life. But that normalcy, of course, was
Speaker 1: quickly shattered in a new and horrible stage of the conflict,
Speaker 1: the Nazis took their war right into the heart of London.
Speaker 1: More after the breaks getting on September seven, Germany began
Speaker 1: to bomb London. The sirens gave little warning, but just
Speaker 1: enough for Virginia and her neighbors in the boarding house
Speaker 1: to find shelter in the basement outside hell rained down
Speaker 1: from above, obliterating street corners and setting massive fires to
Speaker 1: chains of homes. Here's one Londoner's experience. No I distinctly
Speaker 1: remember being in the shelter hearing a rush of wind,
Speaker 1: followed by this noise that was the most deafening, frightening
Speaker 1: noise I've ever heard in my life, followed by a
Speaker 1: sense of the whole of your body being compressed in.
Speaker 1: Virginia found herself huddled between strangers, gripping their hands and
Speaker 1: holding on for dear life. As a ceiling threatened to
Speaker 1: give way. She could practically see the bomb breaching, slicing
Speaker 1: through the roof like it was sheet cake, and landing
Speaker 1: at her feet. Just before detonating, She pictured her own
Speaker 1: complete eradication wiped from existence in the moment it would
Speaker 1: take her to gasp. While she had grown somewhat accustomed
Speaker 1: to the bombings of fields and planes in her work
Speaker 1: as an ambunance driver, the surreality of the city setting
Speaker 1: made the entire event feel more like a dream, or
Speaker 1: rather a nightmare. But while the attack went on for hours,
Speaker 1: the dreaded bombs she envisioned never dropped through the roof.
Speaker 1: When the assault ended, Virginia took on a new identity,
Speaker 1: that of the survivor. It would be an identity she
Speaker 1: maintained for the remainder of her life, but was forged
Speaker 1: over the following fifty seven consecutive nights as the bombs
Speaker 1: came again. When those first attacks subsided, the English pressed on,
Speaker 1: attempting normalcy again. They continued going to their jobs, raising
Speaker 1: their families, and attending church, always keeping one eye in
Speaker 1: the sky, but refusing to capitulate to Hitler's threats okay
Speaker 1: i say. On January fourteenth, Virginia made a trek out
Speaker 1: to a cocktail party of one Ms Vera Atkins, an
Speaker 1: anti fascist sympathizer. She'd been given Vera's name by George Bellows.
Speaker 1: The English guys she had befriended on her train ride
Speaker 1: to London. They're at Vera's party. Virginia made a bit
Speaker 1: of a name for herself among the guests. And I'll
Speaker 1: say again what I have said to George a dozen times.
Speaker 1: The reason for the war is not simply a response
Speaker 1: to the economy. Hitler has targeted a group of people, men,
Speaker 1: women and children, and he's scapegoating them. He has a
Speaker 1: conspiratorial evil man who understands that people must be united
Speaker 1: in their hatred of something, and so he's picked an
Speaker 1: innocent people, a people he's effectively slaughtering by the thousands
Speaker 1: and proclaimed they are the problem. He's calling his conquests
Speaker 1: of Poland and France financial successes, but the well of
Speaker 1: those countries live in poverty and misery. Hitler is not
Speaker 1: just an evil man. He's a fraud, a shameless fraud.
Speaker 1: And the sooner he's taken care of, the sooner we
Speaker 1: can return Europe to a prosperous continent. What Virginia didn't
Speaker 1: know was that their host, Vera Atkins, was a very
Speaker 1: well connected woman, and she didn't hold these parties just
Speaker 1: to entertain. She admired Virginia's openness, her strength and her perspective,
Speaker 1: her knowledge of France and capacity for language. Virginia displayed
Speaker 1: all the hallmarks of an individual who could be seen
Speaker 1: as exceptionally useful in a time of war. And so
Speaker 1: after everyone had gone home later that evening, Vera sat
Speaker 1: at her desk and typed up a memo, I have
Speaker 1: counted a most interesting prospect, a woman whom I believe
Speaker 1: could make a valuable asset, requesting permission to bring her
Speaker 1: into the full Listen to episode three right now. You
Speaker 1: have a badom of disloyalty, my son, have you also
Speaker 1: been disloyal to Germany? Not only does the French police
Speaker 1: help with the mass roundup of over ten thousand Jews
Speaker 1: in July, but it also transports Jews who are in
Speaker 1: turned into camps in the south of France win the
Speaker 1: free zone. You're not cross. Barby was the head of
Speaker 1: the Gestapo in lyon In so by this point, situation
Speaker 1: in France is pretty bad. Is quite tense to scold
Speaker 1: to finally meet you, Hitler. If you have any questions
Speaker 1: for us about good assassins, if you're curious about some
Speaker 1: aspect of Virginia hall story, or have any comments on
Speaker 1: the podcast. We'd love to hear from you. Please email
Speaker 1: us at good Assassins at diversion audio dot com. Make
Speaker 1: sure you spell assassins correctly again, that's good Assassins at
Speaker 1: diversion Audio dot com. We'll try to answer your questions
Speaker 1: on a future episode. Find us on Twitter, Facebook, and
Speaker 1: Instagram at diversion pods. Good Assassins is a production of
Speaker 1: Diversion Audio in association with I Heart Podcasts. This season
Speaker 1: is hosted by Stephen Talti and written by C. D. Carpenter,
Speaker 1: Produced and directed by Kevin Thompson for Real Jet Packs Productions.
Speaker 1: Story editing by Jacob Bronstein, with editor real direction from
Speaker 1: Scott Waxman, Additional research and reporting by Sophie McNulty. Theme
Speaker 1: music by Tyler Cash featuring the voices of michaela Is Caerdo,
Speaker 1: Raphael cork Kill, Lenna Klingerman, John Parkes, Andrew polk or Lock,
Speaker 1: Cassidy Manoel Falciano, Sean Gormley, Matthew Amnt and Steve Rautman.
Speaker 1: Sound design, mixing and mastering by Paul Goodrich, Sound editing
Speaker 1: by Justin Kilpatrick. Executive producers Jacob Bronstein, Mark Francis and
Speaker 1: Scott Waxman for Diversion Audio. Diversion Audio