Loading summary
Transcript75 lines
- [00:00]
Progressive Commercial Insurance Announcer
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Commercial Insurance. As a business owner, you take a lot of roles marketer, bookkeeper, CEO. But when it comes to small business insurance, Progressive has you covered. They offer discounts on commercial auto insurance, customizable coverages that can grow with your business, and reliable protection for whatever comes your way. Count on Progressive to handle your insurance while you do well. Everything else Quote Today, in as little as 8 minutes@progressivecommercial.com, progressive Casualty Insurance Company coverage provided and serviced by affiliated and third party insurers. Discounts and coverage selections not available in all states or situations.
- [00:30]
Sleep Number Commercial Announcer
Why Choose a Sleep number Smart bed? Can I make my site softer?
- [00:33]
Progressive Commercial Insurance Announcer
Can I make my site firmer?
- [00:35]
Tommy Mischke
Can we sleep cooler?
- [00:37]
Sleep Number Commercial Announcer
Sleep number does that cools up to eight times faster and lets you choose your ideal comfort on either side your sleep number setting. Enjoy personalized comfort for better sleep night after night. And now, during our President's day sale, take 50% off our limited edition bed plus free home delivery with any bed and base ends Monday only at a Sleep Number Store or SleepNumber.com Goodbye New Year, New you this season, Ollie is here to help you embrace a slower pace. The kind where you cozy up at home with your dog tucked right beside you. After the holiday rush and all the spending, you're probably craving those quieter moments, soft blankets, a comfy couch, and the kind of emotional reset that only happens when you're curled up with your pup. Spending intentional time with your dog isn't just comfor, it's proven to support your mood, reduce stress and help you feel more present during the winter slowdown. If you're leaning into that slower, more intentional rhythm, Ollie can help support it with fresh human grade food, slow cooked recipes, tailored meal plans and an app that lets you tap real experts whenever you need peace of mind. Visit ollie.com wondery and use code WONDERY for 60% off your first box.
- [01:57]
Tommy Mischke
Coming to you from the old outpost here on the bleak barren tarmac of University Avenue. Just another show in a world of shows. How does anybody stand out in this world of endless shows? My name's Mishke. Well, you do the best you can. You try to deliver something to the people that can be called scintillating. Fascinating. Intriguing. Interesting. Interesting. Powerful. Got that for you today. I do. I do. Welcome everyone to the program. Glad to have you here with me. My guest for this hour is Claire Mulley. She's an award winning historian, author, biographer, broadcaster. Somebody who has written what for me is one of the most extraordinary Books that I've read in the last few years. When it comes to nonfiction, the name of the book is Agent the Untold Story of a fearless World War II resistance fighter. I was doing author interviews with subjects having to do with World War II in the 1990s on my radio show. And I would laugh and say, 50 years later, we're only getting this now. How did you stumble upon it?
- [03:37]
Claire Mulley
Thank you for such a lovely introduction. And I did completely stumble on it. It wasn't a story. I don't think anyone's heard her name. And there's a reason for that. She was deliberately kept out of the history books. So it felt really good to restore her place. But I first came across the story at an event at the Polish Embassy in London. I was actually being given an award for a different one of my books. Previous book called the Spy who Loved. And there were four strapping lads also getting awards for different cultural things they'd done. And at the back of the room was a little elderly lady. And I said, I hope you don't mind. May I ask what's brought you here? Are you with one of these gents? And she said, no, dear, I'm a veteran of the Second World War. She had served in the Warsaw Uprising. And so they always invited her to events. And she said, the wine is very good. So I always come. And I knew then that I would just gonna really like her. And I said, can I ask about your service? And she had been just 16 years old. She had been fighting, not with a gun in hand, though some teenagers did do that. But she had volunteered to go out across the ruined city and try and get medical supplies to bring back to the field hospitals. And she said she went out one day and she was very lucky. She managed to get to the university, which was partly destroyed, but she found 10 glass bottles of methylated spirits, which she put in a rucksack on her back. And she was running back when she was caught in an incendiary bombing raid. So a firebombing raid by the Luftwaffe. And she kept going until she felt something smash into her back. Although she'd been hit by shrapnel, she was protected by these glass bottles, just one of them smashed. So she kept running. And then she suddenly felt freezing in this burning street because the meths in that broken bottle had soaked through the bag and her shirt and it was evaporating off her back. And then she looked me in the eye and she said, I knew I was going to die then because I was a Petrol bomb. But she just kept going, she made it. And all they said at the hospital was, you've broken one of these. That was the kind of situation they were all facing. And she said, what brings you? And I felt really little. You know, I'm not a veteran. I'd just written a book about another woman. She said, oh, who? I said, christina Scarbeck, Christine Granville, magnificent woman. And she said, oh, yeah, she was a real heroine. But she said, for goodness sake, why didn't you write about the real heroine? Why didn't you write about Zoe? And that was actually the first time I'd ever heard Zoe's name. I mean, Zoe is the nom de guerre of a woman called Elizabeth Elspieta Zavatska. But she was called Zoe during the war. It was her secret name, her code name. And so I thought, well, if this extraordinary woman rate Zoe so highly, I really need to go off and find out a little bit more about her. So that's what set me off.
