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Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio

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Speaker 1: and Grim and Mild from Aaron Minkie. Listener discretion is advised.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty one, the passenger ship Ruhein was set

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Speaker 1: to embark on its maiden voyage, a four month trip

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Speaker 1: from London to New Zealand. For the crew, their uniform

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Speaker 1: required that they all wear whatever medals or ribbons they

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Speaker 1: had been awarded during the Second World War. Most of

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Speaker 1: the stewards had served, and some even had a few

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Speaker 1: glistening gold medals that made them puff out their chests

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Speaker 1: proudly while chatting with the guests. But then there was

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Speaker 1: one Polish maid who caused a mixture of fascination and

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Speaker 1: consternation among her colleagues. Her name was Christina Scarbeck, although

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Speaker 1: she went by the Anglicized name Christine Granville, and though

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Speaker 1: her job on the ship was sweeping and dying bedrooms

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Speaker 1: and bathrooms, her uniform was a constellation of military acclaim

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Speaker 1: nearly a dozen medals and honors that would be impressive

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Speaker 1: on a general medals that included the incredibly prestigious French

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Speaker 1: Quadi Guerre and the British George Medal. She's lying clearly.

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Speaker 1: Some of the other maids whispered to each other, rolling

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Speaker 1: their eyes whenever the male passengers on the ship sought

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Speaker 1: out Christina for conversation. She probably stole those medals, or

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Speaker 1: got them from a guy she slept with. Though Christina

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Speaker 1: had quickly charmed many of the passengers on the ruine,

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Speaker 1: her coworkers were suspicious and resentful of the attention that

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Speaker 1: she got. Only one steward, an awkward looking man named

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Speaker 1: Dennis Muldoni, stood up for her when the rest of

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Speaker 1: the crew mocked her. Thank you, Christina said to Muldoni,

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Speaker 1: after he deflected a particularly vicious act us a shim

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Speaker 1: that one of the other maids had made against her.

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Speaker 1: Christina smiled at him, that charming smile that had made

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Speaker 1: dozens of men across Europe fall in love with her.

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Speaker 1: Muldoni was smitten. More than smitten, he became well obsessed.

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Speaker 1: He followed Christina after they docked, wrote her dozens of letters,

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Speaker 1: and watched her in the small hotel in London where

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Speaker 1: she was staying, watching as she came and went. He

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Speaker 1: wanted to know everything about her. Who was this woman?

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Speaker 1: The maid with a dozen medals on their chest? But

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Speaker 1: even he would never fully be able to understand the

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Speaker 1: strange path that Christina's life had taken the adventures of

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Speaker 1: a woman driven by passion and by bravery, who had

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Speaker 1: wanted to live life to the fullest. Even those who

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Speaker 1: loved Christina Scarbuck would never fully know her during her

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Speaker 1: life or after her death. I'm Danish Schwartz and this

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Speaker 1: is noble blood. As the century turned into the tent,

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Speaker 1: an impoverished count in Poland married the daughter of a

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Speaker 1: wealthy Jewish banker. It was a marriage of convenience, not love.

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Speaker 1: The count used his new bride's dowry to pay off

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Speaker 1: his debts. The pair did go on to have two children,

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Speaker 1: but the count continued to have debts. He spent lavishly

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Speaker 1: and gambled indiscriminately, and so by the time the count

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Speaker 1: finally died of tuberculosis, the family had already been forced

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Speaker 1: to sell their lavish worse at home. The widowed countess

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Speaker 1: barely had enough money to support herself, and so she

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Speaker 1: and her children would need to work for a living.

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Speaker 1: Their daughter, Christina, aged two, quickly found work at a

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Speaker 1: Fiat dealership. Christina was beautiful and charming. She had actually

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Speaker 1: placed six that year in the Miss Polonna beauty contest.

