WEBVTT - 5. Enemy Territory (Season 2)

0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:16.280
<v Speaker 1>Diversion audio. A note this episode contains descriptions of violence

0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:20.160
<v Speaker 1>and genocide that may be disturbing. Please take care in listening.

0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:24.680
<v Speaker 1>This series is based on historical characters and real events.

0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:28.800
<v Speaker 1>Some dialogue has been imagined for dramatic purposes when no

0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:39.479
<v Speaker 1>primary source material is available. Virginia Hall had successfully managed

0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:42.600
<v Speaker 1>to save the British pilot in German clutches, but the

0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:47.080
<v Speaker 1>rescue came with the cost. While meeting with the downed

0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:50.400
<v Speaker 1>airman in a public restaurant, she was confronted by the

0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:54.600
<v Speaker 1>Gestapo after the pilot ordered a beer, a drink forbidden

0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:58.120
<v Speaker 1>to the French public. In an effort to cover for him.

0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:00.760
<v Speaker 1>Virginia explained that she was in the Mary a newspaper

0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:05.559
<v Speaker 1>reporter named Brigitte Le Contra, but by doing that, she'd

0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:08.800
<v Speaker 1>exposed her alias to the Nazis earlier in her mission

0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:12.119
<v Speaker 1>than she had hoped. Now she felt she had to move.

0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:20.520
<v Speaker 1>Virginia abandoned her current safe house and leon and set

0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:25.160
<v Speaker 1>up shopping another, notifying Vera Atkins, her unofficial handler with

0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:27.880
<v Speaker 1>the s O back in London, that she was changing

0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:31.920
<v Speaker 1>her street name to Marie. She decided she'd have to

0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:36.200
<v Speaker 1>be smarter about direct contact with Nazis. Going forward, she

0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:39.240
<v Speaker 1>would offer aid to operatives who needed it, but she'd

0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:43.360
<v Speaker 1>have to work more discreetly. Up to this point, Virginia

0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:46.640
<v Speaker 1>could move about in France without much pushback. She could

0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:49.160
<v Speaker 1>use her status as an American to fend off a

0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:52.320
<v Speaker 1>stint in a German prison, so long as she wasn't

0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:56.720
<v Speaker 1>actively stirring up trouble. Though America had thrown financial and

0:01:56.760 --> 0:01:59.680
<v Speaker 1>moral support to the Allied forces, it was still the

0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:03.480
<v Speaker 1>middle of nineteen forty one and the US hadn't officially

0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:07.840
<v Speaker 1>entered the war. As President Roosevelt explained in late nineteen

0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:12.280
<v Speaker 1>the people of Europe, who are defending themselves, do not

0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:17.919
<v Speaker 1>ask us to do their fighting. They asked us well.

0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:22.120
<v Speaker 1>The implements of law, the planes, the tanks, the guns

0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:26.160
<v Speaker 1>freight us which will enable them to fight for their

0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:32.359
<v Speaker 1>liberty and our security. The Democrats controlled both the House

0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:35.160
<v Speaker 1>and the Senate at that point, and believed in tangling

0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:39.040
<v Speaker 1>themselves in an international war would distract from an economy

0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:42.880
<v Speaker 1>that was still recovering from the Great Depression. America was

0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:47.320
<v Speaker 1>confident that the United France, and Britain could feedback Hitler's armies,

0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:59.800
<v Speaker 1>but after the Blitz of nineteen forty Germany's persistent bombies

0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:04.120
<v Speaker 1>of English cities to simphthy from America. The Blitz was

0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:07.240
<v Speaker 1>a series of German air raids and bombing attacks that

0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:12.560
<v Speaker 1>lasted until forcing Britat into their homes for extended periods

0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:16.880
<v Speaker 1>of time and leaving much of London in ruins. As

0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:21.600
<v Speaker 1>one BBC radio reporter recalled, I was walking between solid

0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:25.799
<v Speaker 1>walls of fire. Roofs of shops and office buildings came

0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:29.080
<v Speaker 1>down with a roaring crash. Panes of grounds were cracking

0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:32.239
<v Speaker 1>everywhere from the heat. At Every street was criss crossed

0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:36.840
<v Speaker 1>with innumerable lengths of hose. President Roosevelt began taking bigger

0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:40.320
<v Speaker 1>steps away from neutrality and an effort to help the British,

0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:43.960
<v Speaker 1>eventually offering U S ships to work as convoys for

0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:47.800
<v Speaker 1>British travel around the globe. It wasn't long before the

0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:51.680
<v Speaker 1>Axis powers realized the U S would be more directly involved,

0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:55.720
<v Speaker 1>sooner rather than later. With that in mind, the order