- [06:11]
Tommy Mischke
When you write a book like this, you do so many things at once. For a reader like me, one is just deliver an extraordinary life, but also you simultaneously tell the story of the Polish people. And I think so many of us forget. God knows I have the horrors faced by that nation alone, the years and years and years of having to deal with invasions. And then they get these moments, these tiny moments, these pockets of independence that are enough to make the people weep. And then once again, that's stripped away and they face invasions again. When Elzbieta Zavetska, and after this, I'll refer to her as Zoe. When she is a child, she is born into a world that once again is occupied, as it has been so often. And so she's growing up as a German, even though in her heart and soul she's a Pole.
- [07:12]
Claire Mulley
One of many ironies in her story is when she was born in 1909, that part of Poland in the northwest where her very historic, beautiful city is, was part of the Prussian Empire. It been annexed into the Prussian Empire. I mean, I think the reason why Poland has this history of centuries of being invaded and annexed and occupied by its very aggressive neighbours. If you look at the geopolitics, I mean, Warsaw is halfway between Moscow and Berlin. You know, it's on that line. So it's always been very much wanted by its neighbour countries. But the irony is that Zoe was born legally, she was born German, but she knew damn well she was Polish in her heart and soul, as you put it. But because of that, her first Language was German. She spoke fluent German. The Prussians, the Germans at the time were very repressive about Polish culture and heritage. So she wasn't allowed to even speak Polish. And even her name, which is Elspeta Elizabeth in Polish, she had to be known in public at least as Liesel, the German version of that name. What the Germans didn't realize they were doing is they're absolutely perfectly training an agent to serve against them. Because here is a woman who is never going to be tripped up on a German custom or tradition. She speaks fluent German and from knee high, she sort of had a double identity. She's known how to live with being one person in public and a completely different person at home behind closed doors. So she is really well set up to fight against them.
- [08:37]
Tommy Mischke
She's born in 1909, after World War I, Poland gets its independence. 1919. She has this magical experience of watching her father cry as he hears the Polish national anthem for the first time played on the streets. And I again had to be reminded that that was Polish Independence Day. Our Armistice Day. 1111 is their independence Day.
- [09:04]
Claire Mulley
That's right. Yes, exactly. So it's this extraordinary history. And Zoe would tell people later on, she said that she sucked in patriotism with her mother's milk. And I love that. I love it because it's a real female image. But I also love it because it just shows you that there were generations of young people being told by their families that one day you may have to fight for Polish freedom. It was in their DNA to resist.
- [09:26]
Tommy Mischke
The fact that it was there in her so young. I just wonder how rare that was, or if that is a feeling to varying degrees in all Poles. Because of being a Pole, I think Zo is exceptional.
- [09:40]
Claire Mulley
But I would say that there is a very strong feeling of patriotism across all Polish people because they have this extraordinary history and heritage. And you'll find it in the Polish community in America and in Britain as well. There is this huge sense of pride.
- [09:55]
Tommy Mischke
If we think of her being born in occupied territory, being freed more or less 1919, having this wonderful birth of freedom that lasts only 20 years. Because who comes back again on one September day in 1939? The Germans. She's woken up to the sound of explosions. World War II has started. And as you state in your book, she, in essence, is going to be one of the first women to ever fight on the Allies side in World War II.
- [10:29]
Claire Mulley
She's the first or the only in so many different things. But you're right, she's among the very first women to serve in the Second World War. From five o' clock in the morning on the 1st of September 1939, when she's shaken awake by a series of explosions, what we now know as the Blitzkrieg, the Nazi German forces coming into Polish airspace and land forces as well coming in, which triggered the Second World War. But she becomes one of the leading couriers in the resistance delivering military information. She becomes the only female emissary of a commander in chief of an allied army, the Polish Home army, which is their resistance forces. She's the only female member of the Polish elite special forces. She's the only woman to parachute from Britain into Nazi German occupied Poland. And it goes on and on. She's really extraordinary.
- [11:21]
Tommy Mischke
There are times where what she's doing seems almost superhuman. And by that I mean the number of times that she shouldn't really be alive anymore, just rolling the dice as often as she does. Sooner or later it's going to come up. Well, it's my time, it's over. Either I'm being interrogated and tortured by the Nazis or I'm being executed. I want to take a slice just to give people an example of what her life was like working for the resistance in Poland. I want to go to that moment where she is it microfilm she's delivering to Berlin. Berlin is the best way to get it to England, believe it or not, from Warsaw. The best way to get something to London was to get to Berlin. Which just sounds absurd that you have to go into the mouth of the lion. But she has to.
