Hide and Seek: The Irish Priest in the Vatican who Defied the Nazi Command. The dramatic true story of rivalry and survival during WWII.. Stephen Walker

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СКАЧАТЬ Chevalier to Hugh O’Flaherty

      One evening in 1943, as the light was fading, Hugh O’Flaherty left the Vatican and made his way to the other side of Rome. At Piazza Salerno he walked round a corner, then went through an archway between a grocer’s shop and a butcher’s. Slowly he climbed three flights of steps. He read the numbers on the doors and then, finding the correct address, rang the bell.

      He was quickly ushered in. Once inside the flat in Via Imperia, he towered over Henrietta Chevalier, who stood just five feet four inches tall. The attractive middle-aged woman had neat hair and wore earrings and a necklace. A widow from Malta living on a small pension, she had lost her husband just before the start of the war. Her English was perfect, though she spoke with a trace of a Maltese accent. She had six daughters and two sons, and one of her boys worked at the Swiss embassy, while the other was being held in a prison camp. Although her home was small she had agreed to house two escaped French soldiers. O’Flaherty was delighted that she was willing to help, but he needed to impress on her the dangers of taking in escaped prisoners.

      ‘You do not have to do it,’ he told her, adding that those found harbouring prisoners of war could be executed. He said he would take the men away if she had any doubts about their staying in her home. If Henrietta was scared, she certainly did not show it. In fact she seemed quite relaxed about the priest’s warning. ‘What are you worrying about, Monsignor?’ she replied. ‘God will protect us all.’

      A quick glance round the flat showed the monsignor how important Henrietta’s faith was to her. Fittingly, a tapestry of Our Lady of Pompeii, who traditionally helped those in need, hung in one of the two bedrooms. On a table sat a small statue of St Paul. Prayer was an important part of Henrietta’s daily life. She firmly believed she and her family would be safe and told her visitor she was happy to help for as long as possible. O’Flaherty’s new-found Maltese friend would stick to that promise.

      From that night on, the Chevaliers’ tiny flat would never be the same again. Their military guests would sleep on mattresses and Henrietta and her children would share the beds. Space would be at a premium and soon there would be a daily queue for the bathroom. The changed circumstances would have to be kept secret. The flat was now out of bounds to all but family members. The Chevaliers’ friends couldn’t come to see them and the girls could not invite visitors. But it wasn’t all bad news. For the younger daughters the new male house guests were a novelty and brought a sense of fun. Within days flat number nine would echo to the strains of endless gramophone records and Henrietta’s young girls would have a choice of dancing partners.

      Back in his room in the German College, Hugh O’Flaherty was happy in the knowledge that he had secured shelter and a willing host for the two escapees.

      By September 1943 the Germans were edging closer to taking over Rome. In the same month O’Flaherty had three new arrivals to welcome. Henry Byrnes was a captain in the Royal Canadian Army Corps. He arrived in style at the Holy See. A prisoner of war, he was being marched to the Castro Pretorio barracks in Rome when he and two colleagues gave the soldiers guarding them the slip. Byrnes, John Munroe Sym, a major in the Seaforth Highlanders, and Roy Elliot, a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Navy, met an Italian doctor. Fortunately Luigi Meri de Vita was a friendly soul, well disposed towards escaped Allied servicemen. He put the three escapees in his car and drove them across Rome to the Vatican. After managing to get into the Holy See, the three men quickly found their way to Hugh O’Flaherty’s door.

      The monsignor immediately put Byrnes and Elliot to work. The pair began to compile a list of Allied servicemen they knew were in hiding across Italy. Once the paperwork was complete, Byrnes passed the details on to Father Owen Sneddon, a contemporary of the monsignor who was now assisting the Escape Line. Sneddon, a New Zealander, worked as a broadcaster for the English-language Vatican Radio service. The station was part of the Vatican’s communication network and, although the Pope technically controlled it, it was run day to day by the Jesuit Father Filippo Soccorsi. The station was an important tool for the Escape Line, but broadcasters had to be careful because the Germans monitored the output and each broadcast was translated.

      Once Father Sneddon was ready he peppered his broadcasts with the names supplied by Byrnes and Elliot. The details were picked up by the War Office in London, which informed the men’s families that their loved ones were alive. It was an old trick that O’Flaherty had first perfected when he was an official visitor to the POW camps. When the monsignor returned to Rome from seeing prisoners, he would pass on their personal details to Father Sneddon. It was a simple way to let people know that their relative was alive, and this method went undetected by the Germans.

      The Vatican reflected the outside world and the atmosphere in the Holy See was nervous and apprehensive. Osborne and O’Flaherty wondered what their lives would be like in a post-Mussolini world. Rumours filled the void of uncertainty. There was much talk about an Italian surrender followed by a German invasion of Rome. One fear that wouldn’t go away was a suggestion that the Germans would capture the Vatican and seize the Pope and take him abroad.

      There was good reason for this worry. Days after Mussolini’s kidnapping, in the Wolf’s Lair an angry Hitler berated the Pope and the Holy See: ‘Do you think the Vatican impresses me? I couldn’t care less. We will clear out that gang of swine.’

      Hitler was considering kidnapping the Pope, arresting the King and Marshal Badoglio, and occupying the Vatican City. The threat to seize Pope Pius XII was believed to be so likely that, in early August, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Maglione, summoned all the cardinals in Rome to a special meeting. He explained that the Germans had plans to seize Rome and then take control of the Vatican buildings and remove the Pope. The threat was regarded as so plausible that the commander of the Pope’s Swiss Guards was ordered not to offer any resistance when the German troops tried to gain access to the Vatican.

      Staff inside the Holy See started to take precautions should the Germans seize the site. Sensitive Church documents were hidden across the Vatican and some diplomatic papers were burnt. Sir D’Arcy Osborne, now beginning to worry that his personal diary would be seized if the Nazis took over, had to think carefully about what he was committing to paper. He made some entries designed to fool prying eyes and others which were light on detail. At one stage he wrote: ‘I wish I could put down all the facts and rumours these days, but I can’t. It is a pity for the sake of the diary.’

      The Germans were continuing to watch the Vatican intently, and the behaviour of Badoglio’s administration was put under constant scrutiny. The Nazis knew that an Italian surrender was coming after German code-breakers listened to a conversation between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in which the two leaders discussed an armistice. The Nazis had also discovered that secret talks were underway between the Allies and the Italians and were able to dismiss Badoglio’s official response that he was fully supportive of the Nazi war effort. Because they suspected that it was only a matter of time before the Italians surrendered, the discovery and restoration of Benito Mussolini as leader was becoming urgent.

      The events in Rome and the questions surrounding Italy’s future in the war had initially overshadowed the efforts to find Mussolini, but now senior Nazis were becoming restless. They put pressure on Kappler, making it clear that he must locate the former dictator within days.

      Kappler’s network of informers, who were being partially funded by Skorzeny’s fake banknotes, had so far failed to deliver solid intelligence on Mussolini’s whereabouts. Rumours abounded as to his precise location. Every time a story surfaced or there was an alleged sighting of the man, Kappler and his team had to investigate it. One rumour suggested that he was being held in hospital in Rome awaiting an operation, but Kappler discovered this to be untrue. There was another story that Mussolini hadn’t left the royal residence at Villa Savoia, but that also proved a false trail. Each alleged sighting of Il Duce contradicted the last one.

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