0:03:55.960 --> 0:04:03.960
<v Speaker 1>was given yesterday. They sum US some nineteen forty one,

0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:12.520
<v Speaker 1>a date which will live in infamy. The United States

0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:19.320
<v Speaker 1>of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked. Japan bombed the

0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:22.359
<v Speaker 1>U S naval base at Pearl Harbor and what was

0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:26.160
<v Speaker 1>then the U. S Territory of Hawaii, killing two thousand,

0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:29.839
<v Speaker 1>three hundred and thirty five people and wounding over a

0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:35.239
<v Speaker 1>thousand more. The next day, President Roosevelt declared war against Japan,

0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:40.560
<v Speaker 1>officially entering World War two and effectively ending Virginia's cover

0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:51.720
<v Speaker 1>in France, as she was now stationed deep within enemy territory.

0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:59.840
<v Speaker 1>I'm Stephen Talty and from Diversion. This is good Assassin's

0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:04.359
<v Speaker 1>Season two. Being killed would be the easy part. Being

0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:08.640
<v Speaker 1>tortured would be the hard part. Our intel suggests she

0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:12.240
<v Speaker 1>is behind many of the prison bricks over the country.

0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:19.359
<v Speaker 1>She is dangerous, so sabotage plus a little espionage paramilitary

0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:24.440
<v Speaker 1>operations make things blow up. The message for Captain Bobby

0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:28.159
<v Speaker 1>and I believe I have found the nest of the

0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:42.520
<v Speaker 1>Limping Lady. Episode five, Enemy Territory. It was early and

0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:45.440
<v Speaker 1>Robert Alesha's hunt for the Limping Lady had brought him

0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:49.200
<v Speaker 1>to the doorstep of a French gynecologist and resistance operative

0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:54.120
<v Speaker 1>named doctor jean Ussey and leone France. Alessia had managed

0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:56.800
<v Speaker 1>to trick the doctor into believing he was a priest

0:05:57.160 --> 0:06:00.640
<v Speaker 1>named Robert at coom, a new courier for the French resistance.

0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:05.039
<v Speaker 1>In reality, he was a Nazi spy working directly for

0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:10.880
<v Speaker 1>infamous s S officer Klaus Barbie. Alesha had received information

0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:15.159
<v Speaker 1>from Dr Roussey and concluded a woman named Marie maybe

0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:18.480
<v Speaker 1>the Limping Lady he had been searching for. He wired

0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:24.560
<v Speaker 1>his superiors with a report A message for Captain Bobby.

0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:29.719
<v Speaker 1>This is Alesh. I believe I have found the nest

0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:35.200
<v Speaker 1>of the Limping Lady. Between her rescue of the British

0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:39.040
<v Speaker 1>pilot and Alesha's visit to Dr Hussey's home, the Limping

0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:41.839
<v Speaker 1>Lady had become a major thorn in the side of

0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:45.640
<v Speaker 1>the s S. She had managed to gather intel of

0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:49.440
<v Speaker 1>German missions and plots to target British strongholds in France

0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:53.520
<v Speaker 1>that gave the Brits an edge. But most importantly, the

0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:56.279
<v Speaker 1>Limping Lady was considered by the s S to be

0:06:56.360 --> 0:07:00.040
<v Speaker 1>the leader of a new resistance network named Heckler that

0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:04.800
<v Speaker 1>supplied resistance members with weaponry, housing, and escape roots out

0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:08.960
<v Speaker 1>of the country. In reality, Virginia wasn't just the leader

0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:12.680
<v Speaker 1>of Heckler, but the founder. We tried to confirm why

0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:16.600
<v Speaker 1>Virginia named her unit Heckler, but our research was unsuccessful.

0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:21.160
<v Speaker 1>Her well known wit might be some indication. But whether

0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:24.240
<v Speaker 1>Heckler was named to aggravate the Nazis, there was no

0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:28.640
<v Speaker 1>denying its impact on German war efforts. Over the course

0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:34.440
<v Speaker 1>of about eleven months between August nine and July, Virginia

0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:39.360
<v Speaker 1>masterminded multiple jail breaks free captured British and French resistance fighters,

0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:43.760
<v Speaker 1>returned information to London. And she did it all from

0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:48.480
<v Speaker 1>the shadows. What do you want me to do? Then

0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:52.440
<v Speaker 1>I find the limping Lady, confirm her location, and then

0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:56.320
<v Speaker 1>returned to us. Do not make any attempt to arrest her.

0:07:56.720 --> 0:08:00.600
<v Speaker 1>We don't want to expose you just yet. I don't

0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:03.000
<v Speaker 1>want to tell you how to do your job, Captain.