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Speaker 1: But the beauty queen was not suited to a life

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Speaker 1: of office work. The clerical work in the car dealership

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Speaker 1: was dull and monotonous, and to make matters worse, the

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Speaker 1: office was above the poorly ventilated garage, so Christina breathed

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Speaker 1: in so much exhaust that her lungs would have permanent

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Speaker 1: scars on them, scars that you would have for the

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Speaker 1: rest of her life. She dreamed of a much bigger

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Speaker 1: life for herself, something exciting and glamorous. She was more

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Speaker 1: than ready then to say yes immediately when a businessman

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Speaker 1: named Gusta Getlich came into the dealership one day and

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Speaker 1: proposed to her. The marriage wouldn't last long. Within a

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Speaker 1: few short years they were divorced, but thanks to the settlement,

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Speaker 1: Christina now at least had enough money to to live

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Speaker 1: relatively independently in inexpensive in bohemian but still fashionable apartments

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Speaker 1: in the city. She's a nice girl, her ex husband

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Speaker 1: would say, but she's always looking for change. She's young,

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Speaker 1: and she's romantic. As a young woman, Christina found that

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Speaker 1: she was more compatible with the single lifestyle. She drank

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Speaker 1: champagne with her friends wore silk stockings and orbited a

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Speaker 1: circle of equally glamorous writers, poets, and politicians. Her status

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Speaker 1: as a young divorcee seemed glamorous when she spun it

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Speaker 1: out at cocktail parties, but Christina soon learned that it

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Speaker 1: was making things very hard when it came to finding

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Speaker 1: another husband for herself. She was already getting a reputation

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Speaker 1: that she was more suited to being a mistress than

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Speaker 1: a wife, and that she wasn't the kind of girl

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Speaker 1: that a respectable, prominent Polish man would want for his wife.

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Speaker 1: If she had any doubts as to her prospects, well,

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Speaker 1: those doubts would soon be put to rest. For a

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Speaker 1: few months, Christina had been dating a young man named Adam,

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Speaker 1: with whom she fell in love. She was half expecting

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Speaker 1: a proposal when Christina accepted an invitation from Adam's mother

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Speaker 1: to meet her for tea at her house. Adam's mother

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Speaker 1: squeezed lemon into her mug of tea and stirred with

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Speaker 1: the silver spoon as she looked Christina up and down.

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Speaker 1: The mother informed Christina that her relationship with her son

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Speaker 1: was over. Christina was broken up with by her boyfriend's mother.

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Speaker 1: In her loneliest moments, Christina wondered if she was destined

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Speaker 1: to be alone forever, a divorcee, verging on penniless, nearing

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Speaker 1: the end of her twenties, and bouncing from meaningless relationship

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Speaker 1: to meaningless relationship, and then, like it always happens, life

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Speaker 1: found her where she least expected it. Christina had been

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Speaker 1: skiing since she was a young woman, particularly in the

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Speaker 1: mountains of southern Poland, where doctors had told her that

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Speaker 1: the air would help her scarred lungs. While skiing down

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Speaker 1: a particularly treacherous slope during a snowstorm, Christina's wooden skis

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Speaker 1: slid on the ice and she flew off the trail,

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Speaker 1: only to be rescued, literally swept off her feet by

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Speaker 1: a hulking man over six feet tall, who reached out

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Speaker 1: his arms to grab her. His name was Yurjah gishki.

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Speaker 1: Yrjah was approaching fifty, but he was charming, smart, and

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Speaker 1: worldly in a way that drew Christina towards him. Unlike Christina,

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Speaker 1: he hadn't come from a noble family. His father was

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Speaker 1: well off, but Usia had no interest in the responsible

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Speaker 1: future that his father envisioned for him. He failed out

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Speaker 1: of an engineering course and set out for America, where

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Speaker 1: his list of jobs reads a bit like an early

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Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds Forrest Gump. Rsia was a prospector, a trapper

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Speaker 1: and actual cowboy, and even a chauffeur for J. D. Rockefeller. Eventually,

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Speaker 1: his skills with language and his connections brought him to

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Speaker 1: a job with the Polish legation in Washington. D c

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Speaker 1: Usiah helped Poland's first ever Olympic team prepared to compete

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Speaker 1: in France, and then he joined an expedition with a

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Speaker 1: Polish explorer in Africa, where he hunted elephants and survived malaria,

