The Sorrow and the Pity Page #12

a house across the street

hence solving their problem.

As is always the case in a war,

when soldiers are far from home

brothels were set up.

There were many in Clermont-Ferrand.

The Clermont girls wouldn't give us

the time of day on the streets.

And when you weren't on the streets?

It's true that they were

much friendlier at night.

The situation deteriorated

when the Michelin factory was bombed.

You know, the famous French tire factory,

which worked for us.

The Americans had bad aim

and sent bombs everywhere.

And naturally, people blamed us.

I think by late 1942, early 1943

the Resistance was busy everywhere.

English pilots would bomb France.

Didn't that bother you?

No, they didn't bomb people,

they bombed German-occupied factories

and that's all.

We were at war.

We were allies against the Germans.

It was the point of the Resistance.

I even had to sign a contract in London.

I was registered in London.

I still remember

my registration number: 61,055.

I was registered in London.

The last time I actually flew in one of these

was in May 1944 when we were

shot down over occupied France.

-Is it harder to get in one today?

-I have put on a couple of stone.

You don't look very French.

Did you have a moustache back then?

No, this is the point.

I did have a moustache

but I was asked to shave it off

as there didn't seem to be

many Frenchmen with moustaches about.

They supplied me with an old jacket,

not exactly a Savile Row style,

but it served its purpose...

And a beret. We cut the tops off

our boots to make shoes.

Did you find the people of France helpful?

Certainly.

People would risk their lives for you.

They knew if the Germans got them,

they would be shot without a trial.

I remember Mr. Sauay,

who put me up for quite some time.

I didn't know

cigarettes were so rare in France.

In England, there were lots.

But he gave me

20 cigarettes a day: Gauloises.

Sometimes, I'd even ask for more.

I only realized he was a smoker, too

when I saw him one night

cleaning up the ashtrays

and smoking my cigarette stubs.

-We'd go to the woods.

-Over there.

Over there, in the woods.

-And where did you keep the weapons?

-In my father's house, over there.

That's where we'd clean

the weapons we received.

-How about hiding places?

-There were some in the woods.

There were some in the vineyards,

in the woods

-and over there.

-I bet there are still some around.

This isn't a very big area,

so how did you manage?

People must have found out.

What was the reaction of villagers

who weren't in the Resistance?

-Well, they...

-They shut their mouths.

They kept very quiet.

First, I was taken by the police

then I was taken to Clermont

and then I was put in prison.

First, I was put in the Clermont prison

and then I was taken

to the prison in Le Mlisse.

-But I only stayed one day, then l...

-You should've stayed in Clermont.

Next, I was taken to two bis.

I was sent twice in one day,

and again the next day, and the next.

-I went five times.

-Were you tortured?

-Were you beaten?

-It was no party, let me tell you.

These gentlemen had found 12 parachutes

in our house and they wanted to know

how this came to be.

-But you didn't say?

-No.

I was liberated,

we were liberated, in full flight.

They'd been making us walk for three days

when the Germans abandoned us

in a little region.

I'll never forget it. It was called

ltsdorf, in Saxony, by the Elbe.

-Do you have any old photos?

-No, I was too ugly.

No one wanted to take my picture.

-Why? How much did you weigh?

-92 pounds.

-Why didn't you take any pictures?

-I didn't want to.

I didn't think

anyone should see me like that.

-You were waiting to be...

-More handsome.

Yes, I saw a lot of suffering.

I saw a convoy arrive.

I think it came from Hungary.

Out of 50,000 people, not one...

I remember I was designated

to bring them some soup.

They were close to the movie theater.

There was a movie theater, a brothel,

and everything in Buchenwald.

It's the truth.

I brought them this soup,

and they fell upon it.

All 50,000 of them

literally fell upon this soup

spilling it everywhere.

They were down on their knees in the mud.

There must have been at least

eight inches of mud on the ground.

Well, they ate out of the mud.

And four days later,

they were all gunned down.

That was Buchenwald.

between the various levels

of French society?

Most definitely. I can honestly say

that the people who helped me most

were the railroad men

and though it's hard to admit now,

the Communists.

French workers were wonderful people.

They would do anything.

They'd give you the shirt off their backs.

I stayed with these people,

I stayed in one room.

There was only one room and a kitchen,

and I slept in the kitchen

in a town called Juvisy, near Paris.

It was extremely

dangerous territory back then.

They would lend me some overalls

because every day, I'd walk along

and copy down

the various electric train lines

because we wanted to bomb them.

This wasn't really my job.

My job was the radio.

But I helped the others

when things were going slowly.

And so they lent me their overalls.

You've mentioned the workers,

but what about the French bourgeoisie

-from what you've seen of them?

-The bourgeoisie,

I must say, were very neutral.

They didn't help me much.

No, not the bourgeoisie.

I was impressed by the people,

the waiters in the restaurants,

the cashiers in the grocery stores.

There were always

go-betweens in these stores,

but they weren't sure

what they were doing.

And we never explained

what the danger was.

But the workers were always able

to provide me with what I needed

whereas the bourgeoisie was scared.

They had more to lose.

And I think that in life,

no matter where you go

people often consider

what they have to lose.

I had nothing to lose. That's why I did it.

I had no parents, I wasn't married,

so what did it matter?

Denis Rake was a boy.

Actually, he's older than I am.

He was a guy who had faith.

He was very patriotic,

with a very deep sense of duty.

He was amazingly brave.

He was incredibly shy,

and he hated firearms,

but we needed people like him

as they were brave enough

to overcome their fear.

It's true that deep down inside,

I wanted to prove that I was just as brave

as my friends

who had become pilots and so forth.

And as a homosexual,

at that moment in my life

it was one of my fears that I'd

lack the courage to do such things.

In that sense,

you shared the prejudice of others.

You felt that being homosexual would

make you less brave than the others?

Yes, I was afraid of that.

-Afraid?

-Yes.

Do you think the fact that you were

a theater man made you more inclined

-to go underground?

-Very much so.

I was a transvestite singer in Paris

in "Le Grand Ecart" for three months,

and in "La Cave Caucasienne"

for a long time.

We supplied the group we had formed

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