0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:06.800
<v Speaker 1>But if this really is the limping Lady, I would

0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:10.920
<v Speaker 1>discourage any attempt to imprison her. She won't go to prison,

0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:22.240
<v Speaker 1>She'll go to the camps. Soon after Adolf Hitler became

0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:26.560
<v Speaker 1>chancellor in Germany, the Nazis began to set up a

0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:30.600
<v Speaker 1>number of isolated stations, ostensibly to hold those they deemed

0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:36.920
<v Speaker 1>undesirable until the war ended. These stations, architecturally designed for

0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:42.040
<v Speaker 1>the purpose of suffering and dehumanization, were called concentration camps.

0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:47.160
<v Speaker 1>The first concentration camp was built in Dakout, Germany, just

0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:51.720
<v Speaker 1>outside of Munich, in March of ninety three. So Dachau

0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:56.320
<v Speaker 1>was the most important, the most long lasting of the

0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:59.600
<v Speaker 1>concentration camps that are set up in the first months

0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:04.600
<v Speaker 1>of Hypnostic titorship, and therefore, as such, Dakau was central

0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:07.800
<v Speaker 1>to the destruction of the Bimar Republic and to the

0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:14.120
<v Speaker 1>destruction of the rule of law in Germany. That's Christopher Dillon,

0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:18.440
<v Speaker 1>a senior lecturer of modern German history at King's College, London.

0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:22.920
<v Speaker 1>In two thousand fifteen he published a book called Dakau

0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:27.640
<v Speaker 1>and the s S, a Schooling in violence. Dakau was

0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:31.400
<v Speaker 1>built for political prisoners and perceived threats to the Nazi Party,

0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:36.280
<v Speaker 1>and the majority of its first occupants included Jews, social Democrats,

0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:41.520
<v Speaker 1>German communists, and others perceived as sympathetic to socialist ideals.

0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:45.240
<v Speaker 1>As the camp grew over time, it became home to

0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:51.559
<v Speaker 1>others deemed unsociable, most notably homosexuals, the Roma, and Jehovah's witnesses.

0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:56.400
<v Speaker 1>Once these prisoners arrived, they faced a world of terror.

0:09:57.360 --> 0:09:59.720
<v Speaker 1>Some of theatum with an oxwid in front of the

0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:04.040
<v Speaker 1>SA prisoners, which is both a punishment for their supposed

0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:08.000
<v Speaker 1>these would also a demonstration to the wider prisoner community

0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:11.080
<v Speaker 1>of the s S is absolute power in the camps.

0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:14.439
<v Speaker 1>Some arrivals are taken off to the camp knock up

0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:19.320
<v Speaker 1>or bunker where they're tormented, are insulted, beaten, deprivate of sleep,

0:10:19.440 --> 0:10:23.120
<v Speaker 1>subjected to attack dogs, and invited to commit suicide. And

0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:27.080
<v Speaker 1>in a handful of cases also you have Nazi apostate

0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:30.600
<v Speaker 1>supposed internal traitors of the movement who were brought to

0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:33.200
<v Speaker 1>the camp and then a kind of gruesomely murdered in

0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:36.439
<v Speaker 1>so called female executions, which is on a killing that

0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:39.080
<v Speaker 1>was quite fashionable in the German right during the Weimar

0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:45.320
<v Speaker 1>Republic in the first commandant of Dakao invoked martial law

0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:49.760
<v Speaker 1>in a unilateral declaration, one that had no validity and

0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:52.920
<v Speaker 1>would not be recognized by the local government, but it

0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:56.360
<v Speaker 1>gave the SS guards grounds for their actions. Years before

0:10:56.400 --> 0:11:00.679
<v Speaker 1>World War Two began in Auschwitz, Comman Down, who had

0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.600
<v Speaker 1>cut his teeth at Dakau, wrote a post war memoir.

0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:07.280
<v Speaker 1>He uses the term dak House spirit to describe what

0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:11.040
<v Speaker 1>he calls the unique quote atmosphere of hatred end quote

0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:13.920
<v Speaker 1>in Dakau towards the prisoners, and he saw this as

0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:18.240
<v Speaker 1>being kind of proactively brutal and hectoring guard culture, and

0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:22.560
<v Speaker 1>it almost kind of boyish open joy in inflicting creative

0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:28.480
<v Speaker 1>suffering on the inmates. This dak House spirit was then

0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:33.120
<v Speaker 1>diffused throughout the camp system because ss men who kind

0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:35.360
<v Speaker 1>of earned their spurs and Dakau are then posted to

0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:39.800
<v Speaker 1>set up camps elsewhere and a core ethos of the

0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:44.880
<v Speaker 1>guard mentality with anti Semitism. In fact, fourteen of the

0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:47.959
<v Speaker 1>twenty two prisoners murdered at Dakao in his first year

0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:51.560
<v Speaker 1>of operation were Jewish, even though Jews made up less

0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:54.600
<v Speaker 1>than ten percent of the inmate population at the time.