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Speaker 1: only to make it back to Poland and run into

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Speaker 1: Christina on the ski slope. Here was the man Christina

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Speaker 1: had been waiting for, someone who was mature and financially secure,

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Speaker 1: but above all interesting. The pair were married and they

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Speaker 1: set off for Europe together. The photo in Christina's passport

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Speaker 1: was one of the head shots she had used in

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Speaker 1: the Misspolonia pageant. Yujiah was a powerful man, and he

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Speaker 1: was domineering. It didn't take long for Christina to feel

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Speaker 1: claustrophobic in her role as a diplomat's wife. Still in

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty eight Yrsiah was assigned to help open a

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Speaker 1: Polish consulate in Kenya, and so the pair moved to

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Speaker 1: London while they prepared for their journey together to Africa.

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Speaker 1: What Christina hoped at least would be a new start,

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Speaker 1: a type of adventure that would make her marriage feel

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Speaker 1: well worthwhile again. On the ship to South Africa, though

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Speaker 1: Christina began to wonder if she had made a mistake

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Speaker 1: in her marriage. Yujiah had become more of a which

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Speaker 1: she called quote Sfengali than husband. He dominated her life

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Speaker 1: in a way that she hadn't anticipated. Unfortunately, Christina's marriage

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Speaker 1: would soon be the least of her problems. The pair

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Speaker 1: reached Johannesburg just days before Hitler invaded Poland. The two

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Speaker 1: of them, Poles in Africa, were panicked and terrified, terrified

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Speaker 1: for their loved ones and for the fate of their

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Speaker 1: beloved country, and they were five thousand miles away, unable

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Speaker 1: to do anything to help. Of course, they immediately turned around.

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Speaker 1: They sold their car in Cape Town and boarded a

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Speaker 1: ship for Southampton, embarking on what would become a journey

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Speaker 1: fraught with distress, the constant worry about what was happening

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Speaker 1: in Poland, and the feeling of impotence that they weren't

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Speaker 1: doing anything to help. Every morning they received more news

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Speaker 1: on the radio about the German armies steady advance. On September,

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Speaker 1: one of the British officers aboard the ship updated the

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Speaker 1: lost and found board in the ship's common area. Underneath

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Speaker 1: a notice for a lost pair of ladies panties was

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Speaker 1: a new notice on the bulletin board. It read lost Warsaw.

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Speaker 1: By the time Christina and Yuge finally reached Europe, two

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Speaker 1: hundred thousand Polish men and women were dead, arrested and

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Speaker 1: killed by the German invaders. Neither had any idea as

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Speaker 1: to the fate of their families. Usa tried to join

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Speaker 1: the military in France, but his advanced age over fifty

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Speaker 1: at this point, combined with numerous skiing injuries, including a

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Speaker 1: recovering broken collar bone, meant that he was rejected for service.

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Speaker 1: Christina also attempted to enroll in active combat, but being

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Speaker 1: a woman, she was rejected as well. But Christina was persistent.

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Speaker 1: She knew that with her language skills, her social contact

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Speaker 1: she had made across Europe, she would be an asset

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Speaker 1: to the resistance, and so with her relationship with her

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Speaker 1: husband dissolved in all but name, Christina built a new

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Speaker 1: future for herself as an agent with the British Secret

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Speaker 1: Special Operations Executive or s o E. The organization wasn't

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Speaker 1: itself fully formed yet, and it wouldn't allow women to

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Speaker 1: enlist technically for another two years, but Christina demanded that

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Speaker 1: she'd be put to use. I know Poland, she said,

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Speaker 1: I know the mountains to the south. I can ski

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Speaker 1: across the border of Hungary and into occupied territory. Just

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Speaker 1: let me, and so they did. Christina convinced a former

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Speaker 1: Polish Olympic skier to join her skiing across the Tatram Mountains,

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Speaker 1: where she helped to deliver British propaganda and news material

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Speaker 1: to underground printing presses in Poland so that they could

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Speaker 1: reprint and distribute them. Christina recognized how starved the Polish

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Speaker 1: people were for news. Their only source of information about