- [12:12]
Claire Mulley
She herself had set up the intelligence gathering network. I would just mention that everyone in that network is female by the way, they're all women. So she would carry that microfilm right into the heart of the Nazi Third Reich. It's extraordinary. But it was the fastest way after the fall of France to get information in diplomatic post back to Britain. And she would hide this in the shaft of a key. She had a little brass cigarette lighter which was a really good little bit of kit. You could actually light a cigarette with it and not burn the microfilm inside. That would be fine. So she had all sorts of tools to hide information. And of course it was very hard for Germans to check every woman traveling around. She used lots of different false identities. She would often present herself as a German oil company secretary because of course oil was a war important industry, women traveling around. She was luckily blonde and blue eyed. Not all Germans are of course, but it didn't harm her to fit that stereotype. She had fluent German and she had such courage. But she's a hair's breadth. From being caught the whole time.
- [13:11]
Tommy Mischke
They hand her a bunch of money. And this also fascinated me. Something I've never thought about is, of course, all these resistance movements need to be funded. So often she's transporting large amounts of money back to Warsaw to fund all this. And she's delivering information, and it's being paid for. And she gets this money in Berlin, but it was supposed to be given to her in some sort of hidden way. You can't walk around with a ton of money. If you get caught, you're dead. So she leaves. Is it the Manchurian Embassy in Berlin?
- [13:48]
Claire Mulley
Yeah, it doesn't exist anymore, but, yes, that's right, the Manchurian Embassy. And they've given her this wedge of notes, which is obviously incredibly incriminating, as you say. So instead of going straight back, she's normally expected back within 24 hours. They keep a track of all of their couriers. She diverts to an old friend apartment in Berlin, and they stay up all night pasting these notes, some of them are American dollars, into the lid of her battered old suitcase. They make a kind of sticky paste out of flour and water and spend all night. And then Zoe sews on a sort of material lining over the top of that. That's pretty good way to hide this stuff. Then she threw in a couple of books in her case to disguise the weight of that. And then off she goes with this knackered old suitcase that is actually incredibly precious, all this money. And she makes her way back to the resistance headquarters in Warsaw. But it. It doesn't go completely to plan. She always will vary her route in case she's being watched and they start to recognize someone traveling a little too often. And this time, she. As soon as she got over the Polish border, she went to stay with her sister Clara, her younger sister, who she had brought into the resistance. And they've got a little system that when she arrives, she'll throw a pebble up to Clara's side window, and Clara will twitch the curtain or something, and they'll know everything's okay. But on this occasion, when throws up a stone, there's no response. And she just immediately, she has that awful feeling she knows something is wrong. So instead of calling at her sister, she goes to a neighbor, and they just open the door a crack and hiss at her, go, get out now, because they've arrested Clara, and the Gestapo are waiting for you in her apartment. The thought of bringing her in and knowing that she is probably being beaten up at that moment, you know, at best, to provide information. It's not going to help Clara if she gets caught as well. So Zo just has to turn on her heel. And she stows the suitcase at the station and she puts the receipt for it where she knows a Dropbox, where she knows that the resistance will pick it up, so that's safe. And then she goes to the station because she knows that obviously her sister's been caught, there's been a leak somewhere, and they're going to be spilling other people's names. And she stays to issue warnings to let other people know they have to hide before she herself disappears. Incredibly brave. For which she got an award for courage, one of many she received during the war. And only then does she try to escape herself. But by then, it's too late, and somebody is following her.
- [16:14]
Tommy Mischke
She's secured the luggage. That's the money's gonna get where it's supposed to go. But is this the one where the guy sits across from her?
- [16:21]
Claire Mulley
Yeah, that's right. She thinks she's finally managed to get away from him, the man that's been following her for almost a day. Now, she gets on the last train, an express train straight from Krakow to Warsaw, and she sort of feels a bit of relief. And then the carriage door opens, and this man, who she now recognizes gets in and sits opposite her. And she knows the only reason that he won't have already arrested her is when she gets to Warsaw, she's likely to be met by friends in the Resistance, and then they can arrest a whole load of them. She's terrified. But what she's scared of most is the fear that she might betray her colleagues. That under duress, when she's being interrogated brutally, probably that she will give names away. And she thinks, I can't. I can't risk that.
