Fascinating research - incredible story

One of the fascinating things when doing research for a novel are the incredible little nuggets that you dig up that are crying out to be included in your story.

One such occurred when I was researching for Nick North: Cross Wires. Nick and his friend Ashley were taking Nick’s great grandmother and her friend across Nazi occupied Germany at the end of the Second World War. I was trying to work out a realistic route from Ravensbruck, the concentration camp where they were imprisoned, to the approaching Allied armies where they would be rescued. I was debating whether they should go to Leipzig or Magdeburg. For some very good reasons which I cannot now remember, I opted for Magdeburg.

It was whilst I was researching images of Magdeburg at the end of the War to help authenticate my descriptions of the town that I happened upon this extraordinary story that had lain dormant for over 60 years.

Matthew Rozell, a history teacher at small town Hudson Falls in New York state was interviewing Second World War Army veterans about their experiences and quite by chance one Army tank commander told him about how they had liberated a train full of Holocaust survivors in April 1945. One of his fellow liberators had even taken photos.

One of the photos taken of the liberation of the train. It became a famous Holocaust image.

The Nazis had packed 2500 Jews into a train of cattle trucks to send them from Bergen-Belsen to another camp.  These were Jews with foreign passports and the Nazis hoped to be able to use them as hostages for prisoner exchanges with the Allies.

However the rapidly advancing American army overran these Nazis who abandoned the train in a siding near Magdeburg. Matthew Rozell posted the account on his oral history school website and there it lay till about 4 years later extraordinary things started happening. Jewish survivors from the train began to contact him and authenticated the story.

Matthew Rozell decided to host a reunion in US between the survivors and their rescuers in 2007 and that was when this story went viral. They even had to temporarily close the school website as it was inundated with hits. Since then they have had ten such reunions. Matthew Rozell has written a book and apparently a film is also to be made.

This was just the sort of extraordinary event that you couldn’t make up but it fitted in perfectly with my Nick North novel. 

If you would like to read the original post that got me started on this journey it can be found https://teachinghistorymatters.com or via a Google search at teaching history matters.   The book about this incredible event is called A train near Magdeburg by Matthew Rozell.

A fuller account of this story can be found at https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/.premium.MAGAZINE-the-holocaust-train-that-led-jews-to-freedom-instead-of-death-1.5446799

Finally if you would like to buy my book you can purchase it from Amazon either as a Kindle or paperback. 

The poignancy of war memorials

I was standing on the bowls green playing a friendly match against another club in our hometown. In between times when we were not required to do anything but watch what was going on, I got into conversation with one of the elderly bowlers from the opposition team.

The war memorial in our home town.
Private Coulson's name is on the bottom of the plaque behind the memorial

I have no idea how the conversation started but he told me about his National Service in Suez in the 1950’s. I always enjoy listening to the older generation tell of the events of their lives – it’s living history. He related to me how upset he had been that one of his fellow soldiers and mates who had died fighting in this conflict had not had his name added to the war memorial in the centre of our town.

He was so incensed by this injustice that he had petitioned the British Legion who look after the war memorials in UK to have his fellow soldiers’ name added to the memorial. He was delighted when they agreed and urged me to go and look when next I was in town. Sure enough there was Private R Coulson Suez 1953. This brave soldier had been given a special plaque at the bottom of the main list of names.  

It was this conversation and subsequent visit to the war memorial in our hometown that led to a sub plot in my book Nick North: War Zone. Leone’s great grandfather had survived the First World War but was severely damaged by what is now known as Combat Stress or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder but was in those days called Shell Shock. He had done a terrible thing and as a result his very good mate, Harry Dodds’ good name had been so dragged through the mud that it was not included on the war memorial even though he had been killed on active service.

Part of the putting wrongs right process was to have Harry Dodds’ name added to the monument in their hometown.

‘I still think it needs putting right. You said yourself his name isn’t on the war memorial. That’s wrong.’  The stubborn look on Leone’s face meant the matter was not going to be brushed under the carpet.  

‘All them soldiers is dead now.  It’s in the past. Let’s leave it alone.’

‘No Granddad.  That’s not right. We need to tell someone.’

‘O, Leone.  I’m too old now.’