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Speaker 1: what was happening around them was the German propaganda, and

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Speaker 1: as she brought information in, she also smuggled secrets out,

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Speaker 1: data and information on Germany's shipments and transportations. She traveled

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Speaker 1: back and forth between then neutral Hungary and Poland undercover

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Speaker 1: as a journalist. Her first time back in Poland, she

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Speaker 1: kept a hat low over her head so she wouldn't

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Speaker 1: be recognized by any friend. Still, an old acquaintance came

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Speaker 1: up to her at a cafe one morning, Christina, Christina Scarback,

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Speaker 1: What in Heaven's name are you doing here? We all

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Speaker 1: heard you went abroad. Christina shook her head. I'm sorry,

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Speaker 1: that's not me. I'm not Christina. Why how odd? The woman,

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Speaker 1: oblivious exclaimed, I could have sworn you were my friend,

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Speaker 1: Christina Scarback. It's uncanny people were looking now. Christina just

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Speaker 1: shook her head and to ally suspicion, she hung around

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Speaker 1: a little while longer, pretending that she hadn't been deeply

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Speaker 1: spooked by what had just occurred. How risky it was

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Speaker 1: for her, as a British agent to be moving in

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Speaker 1: occupied territory. On her final visit to Poland, she met

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Speaker 1: with her mother in secret. Christina had never registered as

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Speaker 1: a Jew, but her mother had. Christina knew what Germany

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Speaker 1: was doing around Eastern Europe, and she begged her mother

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Speaker 1: to leave, to stay in a cabin outside the city

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Speaker 1: until she could be smuggled out. Her mother refused. She

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Speaker 1: was loyal to Poland and she was teaching an underground

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Speaker 1: French class. She were a used to leave her students.

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Speaker 1: Maybe she didn't believe how bad it would become, or

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Speaker 1: didn't want to believe. Maybe she was scared. It was

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Speaker 1: the last time Christina saw her mother. Countess Stefanie scar Buck,

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Speaker 1: was killed by Nazis in a Warsaw prison. Soon it

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Speaker 1: was too risky for Christina to even remain in Hungry,

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Speaker 1: as Hungry, too fell to the occupying Nazi forces. In Budapest,

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Speaker 1: she connected with another Polish agent working for the British,

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Speaker 1: a man named Andreas Kowski, who would go by the

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Speaker 1: alias Andrew Kennedy. Don't you remember me, he said, grinning

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Speaker 1: when he shook Christina's hand. We used to have play

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Speaker 1: dates when we were toddlers. My father took me over

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Speaker 1: to play at your house in Warsaw when he had

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Speaker 1: business meetings with your father. Andre's fell in love with

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Speaker 1: Christina almost immediately. He was a brilliant tactician and dedicated

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Speaker 1: Polish patriot. Thanks to a hunting accident before the war,

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Speaker 1: where a friend accidentally shot him in the foot, he

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Speaker 1: was missing most of one leg, but still he had

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Speaker 1: served with the Polish Army during the invasion and had

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Speaker 1: been awarded their highest honor for bravery. From the time

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Speaker 1: he and Christina reconnected in Hungary, they would remain associates, partners,

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Speaker 1: and sometimes lovers for the rest of their lives. While

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Speaker 1: working in Budapest, the pair was captured by Hungarian police

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Speaker 1: officers and turned over to the Gestapo for questioning. Ever,

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Speaker 1: the quick thinker Christina bit her tongue hard enough to

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Speaker 1: draw blood, which she then coughed all over herself and

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Speaker 1: the Gestapo guards. She claimed to have tuberculosis, and an

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Speaker 1: X ray scan revealed the scars on her lungs remnants

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Speaker 1: from her time working at the Fiat dealership, but the

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Speaker 1: Hungarian police and Gestapo didn't know that. Disgusted at this woman,

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Speaker 1: presumably moments away from dying of active tuberculosis, the Gestapo

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Speaker 1: released Christina and Andres from custody. The pair realized that

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Speaker 1: they needed to get out of occupied territory. They got

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Speaker 1: a pair of fake passports in which Christina became Christine