- [17:10]
Tommy Mischke
They call it Free Brewery, and you're gonna get that term through your thick skulls or you're gonna get yourself another commercial. You follow? Who's they? Minneapolis St. Paul Plumbing, Heating and Air. They call it Free Brewery. Now, they have tried to get people to no longer call it February, and it hasn't worked, but that's beside the point. The question is, why do they call it Free Brewery? Because they are giving away a furnace at Minneapolis St. Paul Plumbing, heating and Air. They're giving away a furnace, and all you have to do to qualify is get a $49 tune up on your furnace in the month of February, something that is first of all very inexpensive. And second of all, something we all need anyway. We should be doing that annually. Come on, wake up and smell the heat. Enter to win a free furnace. That's why they call it free brewery. Minneapolis St. Paul. Plumbing, heating and air. They've been around since World War I. You got somebody with more experience? I doubt it.
- [18:16]
Progressive Commercial Insurance Announcer
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Commercial Insurance. As a business owner, you take a lot of marketer, bookkeeper, CEO. But when it comes to small business insurance, Progressive has you covered. They offer discounts on commercial auto insurance, customizable coverages that can grow with your business, and reliable protection for whatever comes your way. Count on Progressive to handle your insurance while you do well. Everything else quote today in as little as 8 minutes@progressive commercial.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company. Coverage provided and serviced by affiliated and third party insurers. Discounts and coverage selections not available in all states or situations.
- [18:46]
Tommy Mischke
Some people just get old and get feeble, get weak physically. They just don't have what they used to have. They need help, they need care. I get it. There are all sorts of places for those kind of folks, all sorts of places that'll care for them. And then there are people who late in life have something happen to their mind. And that's a whole other story right there. There you need specialists, people who understand the needs of someone dealing with dementia or Alzheimer's. That's where the Wellshire comes in. That's all they do. They don't dabble in any other elderly care. They're there for memory care. Only four quadrants, four households for the four different levels of memory care, each a specialty with specialists in the most well appointed facility in the state of Minnesota. You should tour the Wellshire of Bloomington and Medina.
- [19:52]
Claire Mulley
She gets on the last train, an express train straight from Krakow to Warsaw. And she sort of feels a bit of relief. And then the carriage door opens and this man who she now recognizes gets in and sits opposite her. She's terrified. But what she's scared of most is the fear that she might betray her colleagues. That under duress, when she's being interrogated brutally, that she will give names away. And she thinks, I can't. I can't risk that. So in the middle of the night, she thinks he might have fallen asleep and she slipped off her shoes and crept out of the carriage and went down towards the. The toilets, just down the corridor. And she looks back and she sees him still watching her. She thinks, I've just. I've got to do something. So she gets to the passenger door. And at that moment, she suddenly just throws herself out of the moving train in the middle of the night. And she's incredibly lucky not to hit a telegraph pole or to roll down the embankment under the steel wheels of the carriages following behind. But apart from and bruises, she makes it. It's extraordinary the number of times she's a hair's breadth from being caught, but it's her courage, her quick thinking, her ingenuity that helps her to survive. That and luck, of course, it is.
- [21:00]
Tommy Mischke
A mix of all of that. And just in that, that little snippet there from when she gets handed the money at the embassy through when she's jumping off the train, that's just one little story from her life. And there's so many moments again and again where you think, if I didn't know better, it's over for her here and it is some luck. But one thing we haven't said yet, and you make clear in your book, is she is being somewhat underestimated because she's a woman. The superpower of women in the 1940s was they were all underestimated. I mean, you have a war effort going on, and all over the place, men are looking at other men, men are wary of other men looking out to shoot other men concerned about other men. And these women are not only overlooked and underestimated, but they have these wonderful skills. I mean, any spy agency would kill to have this woman's skills. The number of times she does something so skillful, exactly the thing you need to know at that moment. Think on your feet, do it. Save your life. And in saving your life, save many, many lives. There's this wonderful quality that women have. As you say, she recruited nothing but women. So you have all these women who are working as soldiers in the Resistance, and they're so effective, often because they're women.
- [22:28]
Claire Mulley
That's right, yes. I mean, it's true that just about Everywhere in the 1940s, women are underestimated and overlooked, but never more true than in Nazi Germany. I mean, they just do not think at the start of the war that women a, have the courage and certainly don't have the nous to undertake work of this kind. So when she recruited the women, over 200 women to gather intelligence in Poland, military intelligence, she's talking to women who are working, they've been employed by the enemy as secretaries in their offices, you know, as translators, even as cleaners. Or she gets women who are working in the launderettes and the bakeries across this massive region she's responsible for. Because if you look at the changing garrison bread orders across a region like that, it can tell you where the troops are about to be moved, because they're pre planning for food, you know, that sort of supply line. So she's incredibly savvy. And the Germans at first do not just do not suspect that women can play an intelligent role like that. But when, of course, they do find out what's happening, their response is invariably very brutal. So the women face the same absolutely fundamental risks that the men did.
- [23:36]
Tommy Mischke
Actually worse, because for much of the war, they're not considered soldiers. And so the Germans don't feel the need to follow the Geneva Convention with them. They don't treat them as POWs, they can execute them outright.
