Defying the Nazis by Artemis Joukowsky

Author:Artemis Joukowsky [Joukowsky, Artemis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8070-7183-0
Publisher: Beacon Press
Published: 2016-06-20T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Reunion in Cerbère

Friday morning, July 19, 1940, began with breakfast with Don Lowrie at the Cerbère train station calé. Then all three climbed into the little Matford for the drive north to Perpignan. There, Lowrie introduced Martha and Waitstill to the mayor, who favored them with a “bon,” or permission, to buy gasoline, which was strictly rationed. Then on to Nîmes that same afternoon to see the two-thousand-year-old Roman temple, the Maison Carrée.

The next day Waitstill, Martha, and Lowrie drove on to Marseille and took rooms at the Terminus Hotel, directly adjacent to the Gare de Marseille Saint-Charles, the city’s huge old train station, which soon would figure large in their lives. They also made an appointment for Monday to see Richard Allen, local head of the American Red Cross.

Marseille challenged Waitstill’s sturdy New England rectitude. It was, he pronounced, “one of the most dangerous and picturesque great cities in the world,” whose old main street, the Canebière, was “the stamping ground of drug-pushers, swindlers, prostitutes, gamblers, and men with commission to commit murder—a more diversified gamut of criminals than any other city of the world.” As he also noted, it was the center in France for people fleeing the Nazi juggernaut.1

The rest of the weekend was given over to relaxation. Although food shortages were critical and growing worse all over Vichy France, fish of all sorts were still abundant in Marseille. “Vendors sold a harvest of the Mediterranean catch in stalls along the waterfront,” Martha wrote, “shrimp, oysters and other fish that were strange to us. Don suggested we go to the world-famous Pascal’s for bouillabaisse. Afterward, we walked back to the hotel. All of a sudden, all of the lights went out—our first blackout. With Don’s expert guidance we found our way to the Terminus, and with the aid of candles gratefully went to bed.”

Richard Allen was another acquaintance from Paris in the summer of 1939, not a good friend but a respected colleague with whom the Sharps enjoyed cordial relations. It was therefore a surprise for Waitstill to find the Red Cross man stiff and distant at their meeting that Monday, July 22. They’d known one another by their first names in Paris. Now it was “Mr. Sharp” whenever Allen addressed his old acquaintance.

“I inquired of myself, What is wrong?” Waitstill remembered. “I am not the most sensitive person in the world. But I can discern, I believe, a certain frigidity in the atmosphere.”

Allen evidently registered Waitstill’s unease. “All right,” he said at length. “Mr. Sharp, you might as well know what has happened.” Producing a folder, he said, “I have to tell you, sir—I have no choice—that something has happened that bears upon your work here and particularly bears upon any requests that you would make of me.”

With that, Allen pushed across his desk a letter written on familiar AUA stationery and carrying at its bottom Robert Dexter’s equally familiar signature. According to Waitstill’s memory, the letter read: “This is to inform you that Mr. and Mrs.

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