0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:58.839
<v Speaker 1>If he didn't loudly and publicly hate Jews at all

0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:01.360
<v Speaker 1>times as a Dacaud, you simply wouldn't fit in. It

0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:05.040
<v Speaker 1>was absolutely axiomatic to the world view of Nazi activists

0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:14.959
<v Speaker 1>and party members. Decas primary architect with an AS officer

0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:18.840
<v Speaker 1>named Theodore Acre who became commandant of the camp in

0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:26.319
<v Speaker 1>June of and he was fanatical Nazis, charismatic, pugnacious, devoted

0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:28.920
<v Speaker 1>your no kind of life really outside the s S.

0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:31.600
<v Speaker 1>I can want to guards to hate the prisoners on

0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:36.120
<v Speaker 1>a very personal and emotional level. He wrote, quote SS

0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:38.920
<v Speaker 1>members hate the heart in their breasts must be turned

0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:43.400
<v Speaker 1>to stone and quote So under Ka's command, the guards

0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:46.160
<v Speaker 1>at Dark House and increasing these young males who come

0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:49.360
<v Speaker 1>from the Hitler youth are hazed and drilled in the

0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:52.760
<v Speaker 1>roughest German tradition and encouraged, in turn, to channel their

0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:56.960
<v Speaker 1>resentments of being mistreated during drill onto the camp prisoners

0:12:57.000 --> 0:13:01.360
<v Speaker 1>to cascade them. Guards are promoted full violence and then

0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:05.160
<v Speaker 1>protected from many legal consequences from their actions, so the

0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:07.439
<v Speaker 1>camps really are a lawless space by the Big n

0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:12.520
<v Speaker 1>It was Ica who masterminded the blue and white pajamas

0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:15.880
<v Speaker 1>given to detainees, and it was Ica who oversaw a

0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:18.760
<v Speaker 1>new regiment of Nazi guards and methods that led to

0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:22.079
<v Speaker 1>most of the harsh and often lethal punishments that became

0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:26.760
<v Speaker 1>standard in every camp. The Nazis regularly withheld food from

0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:32.000
<v Speaker 1>their prisoners while simultaneously increasing their workloads. They were literally

0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:38.160
<v Speaker 1>worked to the bone and not given medical treatment for malnutrition, injury, exhaustion,

0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:43.360
<v Speaker 1>and dehydration. If they died, they were merely replaced with others.

0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:47.120
<v Speaker 1>Ica would rise through the ranks and be placed in

0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:50.200
<v Speaker 1>the crosshairs of history, as he was later handpicked by

0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:54.520
<v Speaker 1>Hitler to murder Ernst Rome, a high ranking Nazi who

0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:57.800
<v Speaker 1>Hitler feared was plotting to take over the Nazi Party.

0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:03.600
<v Speaker 1>In ninety four, Here's a man named Abe Melnick reflecting

0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:08.200
<v Speaker 1>at his horrific time as a prisoner at Dakau. In

0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:12.800
<v Speaker 1>the house every morning, other friend of mine and myself

0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:17.720
<v Speaker 1>we had a small card like a little y show,

0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:21.640
<v Speaker 1>and we walked from back to back, and we pulled

0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:25.160
<v Speaker 1>up all the dead people and stacked him up and

0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:29.440
<v Speaker 1>take the rown, dumped them and do it again. And

0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:33.040
<v Speaker 1>some of my own friends I wouldn't even recognize because

0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:42.600
<v Speaker 1>full of lies, lies, monetrician diarrhea, the cent terium, typhoid, everything,

0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:49.560
<v Speaker 1>all that everything hit us Daka was the longest camp

0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:53.480
<v Speaker 1>in operation, only shutting down after its liberation from Allied

0:14:53.520 --> 0:15:00.200
<v Speaker 1>forces in April. It's estimated over two thousand prisoners in

0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:03.920
<v Speaker 1>Dakau throughout the course of its operation, though the death

0:15:03.920 --> 0:15:08.000
<v Speaker 1>toll is disputed. While account of nearly twenty eight thousand

0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:12.920
<v Speaker 1>deaths was talied between nineteen forty, the number from nineteen

0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:17.200
<v Speaker 1>thirty three to nine is unknown, as the amount of

0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:22.520
<v Speaker 1>murdered unregistered prisoners can't be counted. The first thing they

0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:25.640
<v Speaker 1>see is like an enormous train of the sidings of Daca,

0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:28.480
<v Speaker 1>which is full of corpses. These are prisoners that have