- [23:52]
Claire Mulley
That's right. And this is one of Zoe's really great achievements, one of several, I should say. She knows that the Geneva Convention, which outlines the arrangements for prisoners of war, they must be kept in prisoner of war camps, they must be fed, they can't work for the war effort of the enemy and so on, doesn't apply to women. So under Hitler's commando order, when women are captured, they are either shot immediately or they are tortured for information and then killed or sent to an extermination camp or a labour camp to be labour to death. There is no other provision for them that is it. They're treated as bandits. And Zo knows that women are playing the same roles as men. They're out there gathering intelligence, they're serving as couriers like Zoe, but they also end up doing all the other roles as well. You have female sabotage team, teams of five who will blow up railway tracks on order and so on. There are female assassin teams. They're playing exactly the same roles as the men, but they have none of their protections under the Geneva Convention. And it is one of those achievements that she argues the case successfully and writes the decree herself that eventually will save the lives of thousands of female.
- [24:59]
Tommy Mischke
Resistance fighters in the famous Warsaw Uprising, the greatest uprising by unoccupied people in the history of World War II. 12,000 women participate in that. And of course, eventually they have to give up after a couple months, because the expected rescue of the Russians isn't coming, because Stalin's perfectly fine, watching Poles get slaughtered, camped out on the edge of Warsaw watching this slaughter and letting it happen. And so when they finally have to give up, you have thousands of women who just could have been executed. And she has, in essence, saved thousands of lives with this simple push to let them be soldiers. Which they are. I also found myself saying time and time again, a lot of these men were conscripted. The women are all volunteers. And then I think about this train ride where she throws herself off the train. From that moment on, she's on wanted posters. 99% of people at that point would have said, I've done my part, the Gestapo wants me, it's not looking good. And there would have been a lovely flat waiting for her in London, paid for. She could have had a wonderful, comfortable life.
- [26:13]
Claire Mulley
She's even offered that. I mean, after the train ride. And as you say, there are wanted posters up. She's on their list. They know her name, they know what her face looks like. Now, at that point, she's actually commissioned by the commander of the Polish Resistance to take two very important microfilms over nearly a thousand miles of enemy occupied territory from Warsaw to London. They send out four different couriers and she's the only one not to lose her microfilms and to make it all the way to London. She's just extraordinary. And she gets to London, they say, thank you, that's amazing. She's delivered these two microfilm, she's been debriefed, she's got all this information in her head as well. She helps train the Polish elite special forces and eventually say, thank you, you know, you've been brilliant, you've been as good as any man. They say, we'd like to thank you. Would you like a room in London for the rest of the war? She said, what are you talking about? She can't understand what they mean. She says, I've got to go back and fight for my country. And they say, well, that's very noble, but. But I'm afraid it's impossible. You can't go back because at this point in the war, there's only one way to get into Nazi German occupied Poland and that's to parachute. And they look at and they say, you're a lady. She's like, well, give me some trousers, you know, what are you talking about? So she becomes the only woman to parachute back and she keeps fighting.
- [27:25]
Tommy Mischke
It's one thing to say, oh, so she just parachuted back? No, I mean, this is the 1940s. You have to go through all this training. It's no simple thing. She had to train and she had to get injured in training. And some people training died. And even the people when she lands in Nazi occupied Poland, who run up to her, the other Resistance people, they're sort of shocked. There's a. Ah, it's a woman.
- [27:49]
Claire Mulley
She's like, it's not a woman, it's a soldier. That's her reply. She's just so inspiring. She's fantastic. Yeah. During my research, I visited the drop zone where she landed, and there's a memorial now to her and the men who flew in there or dropped in there.
- [28:03]
Tommy Mischke
And we can't let that story go without stressing this is a woman who had a phobia of heights. She had a fear of heights, and she was told the only way to go back is parachuting in. So she just had to take it. She just had to live with the fear. And that's why it's important. And I've heard you make this distinction. The book is Agent Zoe the Untold Story of the A fearless World War II resistance fighter. I've heard you say fearless was probably the wrong word for your publisher to pick because that implies she wasn't scared. And she was scared all the time, but she was courageous.
- [28:42]
Claire Mulley
Yeah, exactly. We actually changed the subtitle on the English paperback. It now says, A Courageous Resistance Fighter. Because you're absolutely right. You know, she has this. She often sold friends later. You know, she's sitting on a train and they're. They're coming down, checking travel papers, and hers are forged. And she's got a tail. You know, she gets really red in the face. Her blood rises and she starts perspiring. I mean, she's in this huge danger. She's uncomfortable. She's worried about it the whole time. And no more so than jumping from a height, which is something she had been scared of since childhood, heights. And yet she has to leap from a moving train. That doesn't help. Then she has to do her parachute training and parachute back. And even when she gets back, then she's being hunted by the Gestapo, who have her name and face. So it's just horrific.
