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May 31, 2008

Exclusive: A Gripping Read - Flames in the Field: The Story of Four SOE Agents in Occupied France

Carol Taber

Are you looking for a roller coaster ride of a book - a book you stay awake reading till the wee hours of the morning? Look no further than Rita Kramer's fascinating true story nail-biter, Flames in the Field: The Story of Four SOE Agents in Occupied France. I can guarantee you this: the four agents' riveting and haunting tales will stay with you for a long, long time.

As one reader describes it:

Flames in the Field is a searing account of the heroic efforts of British and French resistance fighters during World War II. Rita Kramer manages to combine both historical detail and subtle character studies in a story that has suspenseful and surprising twists. Although the book is meticulously researched, it reads more like a spy novel that you can't put down. I recommend this book to anyone interested in reading about the unsung heroes who helped to vanquish the Nazis; the under-reported role of women in that courageous mission and the political machinations that turned heroes into pawns in a larger game plan. This book is exciting to read and an important contribution to uncovering the hidden story behind the Allied victory.

Flames is the true history of four women caught up in an adventure that led them into the world of resistance against the Nazis in wartime France, and how their fate was entwined with French anti-Semitism, the death camps, and the eventual attempt to mete out legal justice by the war's victors. They were all volunteers in a secret organization charged by Winston Churchill to "set Europe ablaze." Their story, long hidden by the authorities, has finally been told in a book that reads like a thriller, based on interviews with and memoirs by, surviving agents and other witnesses, as well as extensive research by the author in the records of Britain's Public Records Office.

The web site calls it a tale of intrigue and heroism, and British reviews called it"compelling" and "an indispensable addition to the shelf of books on resistance in WWII." I can attest to these descriptions and more, as I have just put down this delicious read, so very sorry that it had ended.

Ms. Kramer came upon this captivating subject quite by accident. She and her husband traveled extensively in Europe in the nineteen-seventies and eighties and, on one of their trips driving through France, they came across the Natzweiler concentration camp in Alsace, the ultimate destination of thousands of men who had fought valiantly against the Nazis - and of four women, also brave fighters, who had been brought there. She was so moved by it that, when she found the spymaster in charge of sending these women behind enemy lines, a woman named Vera Atkins, she wrote her the following letter:

Dear Vera Atkins,

...I will tell you how I come to be writing to you and with what purpose in mind.

Four years ago my husband and I, driving through Alsace on our way to Italy, stumbled on Struthof-Natzweiler. A sign on the road pointed in two directions--one way to the bar-restaurant, the other way to the gas chamber. We decided to investigate and found ourselves at the gate with the word Konzentrationslager on the wooden sign above it. There was no English-speaking guide at the camp that day, so we were given the guide's text, printed on several worn sheets of paper, and we walked through the camp, each of us by turn reading aloud until we could not go on, then handing it to the other one. You will know what we read. As we walked and read, we passed groups of French schoolchildren and groups of tourists, most German. Both the children and the grownups were talking casually, occasionally laughing, just like visitors to any tourist attraction.

When we came to the crematorium we stood in front of the oven, looking at the stretcher, the wooden shoes, and forgot to move. A large woman pushed my husband aside with a peremptory Bitte and snapped a picture of the crematorium.

In that room we saw a plaque with the names of four women on it. I remember that we noticed two of them had English-sounding names, one was French and one Slavic. It must have been in the English-language visitors' guide to the camp that we learned that the four had been captured while on a mission into occupied France. We stood there a while, not quite able to go back to the outside world, the pleasant end-of-summer day, the tourists, our own trip, hotels, meals...and we wondered who they were, those four women.

After we left and re-entered our own lives, we talked about Natzweiler, some of our impressions, and some of the things that had occurred to us there. How small it was, for one thing. How surprisingly small for the amount of evil and pain. I had always imagined the camps as enormous, the towers as reaching the sky, but it was possible to do those things in a very small place...

We went on wondering about those young women. Once in a while we would be reminded of the place and we would think of them, or we would tell someone about the trip and then about the camp and the plaque we'd seen. I thought of finding out about the four...who they were, where they came from, what brought them to that place--but I didn't know where to begin. And I was immersed in writing a book at the time. And then one night, shortly after I'd finished this last book, we switched on the TV set to catch the late news, and there was a documentary narrative voice saying words that caught me and pictures that were familiar first in a general way and then in a particular way and I recognized Natzweiler. I sat there, hardly believing what I was seeing, when you were introduced and began to speak about those four young women...

I would like to write a book about them. About who they were and what they did. I think they deserve to be remembered. History, after all, is what we choose to remember. I cannot think of anything I would rather learn about and write about than their stories, which must eventually become one story, the way the stories of Achilles and Agamemnon and Ulysses become one story. Would you help me by telling me what you know about them and how I could learn more about their lives? I would come over there to see you and whoever else might be able to give me information and to visit places they grew up in and meet friends or relatives who remember them...

(signed) Rita Kramer

And Ms. Atkins' response:

Dear Mrs. Kramer

Thank you for your most interesting letter of 20 January and the literature...It gave me the opportunity to judge the quality of your writing and your attitude to some problems of today.

As regards the book you wish to write, I shall be pleased to give you all the information that I have--and it is quite a lot!--if we can meet. I have to deal with a very voluminous and varied correspondence and will not attempt to brief you in writing...We could...meet in London or down here.

With kind regards,

(signed) Vera Atkins

And that is how it began.

The result was Flames in the Field: The Story of Four SOE Agents in Occupied France, which revealed not only the terrifying story of these four brave women, but of the secret organization to which they belonged and all of the resistance forces that fueled and animated its existence.

Do yourself a favor and buy the book right here. The only thing you need to do after that is prepare yourself for a few well spent, sleepless nights.

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