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Speaker 1: Granville and took seven years off her age. In the

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Speaker 1: trunk of a Chrysler driven by an ambassador, Christina made

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Speaker 1: it to Yugoslavia and then Bulgaria, Andres drove across the

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Speaker 1: border in an opal, claiming that he owned a car

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Speaker 1: dealership and that he was driving a car that he

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Speaker 1: had sold to deliver it from Bulgaria. Christina Andres were

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Speaker 1: able to pass along the military intel that would eventually

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Speaker 1: help convince Winston Churchill that Germany was planning an invasion

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Speaker 1: of the Soviet Union. They say that Winston Churchill himself

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Speaker 1: actually looked at the micro film that Christina delivered. From

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Speaker 1: this point on, the stories of Christina's various exploits in

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Speaker 1: the war just become a string of heroic anecdotes, new lovers,

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Speaker 1: new countries, new missions. But I think my favorite story,

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Speaker 1: the one that best embodies her combination of quick thinking

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Speaker 1: and independent spirit, came after she had parachuted into France

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Speaker 1: to join the resistance there as part of a network

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Speaker 1: led by a man named Francis camer. One afternoon, three agents,

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Speaker 1: including the network's leader, came here. We're driving through the

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Speaker 1: French countryside when they hit an unexpected Gestapo roadblock. The

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Speaker 1: three men, almost immediately identified as agents, were brought to

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Speaker 1: a nearby prison and sentenced to be executed. Christina told

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Speaker 1: the rest of the resistance group that they needed to

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Speaker 1: get them out. It's too risky. The rest of the

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Speaker 1: group said, we'll see about that, Christina replied. She rode

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Speaker 1: her bicycle twenty five miles to the Digna prison, where

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Speaker 1: she suspected that the three captors were being kept, but

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Speaker 1: she couldn't be sure, and so she circled the walls

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Speaker 1: of the prison, humming the song Frankie and Johnny, an

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Speaker 1: old song that she and Camaire had sung together. From

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Speaker 1: the other side of the stone walls, she heard humming

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Speaker 1: back the counter melody to what she herself was humming.

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Speaker 1: The agents were inside. Gathering herself up, Christina approached the

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Speaker 1: guard of the prison and began one of the most

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Speaker 1: dangerous feints possible, I admit, she said, I'm a British agent.

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Speaker 1: In fact, I am the wife of one of your captives,

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Speaker 1: Francis Camire, and the niece of General Bernard Montgomery. Of course,

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Speaker 1: she was neither. I'm not supposed to be here, she said,

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Speaker 1: but I care about my husband, and so I'm going

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Speaker 1: to be straight with you. You and I both know

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Speaker 1: that Allied forces landed in Normandy last month, But what

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Speaker 1: you don't know is they made it through the country

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Speaker 1: and they're just miles away. Now they weren't, but Christina continued,

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Speaker 1: and when they reach your prison and find out you

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Speaker 1: killed these men, my husband and his friends, there is

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Speaker 1: going to be hell to pay. I don't need to

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Speaker 1: tell you that the soldiers aren't going to have mercy

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Speaker 1: on you. Retribution on you personally will be swift and terrible.

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Speaker 1: The nervous guard relented. Some sources say that she paid

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Speaker 1: them off with two million francs that she had wired

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Speaker 1: to her, or that the money was air dropped directly

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Speaker 1: to her, but the sources on that payment isn't quite clear.

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Speaker 1: What is clear is that the three resistance men were

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Speaker 1: led from their cells in the early hours of the morning,

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Speaker 1: sure that they were being taken into the yard to

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Speaker 1: be shot. Instead, as they shielded their eyes from the sun,

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Speaker 1: they saw Christina Scarback, leaning on the door of an

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Speaker 1: idling car to take them back to safety. Christina often

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Speaker 1: spoke half jokingly about her horror of peace, how nervous

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Speaker 1: she was for the end of the war when she

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Speaker 1: would no longer have a job or a noble purpose.