- [29:28]
Tommy Mischke
Because she is ultimately a human being. There's reason to worry that were she captured and interrogated, she would break. I was just reading today what both the Soviets, who eventually took over Poland and the Germans did when they captured people to get information, and the number of times I just read about these people who were strong and they put up with it, Put up with it, and then eventually they break them. And. And there's reason to believe that you would have cost people lives were you captured. And there's reason to believe that because of that, your superiors might have wanted you, once you're known to get out of there, because of the danger you could be to Someone else she never is captured that moment in the train when she needs to jump off, when she realizes that's her only way out. And she says, I'll take off my shoes and jacket. That's so brilliant, because as you leave your seat, that's the only reason that guy's not following you. That and you're a woman. He's just saying no woman is leaving her coat and shoes here, walking away, and is going to jump off this train at night. A nonstop express train. Any guy, he's not letting go. He's asleep when she gets up, but she ends up looking back as she's way down the aisle and she sees him looking. He's looking, but he's not following because his mind cannot compute that a woman is gonna leap in the dark off this train. And if she does, she's dead.
- [31:05]
Claire Mulley
Which was a high probability, but it was a risk as so often that she was prepared to take.
- [31:11]
Tommy Mischke
There's another little moment. It's the little moments like the shoes off moment. And there's a moment trying to get to Britain on this long thousand plus mile trek when she's in the Pyrenees at a little bar or pub and a Nazi comes in and catches her around some French resistance guys. And she ends up kind of separating herself from them. The guys all get captured and she is in the kind of clothes that looks like she's trying to cross the mountains, but she, she kind of slips out of the stuff on her feet and the stuff that would look like she's headed for some cold weather and throws a napkin over her arm as if a waitress. And those insights save her so often.
- [31:55]
Claire Mulley
Yeah, I mean, it is a lot of luck, but it is her intuition, her real sang froid as well, you know, and her creativity that she has the presence of mind at that moment to think, what's going to make me more invisible? Okay. And she gets away. Well, she actually gets. She climbs the stairs, the restaurant's on the first floor, and someone comes running at her and throws her out of her first store window. And she lands in a bank of snow and that breaks her fall. I mean, it's pretty much nonstop.
- [32:20]
Tommy Mischke
The horror of war is beyond belief, but it creates stories. I mean, you can't have daring stories like this without death being on the line all the time. And death is. Is just hovering, hovering, hovering. And it's not just death because it's the freaking Gestapo. They're not gonna just kill you. You are gonna be tortured first for information, then they're gonna kill you. So that's always there. By the way, I believe when she parachuted into Nazi occupied Poland, it was the one time I heard that she was in a position to take her own life if necessary. Didn't she have a cyanide pill?
- [32:59]
Claire Mulley
Yeah, she had her parachute jumpsuit, which had a belt full of gold coins to give to the resistance from Britain. She had a shovel so she could dig a hole and bury her parachute if need be, in a torch. She had two guns of which she was very proud, she said. And she had this little tiny thing as well, a cyanide tablet sewn into the hem of her clothes somewhere in case it did all go horribly wrong, she would have that final option. Luckily, she never had to take that.
- [33:25]
Tommy Mischke
She does go back for the Warsaw Uprising again. She has an opportunity not to have to participate in that utter horror show. They realized the Allies were coming. D Day had been a couple months earlier. The Russians were coming in and they would certainly scare the Germans into retreating. And we can do this uprising and take care of this in a couple of days. We're not going to bring back all of Poland here, but we're going to get our city back. And we've planned it. It's not some wild, reckless thing. They really thought it out and they were really smart about it because their fear was in Poland. If we just let the Russians come in and liberate us, then it's going to be Russia. We're just going to be Russia. But if we can welcome them, as we've already liberated our city here, our capital city. Welcome. Come on in. Thanks for your help.
- [34:12]
Claire Mulley
Militarily. The Warsaw uprising is a battle against the Nazi Germans. They are now on the back foot. They're being, you know, as you said, we have Allied troops back on continental Europe pushing from the west. We've got the Eastern front still with the Russians pushing them down from there. They're on the retreat. And the Poles thought that the Germans were so demoralized now that it would take only two days. But actually, Hitler was so outraged that what he considered to be less than human beings, the Slavic people, he had downgraded in his, his racist, criminal mind as being less than human that the audacity of them to rise up against them. Just a few days earlier, he'd survived the most famous assassination attempt on his life. So he's feeling pretty angry. So he actually commanded that they stay and fight on. I mean, it made no sense, none at all. They weren't going to hold that city. But just for his wounded Pride. They fought on. And he said to kill everyone. He said, kill the men, kill the women, kill the children, and kill the civilians as well as the soldiers. That's exactly what they did. The Red army arrived on the outskirts of Warsaw and just set up camp on the far side. And when the mixed air crews from Britain and from Italy, of very brave British, Polish, even South African pilots are coming in to deliver supplies and they're flying low so they can drop these containers to the resistance with more weapons and supplies, and they're flying right into the teeth of machine gun fire from the Germans. Stalin won't even let them land on the far side, on the land land that he now holds. We are allies at that point to refuel. So they're taking twice as much fuel in their aircraft. They're flying these huge petrol tanks, really, and they can only take half as many supplies when they come. So, I mean, it was this gross act of betrayal from Stalin. It was just terrible. And politically, as you say, the Poles knew that they had to welcome the Red army when they arrived as equals and allies to a liberated city and not look like they were beholden on them. They hold out for an incredibly courageous two months with terrible casualties, and then they are forced to capitulate. And as soon as they have the Germans raise whatever is left of Warsaw, they go in and destroy it completely. And then they immediately pull back. And then the Red army comes in and claims to have liberated the city. I mean, it's just this despicable moment.
