The Correspondents by Judith Mackrell

Author:Judith Mackrell [Mackrell, Judith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

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Clare had developed a very proprietorial interest in Romania and, when she heard rumours of a new crisis brewing, she was determined to report on it, despite the perils she might face. General Antonescu had created a monster when he’d rewarded the Iron Guard for their assistance in his September coup, and, within four months, the Guardists were out of control. Wildly abusing their new positions of office, they’d appointed themselves masters of Romania’s “Jewish problem” and were committing atrocities of which even the Nazis disapproved. In one night alone, they’d dragged 500 Jews to a slaughterhouse, slit their throats and labelled their corpses “Kosher meat.” Even though Antonescu was no friend to the Jews, this was a massacre he couldn’t let pass. He stripped 10,000 Guardists of their official powers and ordered his army to keep the organization in check.

The Guardists, however, had no intention of being leashed, and, on 21 January, just after Clare reached Bucharest, they mounted their own coup against Antonescu. The fighting was bitter and bloody, and although Antonescu’s forces prevailed, they’d been unable to prevent the Iron Guard from making one last assault against the Jewish community. Clare was keeping a detailed diary of her time in Romania, and her entry for 27 January was a stark itemization of rebel atrocities: “Jews were strangled in public places outside the burning synagogue, Jewish children were killed by Guardists while their houses were being looted, elderly bearded Jews were slain in the streets, and I have seen their bodies lying naked in a yard after the Guardists had stolen their possessions.”8

The aftershocks from the coup continued for days. Rebel snipers remained on the loose and government forces were licensed to shoot any suspicious individual on sight. Nazi reinforcements appeared, jamming the squares of Bucharest with their armoured vehicles, taking possession of the hotels and bars, and creating a “tense atmosphere of…antagonism” for the few remaining British. Clare and her compatriots had to retreat into their apartments, where, in a heightened state of siege, they held almost nightly parties for each other—a curious huddle of English people, “drinking, dancing, singing Russian songs, and being very light-hearted” in defiance of the dangers outside.9

Precarious though her situation was, however, Clare was not yet ready to leave. She’d been the only British correspondent to cover the coup and her reputation was riding high. Banner headlines flagged up her stories in the Express and sidebars rehashed the history of how this “Woman Scarlet Pimpernel…dark, handsome and apparently without fear,” had not only scooped the start of the war, but helped thousands of Nazi victims escape. Now she believed she was on the tail of yet another exclusive, for, early in February, she was given good information that lorryloads of German troops and equipment had been seen crossing the border into Bulgaria. This was surely proof that Hitler planned to force an alliance with the latter, even if he stopped short of full invasion; and while Clare knew the

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