Americans in Paris_ Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation - Charles Glass [181]
We were then separated, my father and myself in different cells, where, however, we were able to communicate. My mother [was] in another building.
We were not badly treated, that is to say, we were not beaten by the French inspectors of the Gestapo who assured us we should shortly be released. (I have learnt to know them better, by now.)
Phillip stayed in a cell with three other men. His daily ration of three small pieces of bread and a flat plate of ‘so-called soup’ barely sustained him, and the boy lost weight. He later gave an interview to his father’s biographer, Hal Vaughan, about the Gestapo prison:
As I was an American citizen they treated my family and me decently during questioning, which in my case was extremely summary. I told them I knew nothing and I was informed I should be released in a very short time. The man who questioned me was a French inspector of the Gestapo whose name or nickname was Nerou … The jailers were uniformed members of the German SD: Sicherheitsdienst … I knew and spoke to people, particularly those in my cell, who were whipped and tortured during questioning, and I saw a jailer whip one of my fellow prisoners about 25 times in my cell. I was also whipped by jailers if I was not standing to attention or for any minor pretext … One man in my cell, a Frenchman whose name I have forgotten, he came from Clermont-Ferrand, told me he had been whipped and beaten by … Nerou. I saw evidence of this beating, as the man’s back was covered with different colors and bleeding.
Inquiries by the American Hospital, the American Legation in Berne, the Red Cross and the Swiss Consulate in Vichy were turning up only fragmentary details of the Jacksons’ incarceration. Vichy made the search for the Jackson family more difficult by repeatedly lying to the Swiss Consul, insisting it knew nothing. But American diplomats had received accurate information on 6 June, when Toquette’s brother in Switzerland ‘informed U.S. Legation his sister, her husband and son had been arrested on May 26, 1944 by the French authorities and transferred to Vichy.’ Misinformation was clouding the original, reliable report. Leland Harrison, the US Minister in Berne, sent a telegram to Secretary of State Cordell Hull on 13 July 1944, saying that ‘Swiss Legation Vichy reports it has been informed by Secretariat Mainain [sic] Ordre that inquiry made of French Milice Vichy and Paris reveal Americans mentioned arrested by German police and not (repeat not) taken Vichy.’ A later State Department cable reported, ‘On June 27, 1944, the Swiss Legation in Vichy reported that the Secrétariat d’Etat du Maintien de l’Ordre advised that the Jackson family had been arrested by the German authorities and that, to its knowledge, it had never been taken to Vichy.’ Vichy simply lied to the Swiss, no doubt fearing after the D-Day landings the consequences of mistreating American citizens. Since January 1944, Vichy’s secretary for the maintenance of order was Joseph Darnand, founder and chief of the Milice. Darnand, whose own men had arrested the Jacksons, covered up his actions by diverting suspicion to the Germans to whom he had transferred their custody. The State Department turned to other sources, and more evidence emerged. ‘At the same time, however,’ the State Department reported, ‘a letter received