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Speaker 1: From the time the war ended, she had a pension

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Speaker 1: that lasted five months from the s Oe, but her

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00:21:39,320 --> 00:21:45,760
Speaker 1: application British citizenship kept getting tangled up and delayed in bureaucracy.

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Speaker 1: Unable to find a government position without citizenship, she bounced

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Speaker 1: between a few odd jobs in London. Too proud to

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Speaker 1: take any gifts or money from friends, Christina worked as

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Speaker 1: a telephone operator, saleswoman, waitress, and then finally as a

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Speaker 1: steward on the passenger liner Rouhin, one of the three

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Speaker 1: men that she had rescued in France. Zann Fielding wrote

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Speaker 1: of Christina in his memoirs about how she chose to

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Speaker 1: work on board a ship rather than take any of

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Speaker 1: her friend's hospitality. Quote she embarked on a life of

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Speaker 1: uncertain travel, as though anxious to reproduce in peacetime the

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Speaker 1: hazards she had known during war. On board the Rouhin

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Speaker 1: as a foreigner with a strange array of impressive medals,

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Speaker 1: the rest of the crew quickly grew to resent her,

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Speaker 1: while the rest of the crew, except for Dennis Muldoni.

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Speaker 1: He stood up for her that one time and Christina

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Speaker 1: had thanked him, and from then the two became friendly.

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Speaker 1: He claimed later that they were lovers, but Christina described

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Speaker 1: him to a friend as obstinate and terrifying. Once he

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Speaker 1: latched his attention onto Christina, he just wouldn't let go.

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Speaker 1: Christina was still a relatively young woman, younger even according

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Speaker 1: to her passport, and while on leave from the ship

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Speaker 1: in London, she made the decision that she would marry Andres.

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Speaker 1: After all, he had been proposing to her continually. He

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Speaker 1: had loved her his entire life, and she did love

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Speaker 1: him too. In her way. She had been running for

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Speaker 1: so long, trying to find that rush of adventure, but

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Speaker 1: maybe love could be an adventure too. She was living

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Speaker 1: at a hotel in London, the Shelburne, but maybe it

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Speaker 1: was time for her to build a more permanent life,

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Speaker 1: and so, to the delight of Andres, plans were made

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Speaker 1: she would meet him in Belgium and the two would

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Speaker 1: get married and continue on together to build a life together.

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Speaker 1: She packed her suitcase the night before her flight. She

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Speaker 1: was clothes, but also stowed away in the bottom of

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Speaker 1: the trunk her old s Oe wireless radio and the

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00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:10,760
Speaker 1: commando knife that she had always kept on her person

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Speaker 1: while in service. Even as she was flying away to

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Speaker 1: a more stable life of marriage, she was still prepared

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Speaker 1: for adventure, but her flight was canceled because of an

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Speaker 1: engine failure and pushed back to the following morning, and

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Speaker 1: so Christina had one extra day in London. That day,

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Speaker 1: she met a friend for coffee and neatly laid out

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Speaker 1: her travel outfit on her chair. For the next morning,

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Speaker 1: she borrowed an ink and pen from the hotel housekeeper

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Speaker 1: and neatly labeled her linens with her name so that

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Speaker 1: she could put them in storage. And then that night

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Speaker 1: she met a few more friends for supper before she

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Speaker 1: boarded the two and walked from the station back to

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Speaker 1: the hotel. Unbeknownst to her, Dennis Muldoney was watching her.

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Speaker 1: He slipped into the shellbourne after her and waited until

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Speaker 1: she was in the stairwell to confront her. He demanded

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Speaker 1: his letters back. I don't have them, Christina said, I

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Speaker 1: burned them. Muldoni sputtered in something like despair. To Christina,

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Speaker 1: he was pathetic, he had no self respect, he was obtuse,

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Speaker 1: and worse than that, he was boring. There's nothing here

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Speaker 1: between us, Dennis, she said. He charged at her. A

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Speaker 1: porter heard Christina shout, get off of me, and he

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Speaker 1: raced into the stairwell. Where he saw a man pressing

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Speaker 1: Christina against the wall. The porter assumed that the man

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Speaker 1: was forcing himself onto her, and so he ran ahead

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Speaker 1: and yanked the man off of her. Christina crumpled to

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Speaker 1: the floor. Dennis muldoney had stabbed her with a five

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Speaker 1: and a half blade into her chest, and Christina Scarbuck

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00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:10,200
Speaker 1: was already dead. Oh Christine, Dennis Muldoney shouted, I did

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Speaker 1: it because I loved her. The police arrived shortly after,

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Speaker 1: and Maldoni offered his full confession, but he also tried

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Speaker 1: to pour a bottle of powdered aspirin into his mouth

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Speaker 1: that the police had to not go out of his hands.