- [36:42]
Tommy Mischke
You have disposable income. Maybe you own your own business, maybe you're in your 50s, heading to 60, but you're not 100% sure. You're doing everything you should be doing financially to grow your money, to make it so you're doing the best you can with what you have. That's where Josh Arnold comes in. Josh Arnold has been helping people like you for over 40 years. He's not Merrill lynch, he's not Charles Schwab. Those are big, soulless companies. He's a local, independent guy who has simply been mastering this skill for decades. He doesn't ask you to do anything with your money. He doesn't do with his. And he's done just fine for himself. Work with Josh Arnold. You can spend 50 minutes on the phone with him. Five zero for nothing. 952-925-5608. If you end up working with him, I'm taking you to lunch, my treat.
- [37:39]
Progressive Commercial Insurance Announcer
Investment services offered by Josh Arnold, Investment Consultant, llc. A security and investment advisor past Performance is no guarantee of future results.
- [37:46]
Tommy Mischke
All investments involve risk.
- [37:47]
Progressive Commercial Insurance Announcer
Tommy Mischke is a paid endorser. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Commercial Insurance. As a business owner, you take a lot of roles. Marketer, bookkeeper, CEO. But when it comes to small business insurance, Progressive has you covered. They offer discounts on commercial auto insurance insurance, customizable coverages that can grow with your business, and reliable protection for whatever comes your way. Count on Progressive to handle your insurance while you do well. Everything else Quote Today in as little as 8 minutes@progressivecommercial.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company coverage provided and serviced by affiliated and third party insurers. Discounts and coverage selections not available in all states or situations.
- [38:21]
Tommy Mischke
I started doing ads for Fury Motors in 1963. I was one year old and I was just starting to form my first words. Fury was the second word I ever learned as a baby. My first word, strangely, was pneumonultramicroscopic silicovolcanoconiosus. Any who I've been doing ads for Fury since John Kennedy was president. Fury has been around since John Kennedy was president. They have four lovely locations, South St. Paul, Stillwater, Waconia, Forest Lake. They sell cars, people new and used. And they do it the Fury way, which is a way people remember. And you know how you know they remember? They have the highest customer satisfaction rating you'll ever find in this country. People love the Fury way. I one time said to somebody who had just dealt with Jimmy Leonard, one of the owners of Fury Motors, I said, what is it about working with Jimmy that you like so much when you buy your cars? And this guy said to me with a straight face, he's the first guy I've ever met selling cars who cares more about my wallet than his own. Feel good about where you buy your next automobile. Make it Fury Motors. I've often been impressed by reading books about the French Resistance and have read wonderful stories about that patriotic effort. It's on a whole other level in Poland. I mean, actually, you can't really compare it. The Germans, for some odd reason, kind of respected the French. And I think at one point Zoe is on one of her many trips. She's actually in Paris and she sees Nazis kind of talking to people on the street, acting as tour guide, giving directions and it's all very pleasant and nothing like that in Poland. The whole thing's adversarial. You're out on the street when you're not supposed to be there. You shoot your and they just shot indiscriminately I mean, with the Warsaw Uprising, my God, they were throwing hand grenades into basements filled with children.
- [40:26]
Claire Mulley
The resistance in France was also very courageous, and I've written some of that history as well. But I agree, the treatment of the Poles, the disregard for any. Any conscience at all, is absolutely extraordinary. And the one positive thing Zo said about that is when she is serving in occupied France, which she has to pass through with her work, she doesn't know who to trust. But in Poland, you're pretty sure the people will help you if they can, because nobody is being taken into the fold by the Germans there.
- [40:57]
Tommy Mischke
And it was just heartbreaking for me to see with the Warsaw Uprising how the Poles would treat German wounded, taking them in stretchers through the sewer system, caring for the wounded. I mean, that must have been some German soldiers who said, thanks a lot. Let me tell you what my orders were when it came to you.
