Waiting for the Violins (39 page)

Château Malou
An eighteenth-century château, currently owned by the Commune of Woluwe and within sight of my house. I found a lot of information regarding its pre-war history, but none regarding its status during the German occupation. Nothing suggests it was a safe house for British aviators or part of the Comet Line, but it was pleasing to imagine whenever I took my dog on “walkies” across the estate.

Collin Family
The niece of Celine Collin, herself named after her heroic aunt, provided me with details about her aunt’s involvement with the maquis of the Siroux forest. She also took me to see Celine’s gravesite monument near the village of Marcouray, which tells of her death by German snipers in September 1944.

Comet Line
(Le Réseau Comète
) One of several organizations that helped downed aviators and others (Jews, anti-Nazi politicians, escaped POWS, forced-labor evaders) through France to either Spain or Switzerland. It was founded by Andrée de Jongh and her father Frédéric, both of whom were captured—she on her thirty-third journey to Spain. She was sent to Ravensbrück but survived the war, though Frédéric was executed, as well as twenty-three other leaders. In total, the Comet Line is credited with saving between seven and eight hundred Allied soldiers and civilians.

Dossin Military Barracks
Located in the town of Mechelen (French-
Malines
), these were converted by the occupying Nazis into a collecting camp for Jews, resisters, and other undesirables in preparation for deportation to the East.

Dunkirk Evacuation
(France) May 27-June 4, 1940 The initial defeat and retreat to the beaches of the British Expeditionary Force that was rescued by military vessels and a flotilla of small craft. The surviving forces made continuation of the war possible while the soldiers left behind and hidden by sympathizers led to the creation of the various “lines” that smuggled personnel out of the occupied countries.

Ersatz
(German: “substitute”) Now an English word for all food substitutes, the concept was introduced during the war years as coffee and tobacco became scarce and other plants were used, with varying success, as alternatives.

Alexander von Falkenhausen
Nazi Governor General of Belgium (1940-1944) A Prussian aristocrat and close friend of Rommel and other anti-Hitler conspirators, he was suspected of supporting the assassination attempt in July 1944 and was imprisoned by Hitler. Nonetheless, having signed orders for the deportations of Jews and resisters from Belgium to Auschwitz, he was tried in Brussels in 1951 and sentenced to hard labor in Germany, though later pardoned by Chancellor Adenauer.

Goldman Family
All the victims of the industrialized slaughter machine of the Third Reich have their tragic stories. I have chosen this one because I had the humbling experience of meeting the now-seventy-something “baby Jackie” of the novel. Jackie not only provided me with the details of the story of Aisik, Rywka (who died at Auschwitz), and Moishe (Michel, who survived), but guided me around Breendonk concentration camp where Moishe had been imprisoned.

Maquis
/
maquisards
A general term applying to men (and a few women) who originally fled into their respective hills and forests to avoid labor conscription and later evolved into guerilla fighters that harassed the occupying Germans. Armed by the SOE through parachute drops of munitions, they provided significant assistance to the Allies during the invasion of Normandy and the liberation of Belgium and France.

Police Forces
Under the general authority of the German military, Belgium was controlled overtly by German gendarmes (military police) and collaborationist Belgian police, and secretly by the Gestapo through their agents in the
Sicherheitsdienst
(security service) and
Sicherheitspolizei
(security police). In addition, many anonymous informers (
muchards
) were on the Gestapo payroll. While German forces were ubiquitous, the evaders of the Comet Line were also subject to the scrutiny of the
Milice Française
in France and the Falangist forces in Spain.

Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps
The nursing branch of the British Army. They played a significant role in the care of British soldiers, both in the war zone and at home. They were among those fleeing at Dunkirk.

Rexists (
Parti Rexiste
)
An extreme right-wing nationalist Belgian party similar to the Italian Fascists and the Spanish Falangists, led by Léon Degrelle. Desiring a right-wing revolution with the dominance of the Catholic Church, they took their name from the Church social doctrine of
Christus Rex
, though the official Church disavowed them. They collaborated openly with the Nazi occupation and made up the Wallonie division of the Waffen SS, which fought in Russia. Flemish nationalists provided the same sort of right-wing support from the Flemish side.