0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:32.920
<v Speaker 1>been transported from elsewhere in the camp system that have

0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:37.560
<v Speaker 1>died en route. So let's just get absolutely sickening sites,

0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:40.960
<v Speaker 1>these other worldly scenes of suffering and death, as saying

0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:46.600
<v Speaker 1>into everyone's historical consciousness, we have to take a short break,

0:15:47.040 --> 0:16:03.000
<v Speaker 1>stay with us. According to the US Holocaust Museum quote,

0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:06.040
<v Speaker 1>the Nazis and their allies ran more than forty four

0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:12.160
<v Speaker 1>thousand camps, ghettos, and other sites of detention, persecution, forced labor,

0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:16.520
<v Speaker 1>and murder during the Holocaust. Daka was just the first

0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:20.400
<v Speaker 1>of the concentration camps created by Germany. They varied in

0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:24.120
<v Speaker 1>size and function. Some were labor camps and others were

0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:28.440
<v Speaker 1>just execution sites. These were the hellish places that people

0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:32.600
<v Speaker 1>like Robert Alesh were sending Jews, resistance fighters, and those

0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:36.880
<v Speaker 1>who spoke out against the Nazi Party. After receiving permission

0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:39.840
<v Speaker 1>from Klaus Barbie, the head of the Gestapo and Leone

0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:43.120
<v Speaker 1>to hunt down the limping lady, Alesha knew that the

0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:46.600
<v Speaker 1>address Dr Russey had given him wouldn't likely put him

0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:50.440
<v Speaker 1>in direct contact with her. Molestia had spent enough time

0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:54.440
<v Speaker 1>undercover among resistance fighters to know that they all carried

0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:57.800
<v Speaker 1>multiple aliases, and while he was sure that Marie was

0:16:57.880 --> 0:17:00.600
<v Speaker 1>the Limping Lady, he knew that disco bring her real

0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:05.000
<v Speaker 1>identity before making contact would give him an advantage. But

0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:08.240
<v Speaker 1>he couldn't go back to Dr Hussey and ask him directly.

0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:13.159
<v Speaker 1>Alesh once again turned to the Leone churches, adopting his

0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:19.040
<v Speaker 1>persona as a priest to find more information. Forgive me, father,

0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:23.840
<v Speaker 1>for I have seen that it has been seven months

0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:27.560
<v Speaker 1>since my last confession. Forgive me, father, for I have

0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:33.480
<v Speaker 1>seen forgive me six weeks since my last my last confession,

0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:40.480
<v Speaker 1>five months since my last confision. But this method seemed

0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:43.840
<v Speaker 1>to have run its course. The resistance unit known as

0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:47.760
<v Speaker 1>Heckler had dug deep into Leone, and apparently the word

0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:50.720
<v Speaker 1>had gotten out not to trust the clergy with any

0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:55.239
<v Speaker 1>resistance secrets. With his secret weapon taken away, unless went

0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:59.359
<v Speaker 1>back to Barbie for advice. You told me you had

0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:03.280
<v Speaker 1>her Lokay, Sir, I think we should know more about

0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:06.080
<v Speaker 1>her before we show up at her door. What we

0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:09.439
<v Speaker 1>know about her is that she is single handedly taking

0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:14.280
<v Speaker 1>us apart. Hecla is responsible for the Menvy lost at Muzak,

0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:20.920
<v Speaker 1>and now you are hesitating. In July of n Virginia

0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:24.639
<v Speaker 1>had successfully plotted the escape of twelve British agents and

0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:28.520
<v Speaker 1>resistance fighters from a prison called Muzak in the city

0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:32.080
<v Speaker 1>of berger Rock in the southwest of France. It was

0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:36.439
<v Speaker 1>an amazing operation. Over a series of a few months,

0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:40.440
<v Speaker 1>Virginia brought together a number of Heckler operatives who slowly

0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:43.919
<v Speaker 1>and methodically delivered to the prisoners bits of clay in

0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:46.919
<v Speaker 1>tin sardine cans that could be used to make a

0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:51.000
<v Speaker 1>cast of the lock of the barracks door. After successfully

0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:54.240
<v Speaker 1>building a replica of the lock, a locksmith was able

0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:56.840
<v Speaker 1>to build a key that was then smuggled into the

0:18:56.840 --> 0:19:01.440
<v Speaker 1>prison and allowed the prisoners to escape. After their escape,

0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:05.280
<v Speaker 1>Virginia smuggled the agents out of France, through Spain and

0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:09.240
<v Speaker 1>into London, all while never stepping out of the shadows.

0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:14.359
<v Speaker 1>This incredible operation was deemed one of the nazis greatest embarrassments.