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Speaker 1: In the end, he was as impatient as Christina. I

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Speaker 1: killed her. He told the police, let's get away from

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Speaker 1: here and get it over quickly. Andres flew to London

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Speaker 1: the next morning and identified the body. He was the

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Speaker 1: last to say goodbye to her. Christina Scarbuck was buried

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Speaker 1: in the cemetery of Kensal Green in London under a

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Speaker 1: dusting of Polish soil, with all of her medals and

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Speaker 1: honors buried with her pinned on a velvet cushion. The

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Speaker 1: Polish national anthem was sung as the coffin was lowered

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Speaker 1: into the ground. During the funeral, a strong gust of

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Speaker 1: wind blew over the iron cross at the head of

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Speaker 1: her grave, and Andres raced forward to write it. He

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Speaker 1: would be protecting Christina and her reputation for the rest

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Speaker 1: of his life, until he would eventually be buried too.

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Speaker 1: His ashes at the foot of Christina's grave. Her death certificate,

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Speaker 1: which said that she was thirty seven, got her age rung.

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Speaker 1: Christina Scarbuck was forty four when she died, killed by

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Speaker 1: a man who claimed he loved her but only wanted

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Speaker 1: to possess her. She was the first female British Special

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Speaker 1: agent and their longest serving female agent. A woman who

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Speaker 1: had lived a life filled with adventure and bravery, the

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Speaker 1: daughter of a count and a Jewish woman killed by

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Speaker 1: the Gestapo, who had lived life only on her terms,

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Speaker 1: who had probably imagined death a thousand times coming in

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Speaker 1: the glory of battle or in the line of duty,

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Speaker 1: but had died instead in a hotel stairwell. That's the

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Speaker 1: story of Christina Scarback. But keep listening after a brief

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Speaker 1: sponsor break to hear a little bit more about her legacy.

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Speaker 1: Even if you've never heard of Christina Scarback up until

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00:28:44,360 --> 00:28:47,400
Speaker 1: this podcast, there's a good chance you've heard of one

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00:28:47,440 --> 00:28:51,680
Speaker 1: of the characters that she's inspired in fiction. Rumor has

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Speaker 1: it that Ian Fleming, the author of the James Bond novels,

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Speaker 1: was inspired by Christina while writing the character of the

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Speaker 1: double cross the agent vesper Lynde in his novel Casino Royale.

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Speaker 1: Some sources even claim that Fleming and Christina were secretly lovers,

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00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:12,680
Speaker 1: although some others argue that there's no evidence the pair

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00:29:12,800 --> 00:29:17,280
Speaker 1: actually met in person. Ever, still one can easily understand

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00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:20,600
Speaker 1: that Fleming would have only needed to hear rumors of

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00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:25,760
Speaker 1: this glamorous, globe trotting beauty queen spy who spoke multiple languages,

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Speaker 1: and create in his mind the architecture of what would

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Speaker 1: become that famous archetype, the Bond Girl. Still, I think

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Speaker 1: one of Christina's biographers, Claire Mali, says it best when

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Speaker 1: she says that in real life, Christina wasn't a Bond Girl.

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Speaker 1: Christina Scarbuck was James Bond. Noble Blood is a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky.

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Speaker 1: The show was written and hosted by Dana Schwartz and

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Speaker 1: produced by Aaron Manky, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Trevor Young.

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Speaker 1: Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales,

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Speaker 1: and you can learn more about the show over at

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Speaker 1: Noble blood Tales dot com. For more podcasts from I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M