Erwin Rommel
German field marshal. One of the generals who tore through Belgium in May 1940, he helped create the Atlantic Wall against a feared Allied invasion. In June 1944, he was put in charge of coastal defense along with von Runstedt and believed that the main thrust of the invasion would be at Pas-de-Calais. Consequently, he left Normandy on June 6 for a family visit and a meeting with Hitler, and was absent when the Allied forces landed. He did play violin as a young man, and his younger brother was an opera singer.

Rue du Marché au Charbon
A street in the old quarter of Brussels where Jews were hidden. The building described here is the current Maison Arc-en-ciel, the gay center of Brussels.

Special Operations Executive
(
SOE
) Britain’s wide-ranging espionage, sabotage, reconnaissance, and resistance-aiding organization in the occupied countries. The program lasted from 1940 to 1945 and employed or controlled some 13,000 people, of which about 3,200 were women. SOE refitted military aircraft to drop containers (of armaments, explosives, general war material, and money) and personnel into the occupied zone. Primary craft were Whitleys, Stirlings, Halifaxes, and the agents’ favorite, since it could fetch them out from a small landing space, the tiny Westland Lysander.

Twentieth Convoy
(from Belgium) The only deportation convoy successfully stopped on the ground. Youra Livchitz (of the
Partisans Armés Juifs
) and two non-Jewish school friends, Robert Maistriau and Jean Franklemon, stopped the train with a simple red lantern and a single pistol. They were able to open only one carriage and free seventeen people, but during the course of the next hours, some two hundred escaped, about half of whom were killed or recaptured and deported later. Wikipedia gives the number of successful escapes at one hundred fifteen.

Wallonie/Flanders
Wallonie, in the south of Belgium, is French-speaking while Flanders, in the north, uses Flemish, a variation of Dutch. Brussels, in the middle of Flanders, is considered bilingual, though the majority speaks French.

About the Author

A recovered academic, Justine Saracen started out producing dreary theses, dissertations, and articles for esoteric literary journals. Writing fiction, it turned out, was way more fun. With eight historical thrillers now under her literary belt, she has moved from Ancient Egyptian theology (
The 100th Generation
) to the Crusades (
Vulture’s Kiss
) to the Roman Renaissance.

Sistine Heresy
, which conjures up a thoroughly blasphemic backstory to Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes, won a 2009 Independent Publisher’s Award (IPPY) and was a finalist in the ForeWord Book of the Year Award.

A few centuries further along, WWII thriller
Mephisto Aria
, was a finalist in the EPIC award competition, won Rainbow awards for Best Historical Novel and Best Writing Style, and took the 2011 Golden Crown first prize for best historical novel.

The Eddie Izzard-inspired novel,
Sarah, Son of God,
followed soon after. In the story within a story, a transgendered beauty takes us through Stonewall-rioting New York, Venice under the Inquisition, and Nero’s Rome. The novel won the Rainbow First Prize for Best Transgendered Novel.

Her second WWII thriller,
Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright
, which follows the lives of four homosexuals during the Third Reich, won the 2012 Rainbow First Prize for Historical Novel. Having lived in Germany and taught courses on 20th Century German history, Justine is deeply engaged in the moral issues of the “urge to war” and the ease with which it infects.

Beloved Gomorrah
, appearing March 2013, marked a return to her critique of Bible myths—in this case an LGBT version of Sodom and Gomorrah—though it also involves a lot of Red Sea diving and the dangerous allure of a certain Hollywood actress.

Saracen lives on a “charming little winding street in Brussels.” Being an adopted European has brought her close to the memories of WWII and engendered a sort of obsession with the war years.
The Witch of Stalingrad
, her work in progress, tells of the collaboration between an American journalist and an aviator in the Soviet Air Force in WWII. It is based on the true story of the female Russian pilots who fought on the Eastern Front and at Stalingrad, and whom the Germans called “the night witches.”