0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:19.639
<v Speaker 1>Every moment you're standing here in front of me is

0:19:19.680 --> 0:19:23.520
<v Speaker 1>another moment where that woman is transmitting our plans to

0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:27.800
<v Speaker 1>the British and setting us back months. If I go

0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:30.640
<v Speaker 1>to the address and misidentify her, we'll have played our

0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:33.040
<v Speaker 1>hand and all of this will be for nothing. Then

0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:36.520
<v Speaker 1>they'll shows the place on sir. If she's there, you'll

0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:39.960
<v Speaker 1>kill her and we won't have learned anything. We need

0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:43.119
<v Speaker 1>her alive. We need her face on a poster that

0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:45.800
<v Speaker 1>we can shove into the faces of the British so

0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:49.200
<v Speaker 1>we can make them think we know everything about the operations.

0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:54.840
<v Speaker 1>If we capture the Limping Lady, we destroy HECLA. But

0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:57.840
<v Speaker 1>if we haven't confirmed exactly who she is and we

0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:00.840
<v Speaker 1>just kill some woman we could be looking for the

0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:08.280
<v Speaker 1>Limping Lady forever, then go get her. We have to

0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:12.280
<v Speaker 1>imagine this exchange with Barbie was frustrating. For a lesh,

0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:15.040
<v Speaker 1>he would have felt like he was back at square one.

0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:18.040
<v Speaker 1>He considered that if he just knew what the Limping

0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:21.600
<v Speaker 1>Lady looked like beyond her limp, he could make a

0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:26.119
<v Speaker 1>positive idea with a careful interrogation. He also knew that

0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:28.399
<v Speaker 1>if she had to tell as prominent as a limp,

0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:31.560
<v Speaker 1>and she was the leader of Heckler, it was possible

0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:35.320
<v Speaker 1>that other female agents or resistance members might pretend to

0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:39.400
<v Speaker 1>have limps just to keep the Nazis guessing, but Lesh

0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:42.760
<v Speaker 1>couldn't get church parishioners to talk about the resistance and

0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:47.040
<v Speaker 1>confession anymore. They were either not involved or had gotten

0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:52.480
<v Speaker 1>wise dispelling secrets. His priest persona was proving ineffective, so

0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:55.439
<v Speaker 1>he would have to take a more scholastic route and

0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:59.560
<v Speaker 1>review reports made by the Gestapo about past encounters with

0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:03.480
<v Speaker 1>Suspic's civilians. It was here that a Lash learned of

0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:06.399
<v Speaker 1>an instance in which a foreign news reporter had a

0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:14.280
<v Speaker 1>strange encounter with the Gestapo about a year before. Robert Delash, Yeah,

0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:18.080
<v Speaker 1>you are the man who spoke to zoa porter. Yeah,

0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:24.840
<v Speaker 1>in the cache what exactly major supporters stand out? She

0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:28.240
<v Speaker 1>was a woman, and she was with a man who

0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:34.240
<v Speaker 1>tried other pier shaky fellow, nervous on accident. Her French

0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:38.440
<v Speaker 1>was excellent, but the accident was I believe perhaps Canadian.

0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:46.120
<v Speaker 1>What was her name? I don't remember. Was it Marie? No,

0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:53.840
<v Speaker 1>it wasn't Marie Bridget and believe Bridget. M hm. You

0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:56.879
<v Speaker 1>have written a new report that she had a limb. Yeah,

0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:01.520
<v Speaker 1>that's right, and this was about a year ago before

0:22:01.520 --> 0:22:04.760
<v Speaker 1>as a limping lady was known to us. Yes, Sir,

0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:11.760
<v Speaker 1>I didn't seein thing all describe her to me. Virginia

0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:15.399
<v Speaker 1>was described as mid thirties, dark hair with a large,

0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:18.800
<v Speaker 1>slender nose. She had thin eyebrows with a higher than

0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:23.080
<v Speaker 1>normal arch, the curled sharply and thin lips. Her height

0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:27.720
<v Speaker 1>was noted as five ft seven with this description and

0:22:27.840 --> 0:22:33.760
<v Speaker 1>limited other options. Unless decided on his next move. After

0:22:33.760 --> 0:22:36.439
<v Speaker 1>the break, he pays a visit to the address given

0:22:36.480 --> 0:22:52.719
<v Speaker 1>to him by Dr Hussey. It's unclear if Robert Alesh

0:22:52.800 --> 0:22:56.000
<v Speaker 1>felt any guilt for what he was doing. When Germany

0:22:56.040 --> 0:22:58.880
<v Speaker 1>first became a threat to Europe. He had originally sited

0:22:58.920 --> 0:23:02.840
<v Speaker 1>against them, and record show he even considered himself part