‘I agree, Mr Cartwright. We ought to do something. Who could we contact?  Government, the solders’ regiment or what?’

‘Aye it was the Northumberland Fusiliers.  I could write to them I suppose or the Royal British Legion. I think they do the war memorials.  Let me think about it lass.’

‘Alright, Granddad.’ She leaned forward and kissed his wrinkled cheek. 

* * *

Nick pulled the other letter out of the envelope. It was from the Royal British Legion.

Dear Sir,

Thank you for informing the Legion about the circumstances surrounding the death of Private Harry Dodd in 1916. We have contacted the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers who confirm that you have been in touch with them.

Following their advice …. you will be glad to know that we will be adding Private Harry Dodd’s name to the war memorial in Burradon as soon as possible.

Extracts from Nick North: War Zone

The amazing women of SOE

One of my favourite television shows is Foyle’s War. Set in Hastings in the Second World War, it covers the work of Detective Chief Superintendent Foyle as he maintains law and order despite the war. Apart from the excellent acting and scripts, the production values are first class. The series looks like it takes place in 1940’s wartime Britain with authentic clothes, sets, vehicles and locations. But what I enjoy most is the whole idea of what the police had to deal with in wartime, crimes were still being committed including murder, black marketeering and dodging the call up or trying to avoid the war by living in a hotel in the country. There were dodgy dealings in a shipyard and the factory that was secretly making masses of coffins to put all those killed by the Blitz.

Ellie Haddington as Hilda Pierce

However there are several times that Foyle runs foul of the intelligence services in his pursuit of justice. On these occasions he is put right by the redoubtable Miss Pierce beautifully acted by Ellie Haddington. In the final episode of the whole series now set in post war Britain, Foyle is working for SIS (MI6). Miss Pierce is shot and it becomes apparent that during the war she and her current boss ran SOE.  She was portrayed as the real life Vera Atkins who sent many young men and women to France to work with the Resistance. Many of these women were betrayed or caught and tortured, then sent to concentration camps, hanged or shot.

Vera Atkins

Whilst researching Nick North: Cross Wires I read a lot about SOE, their French agents and Vera Atkins, the woman who recruited and trained them. Her story alone is fascinating. She was born in Romania and was raised in a wealthy Jewish family in what is today Ukraine. She was brought up in a life of privilege but when war was brewing she escaped to Britain in 1937. Her own life was shrouded in mystery much of which was not uncovered till Sarah Helm wrote her fascinating biography A Woman of Secrets. Amazingly she was able to work in SOE from 1941 even though she was not a British naturalised citizen till 1944.

Despite all manner of clues that the Nazis had infiltrated some of the SOE circuits in France, the young women continued to be sent to France where they were captured. Many disappeared and nothing was known about their whereabouts till after the war. Vera Atkins then single handedly toured war torn Europe to find out what had happened to her girls. She left no stone unturned till she knew exactly when they had been captured, where they had been taken, who had questioned and tortured them and where they had been sent and the manner of their death. It was an enormous task in incredibly difficult circumstances interviewing former Nazis and surviving prison inmates and warders.

Most SOE agents died, usually at the hands of the Nazis but one or two survived and I based the story of Nick’s great grandmother Yvette on the life of Eileen Nearne, who was parachuted into France from a Lysander plane and worked as a radio operator in France. Yvette also parachuted into France but I made her a courier in Paris. Eileen was captured and tortured and sent to Ravensbruck and then to another camp from which she escaped by miraculously fleeing from a work party.

Yvette too was captured and tortured and then sent to Ravensbruck camp. Nick and Ashley help Yvette and her friend Claudine to escape from a working party sent to work outside the camp.

As always the research for the Nick North books is fascinating. Here is an excerpt from Nick North: Cross Wires as Nick’s Gran finds out about her mother’s wartime career.

‘Incredible.  To think. All this about my own mother. I never knew.  She was a heroine.’

Gran studied another paper. ‘Oh.’ She dropped the paper and her hand flew to her mouth.

‘What’s up, Gran?’

‘She was sent to Ravensbrück.’

A bell was ringing in Nick’s head. ‘Where’s that?’

‘A death camp.’

‘She must have got out.’

‘Yes. Says here she escaped April 1945.’

Gran dropped the paper and sat back in her chair. Tears started to trickle down her face.