When dwelling in reality, Justine’s favorite pursuits are scuba diving and listening to opera.

Acclaim for Justine Saracen’s Novels

“
Mephisto Aria
could well stand as a classic among gay and lesbian readers.”—
ForeWord Reviews

“Justine Saracen’s
Sistine Heresy
is a well-written and surprisingly poignant romp through Renaissance Rome in the age of Michelangelo. …The novel entertains and titillates while it challenges, warning of the mortal dangers of trespass in any theocracy (past or present) that polices same-sex desire.”—Professor Frederick Roden, University of Connecticut, Author,
Same-Sex Desire in Victorian Religious Culture

“…the lesbian equivalent of Indiana Jones. …Saracen has sprinkled cliffhangers throughout this tale…If you enjoy the History Channel presentations about ancient Egypt, you will love this book. If you haven’t ever indulged, it will be a wonderful introduction to the land of the Pharaohs. If you’re a
Raiders of the Lost Ark
-type adventure fan, you’ll love reading a woman in the hero’s role.”—
Just About Write

“Saracen’s wonderfully descriptive writing is a joy to the eye and the ear, as scenes play out on the page, and almost audibly as well. The characters are extremely well drawn, with suave villains, and lovely heroines. There are also wonderful romances, a heart-stopping plot, and wonderful love scenes.
Mephisto Aria
is a great read.”—
Just About Write

Sarah, Son of God
can lightly be described as the “‘The Lesbian’s
Da Vinci Code
’ because of the somewhat common themes. At its roots, it’s part mystery and part thriller.
Sarah, Son of God
is an engaging and exciting story about searching for the truth within each of us. Ms. Saracen considers the sacrifices of those who came before us, challenges us to open ourselves to a different reality than what we’ve been told we can have, and reminds us to be true to ourselves. Her prose and pacing rhythmically rise and fall like the tides in Venice; and her reimagined life and death of Jesus allows thoughtful readers to consider ‘what if?’”—
Rainbow Reader

“
Mephisto Aria
, brims with delights for every sort of reader…at each level of Saracen’s deliciously complicated plot, the characters who are capable of self-knowledge and of love evaded their contracts with the devil, rescued by each other’s feats of queerly gendered derring-do done in the name of love. Brava! Brava! Brava!”—Suzanne Cusick, Professor of Music, New York University

In
Beloved Gomorrah
…“Saracen’s prose is efficient and purposeful; it’s straightforward enough to get the point across and just showy enough to make you grin while reading. She also has a great ear for dialogue that sounds spoken instead of written. Even if you’re not interested in Sodom and Gomorrah as paradise or seeing avenging angels as terrorists, you’ll love being sucked underwater by Saracen’s characters in this addictingly readable novel. Highly recommended.”—Jerry Wheeler,
Out In Print

Books Available from Bold Strokes Books

The Heat of Angels
by Lisa Girolami. Fires burn in more than one place in Los Angeles. (978-1-62639-042-3)

Season of the Wolf
by Robin Summers. Two women running from their pasts are thrust together by an unimaginable evil. Can they overcome the horrors that haunt them in time to save each other? (978-1-62639-043-0)

Desperate Measures
by P. J. Trebelhorn. Homicide detective Kay Griffith and contractor Brenda Jansen meet amidst turmoil neither of them is aware of until murder suspect Tommy Rayne makes his move to exact revenge on Kay. (978-1-62639-044-7)

The Magic Hunt
by L.L. Raand. With her Pack being hunted by human extremists and beset by enemies masquerading as friends, can Sylvan protect them and her mate, or will she succumb to the feral rage that threatens to turn her rogue, destroying them all? A Midnight Hunters novel. (978-1-62639-045-4)

Waiting for the Violins
by Justine Saracen. After surviving Dunkirk, a scarred and embittered British nurse returns to Nazi-occupied Brussels to join the Resistance, and finds that nothing is fair in love and war. (978-1-62639-046-1)