0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:06.199
<v Speaker 1>of the resistance, aligning with the French and working to

0:23:06.280 --> 0:23:10.080
<v Speaker 1>hide immigrant Jews in his parish. But when the Nazis

0:23:10.119 --> 0:23:13.080
<v Speaker 1>took over all of France and forty two and Alesha

0:23:13.119 --> 0:23:16.879
<v Speaker 1>was arrested for his activities, he quickly switched sides and

0:23:16.960 --> 0:23:20.399
<v Speaker 1>never seemed to look back. Now he was in league

0:23:20.400 --> 0:23:23.240
<v Speaker 1>with some of the top ranking Nazis stationed in France,

0:23:23.760 --> 0:23:26.800
<v Speaker 1>although it seems he was not himself a designated member

0:23:26.880 --> 0:23:30.560
<v Speaker 1>of the Gestapo. With his connections to the s S,

0:23:30.880 --> 0:23:33.760
<v Speaker 1>he likely could have run and escaped to almost anywhere

0:23:33.800 --> 0:23:37.600
<v Speaker 1>in the world, but instead Alesh chose to stay and work,

0:23:38.200 --> 0:23:40.800
<v Speaker 1>maybe hoping to build an identity in this new world.

0:23:40.840 --> 0:23:44.399
<v Speaker 1>The Nazis promised. He come a long way, and we

0:23:44.480 --> 0:23:47.080
<v Speaker 1>haven't been able to find any evidence that he ever

0:23:47.200 --> 0:23:52.680
<v Speaker 1>planned to turn back. I wish with all my heart

0:23:52.880 --> 0:23:56.200
<v Speaker 1>that everyone fighting in this war could have come with

0:23:56.240 --> 0:23:58.800
<v Speaker 1>me through the bobbed wire offense that leads to the

0:23:58.840 --> 0:24:03.000
<v Speaker 1>inner compound. The app following the end of the war

0:24:03.080 --> 0:24:07.200
<v Speaker 1>in the world started to learn of the devastating number

0:24:07.200 --> 0:24:11.280
<v Speaker 1>of people killed in the concentration camps, starting with Belson

0:24:11.440 --> 0:24:15.600
<v Speaker 1>in Germany. Richard Dimbleby described what he found there in

0:24:15.680 --> 0:24:19.800
<v Speaker 1>his role as a war correspondent for the BBC. But

0:24:19.880 --> 0:24:23.680
<v Speaker 1>beyond the barrier was a whirling cloud of dust, the

0:24:23.760 --> 0:24:27.679
<v Speaker 1>dust of thousands of slowly moving people, laden in itself

0:24:27.800 --> 0:24:31.560
<v Speaker 1>with the deadly typhus job. And with the dust was

0:24:31.600 --> 0:24:35.600
<v Speaker 1>a smell, sickly and thick, the smell of death and decay,

0:24:35.880 --> 0:24:39.920
<v Speaker 1>of corruption and filth. I passed through the barrier and

0:24:40.000 --> 0:24:44.360
<v Speaker 1>found myself in the world of a nightmare. Dead bodies,

0:24:44.680 --> 0:24:47.280
<v Speaker 1>some of them in decay, lay strewn about the road

0:24:47.320 --> 0:24:50.720
<v Speaker 1>and along the rutted tracks, on each side of the

0:24:50.800 --> 0:24:54.600
<v Speaker 1>road were brown wooden huts. There were faces the windows,

0:24:55.119 --> 0:24:59.280
<v Speaker 1>the bony, emaciated faces of starving women too weak to

0:24:59.359 --> 0:25:05.520
<v Speaker 1>come out sid An estimated six million Jewish people were

0:25:05.600 --> 0:25:09.199
<v Speaker 1>murdered at the hands of the Nazis. Sometimes when we

0:25:09.280 --> 0:25:12.840
<v Speaker 1>hear numbers so large, it's difficult to put them into perspective.

0:25:13.480 --> 0:25:17.920
<v Speaker 1>So consider this. More Jews were murdered in concentration camps,

0:25:18.240 --> 0:25:21.480
<v Speaker 1>then there are people currently living in the entire city

0:25:21.720 --> 0:25:25.600
<v Speaker 1>of Los Angeles. While the Holocaust can't give us a

0:25:25.680 --> 0:25:29.080
<v Speaker 1>perfect number for all its casualties due to the Nazis

0:25:29.160 --> 0:25:32.800
<v Speaker 1>destroying their records as camps were being liberated, it remains

0:25:32.800 --> 0:25:36.639
<v Speaker 1>the most well documented and accurate count of genocide in

0:25:36.760 --> 0:25:41.399
<v Speaker 1>human history. I've seen many terrible sites in the last