‘My poor mother. Avenue Foch. I bet she was tortured. And Ravensbrück.’

She started to sob and Nick handed her a tissue as he squeezed her shoulders.

‘Sorry, dear.’

‘It’s alright.’ Nick’s smile was tight. He sat beside his Gran and held her hand.

‘I’m not sure I should have started this,’ Gran said, smiling at Nick with watery eyes.

‘Yes, you should. She was a hero. At least you know now why she wasn’t much of a mum.’

‘You’re right.’

Memories of the War

London bomb damage 

I grew up in England just after the Second World War so whilst I never experienced the War first hand, it cast a long shadow over my childhood. My mother was quite a raconteur even though she never wrote stories down. My childhood years were peppered with tales of family life on the home front. At first both my father’s and mother’s families lived in Woolwich in London, opposite the docks. Every night they watched the heavy bombing and prayed that no stray bombs fell on their homes over the river. Of course they did and most homes were damaged. So later my father’s family moved out into Essex away from the blitz but nevertheless affected by the German air raids on a large RAF airfield nearby.

No one was called up for military service, my father was declared medically unfit but he was appointed a fire warden, an important night-time duty during the bombardment of Hitler’s planes. My aunts also told us stories of life in London during the War. One aunt described how she was waiting for a bus to return home when an air raid started. Rather than go to the shelter, she continued to hope the bus would arrive. It eventually did and as she climbed aboard and the bus pulled away, a bomb landed on the bus stop. She had missed death by seconds.

My mother’s stories of rationing, bombs and doodlebugs were as much part of my childhood as the bombed out buildings that stood for years as testament to the War.  

Our childhood films were often wartime stories with heroic Englishmen fighting the evil Nazis and their wicked plans to defeat the Allies in order to take over the world.  Sink the Bismarck, Dam Busters, Reach for the Sky, 633 squadron, Bridge over the River Kwai -  all stories of great heroism and bravery by British military personnel.

It was years before the true facts about some of these events became known and though they might have shown that the Dam Busters’ raid was not quite as successful as at first thought, nothing can undermine the genius of Dr Barnes Wallis and his bouncing bomb.

It was many, many years later before war was shown in all its brutality and horror. 1950’s and 60’s film audiences were not able to stomach the gruesome cruelty and viciousness of the Japanese Army or the SS and Gestapo which so many Allied forces had to face and overcome.

Children in Britain were largely sheltered after the War from the horrors of life in concentration camps and under Japanese domination that were discovered by the Allies and Russians as they marched across Europe and the Far East. Life in England may have been rationed and cheerless in those post war years with food and coal in even greater shortage than during the War, but the chaos of post war Europe with many cities bombed beyond recognition and the huge volume of displaced people was largely unknown on these isles.

However the War years were a vital part of my growing up even if it was second hand. From this came the seeds of Nick North: Cross Wires which took events in Second World War Europe and wove a story around them.

Here is an excerpt from Nick North: Cross Wires

‘The funny thing is, Nick. I was wondering about my family. After Leone found out about hers.’ 

Gran was bustling around getting some food ready. She opened the fridge and cupboard and started assembling her ingredients and chopping vegetables and chicken to make a curry.

‘My grandmother mostly brought Susan and I up. I was never quite sure why. My mother had bad nerves – well that’s what they called it in those days. She was French you know?’

‘Who was?’ Nick asked.

‘My grandmother. Her parents married after the First World War. He was a British soldier in France. Met her and they married and lived over there.’

Nick looked at Gran whilst continuing to tap into his phone. He yawned.

‘Of course, she taught Susan and I French. Well she spoke to us in French a lot. I used to be quite fluent.’

‘What?’ Nick stared at Gran wide-eyed. His fingers were motionless now. ‘You mean you can speak French? You never told me!’

‘What difference does it make?’

‘I could do with some help. I’m rubbish at French.’

Nick heard his mother’s laugh in the hallway. She came into the room, rubbing her hands.

‘Ooh. It’s lovely and warm in here. It’s freezing outside.’

‘I suppose your French is good as well.’ Nick’s voice oozed sarcasm.

‘Well it’s not bad. I did A-level French.’

‘What! Anything else you’d like to tell me? Any other family secrets?’