0:25:41.480 --> 0:25:45.679
<v Speaker 1>five years, but nothing, nothing approaching the dreadful interior of

0:25:45.720 --> 0:25:50.280
<v Speaker 1>this hot At Belson, the dead and the dyeing lay

0:25:50.320 --> 0:26:00.439
<v Speaker 1>close together as Alest approached the address give into him

0:26:00.480 --> 0:26:03.520
<v Speaker 1>by dr who say he shifted into his father, a

0:26:03.600 --> 0:26:07.600
<v Speaker 1>con persona. He would only get one chance with this lead,

0:26:08.200 --> 0:26:10.840
<v Speaker 1>and he still wasn't sure if this Marie was in

0:26:10.920 --> 0:26:21.880
<v Speaker 1>fact the limping lady. Mm hmmmm, Yes, Marie Marie, it's father.

0:26:22.200 --> 0:26:26.440
<v Speaker 1>Can have you treated the cats on the roof? Yes,

0:26:27.400 --> 0:26:41.240
<v Speaker 1>but they won't take a brandy come in father. Coming

0:26:41.320 --> 0:26:48.160
<v Speaker 1>up on the next episode of Good Assassins, being burned

0:26:48.480 --> 0:26:52.440
<v Speaker 1>is devastating. That means your whole network could be compromised.

0:26:52.520 --> 0:26:56.720
<v Speaker 1>Your number one thing is that tingly spider sense. Right,

0:26:57.359 --> 0:26:59.719
<v Speaker 1>they've been banging the fourth there's made landings that all

0:26:59.760 --> 0:27:02.200
<v Speaker 1>around about give on the long coat of front North

0:27:02.240 --> 0:27:05.399
<v Speaker 1>Africa and somewhere on the web coat. Whatever it is

0:27:05.480 --> 0:27:10.600
<v Speaker 1>the Gestapo wants, they'll demand it in exchange from making

0:27:10.680 --> 0:27:13.840
<v Speaker 1>the pain end, and then at the end they'll mainly

0:27:13.920 --> 0:27:29.399
<v Speaker 1>execute the people. If you have any questions for us

0:27:29.440 --> 0:27:32.560
<v Speaker 1>about Good Assassins, if you're curious about some aspect of

0:27:32.600 --> 0:27:35.800
<v Speaker 1>Virginia Hall story, or have any comments on the podcast,

0:27:36.000 --> 0:27:38.919
<v Speaker 1>we'd love to hear from you. Please email us at

0:27:38.920 --> 0:27:42.399
<v Speaker 1>good Assassins at diversion audio dot com. Make sure you

0:27:42.440 --> 0:27:46.960
<v Speaker 1>spell assassins correctly. Again, that's Good Assassins at Diversion Audio

0:27:47.040 --> 0:27:49.680
<v Speaker 1>dot com. We'll try to answer your questions on a

0:27:49.720 --> 0:27:54.359
<v Speaker 1>future episode. Find us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at

0:27:54.400 --> 0:27:58.879
<v Speaker 1>diversion Pods. Good Assassins is a production of Diversion Audio

0:27:59.119 --> 0:28:03.560
<v Speaker 1>in association with iHeart Podcasts. This season is hosted by

0:28:03.600 --> 0:28:07.639
<v Speaker 1>Steven Talti and written by C. D. Carpenter, Produced and

0:28:07.720 --> 0:28:12.280
<v Speaker 1>directed by Kevin Thompson for Real Jet Packs Productions. Story

0:28:12.400 --> 0:28:16.520
<v Speaker 1>editing by Jacob Bronstein, with editorial direction from Scott Waxman,

0:28:17.440 --> 0:28:22.000
<v Speaker 1>Additional research and reporting by Sophie McNulty. Theme music by

0:28:22.040 --> 0:28:27.000
<v Speaker 1>Tyler Cash featuring the voices of mikayla Is Caerdo, Raphael

0:28:27.080 --> 0:28:31.120
<v Speaker 1>cork Kill, Lenna Klingeman, John Pierkese, Andrew polk or Lock,

0:28:31.119 --> 0:28:36.560
<v Speaker 1>Cassidy Manouel Falciano, Sean Gormley, Matthew Ament, and Steve Rautman.

0:28:37.560 --> 0:28:41.880
<v Speaker 1>Sound design, mixing and mastering by Paul Goodrich. Sound editing

0:28:41.920 --> 0:28:47.719
<v Speaker 1>by Justin Kilpatrick. Executive producers Jacob Bronstein, Mark Francis and

0:28:47.800 --> 0:29:09.720
<v Speaker 1>Scott Waxman for Diversion Audio S Simply for Diversion Audio