- [41:18]
Claire Mulley
Yeah, I often wonder what those German wounded thought, because this book is about Zo, but it also talks about this group of women. And there's a story of one of these women that Zoe knew, and she is at a field hospital in the Warsaw old city, in the Old Town. And when the Germans come in to raise that part, she put the German wounded at the front, at the door, so that when the enemy come, they'll see there are Germans in the beds there being looked after. And she steps forward to tell them, and they just run a hand grenade and kill their own with that young woman.
- [41:51]
Tommy Mischke
When I got to the part of your book where the war ends, and I thought about V E Day and VJ Day and the pictures of people in Times Square in the United States and pictures of people in London and the pictures of people in France corking bottles of wine. And then I thought about how much press was really devoted in the United States to what was going on in Poland. There was no party to be had because they were just trading oppressors. Hitler and Stalin lived at the same time on this planet, and they got both of them. And when they got Stalin, it was a new version of hell. And for Zoe, it's, well, I just got to keep fighting. I guess. That's just my life. The resistance continues. And in this particular case, eventually they do arrest her. And she is imprisoned and she is tortured. And I'll just say right now, this woman lived till 2009. She was born in 1909. That's 100 years. It's just staggering. But she does survive that prison stretch and just keeps going. It's not like, okay, I'll get out and be a good girl now.
- [43:06]
Claire Mulley
One of the real ironies of her story is that she's so close to being arrested, to being shot in the mountains, to being drowned on a train, to having to leap off another train. There are so many times where she's so close to death, but she's never caught, she's never arrested during the war. And the irony is at the end of the war, Poland is left with this Soviet imposed communist regiment and it's them in 1951, her own legal government, although she still would have had her loyalties to the government in excise in London. But it's them that arrest her and they sentence her to 10 years in prison and, and they torture her viciously. But she never speaks, she never betrays her colleagues. I found it deeply moving. One of the most remarkable interviews I did during the book was with a woman who had shared a prison cell with her, who'd been a teenager when she met Zoe. And she said not only that Zoe saved lives in the prison because these, these young women, many of them were teenager demoralized, that there was an awful suicide rate. They thought they would never get out and they were treated like dirt. And Zoe gave them that spirit of resistance. I mean, she also educated them, she was teaching them, this is a generation of young women who had lost six years of school and so she was teaching them mass, teaching them literacy. But she was above all giving them that sense of self worth as well. So yeah, she keeps fighting throughout, she keeps on going until eventually she helps Poland to win its democratic freedom.
- [44:28]
Tommy Mischke
I cannot imagine, I honestly cannot imagine. I didn't spend enough time thinking about this at the time. What 1991 must have been like in Poland. I don't know what 1919 was like when they got their freedom then. And I don't know what 1991 was like. There was so much going on then and people make a big deal because it was such a spectacle of the Berlin Wall coming down. But Poland, if I had to pick one place I would have wanted to be with the dismantling of the Soviet Union, it would have been Poland. After this book, that's what I would have wanted to watch.
- [45:02]
Claire Mulley
I completely agree. And Poland of course was the first. It was the efforts of Solodarnosk Lekverwentza who worked at Gdansk at the docks there. He was the figurehead of the Solidarity movement pressing for freedom. Started off as a trade union and became this political party and so was supporting Solidarity. I Interviewed President Lechvar Wentzer, the first democratically elected president of Poland, eventually. And he remembered her. He actually said he gave her Poland's Order of the White Eagle, that's Poland's highest award after they got freedom in 91. And he said she didn't look that. That bothered about it, really. You know, she got a lot of badges by then. She was one of Poland's most highly decorated women. And then he realized what she'd really value and he promoted her. And she ended her life as brigadier general, retired. So she's only the second woman in Polish history to be given rank of general. I think that really meant something to.
- [45:53]
Tommy Mischke
Her, the little snippet there. You were passing along about her time in prison. There was a way she operated in prison that I swear, she could have written a book just on that alone of how to be a prisoner and not only survive, but more than survive. Just the way she would tell the other women, you get up in the morning, you make your bed, feel some pride about yourself. You're a Pole, you're a freedom fighter. Her act like it. One thing we haven't said about her, there was a ferocity to her or a fierceness. You would learn that sometimes by talking to some of the other women who she would recruit, and there would be a sense of, well, yeah, we had to do what she said. She was frightening. You know, she was so intense and determined, and we're patriots, damn it. And she just. We couldn't say no to her. I mean, she did have that. Yeah.
- [46:44]
Claire Mulley
No, it's wonderful because as you said, she lives. I think she was just two weeks shy of her centenary when she passed away. But that meant that I was able to interview all sorts of people who had known her later on in life, and they said, you know, these women who work with her said that she would. She was very supportive. But at the same time, sometimes she would demand, you know, she would give orders, literally as if she was still a soldier, to people. And they would say to each other sometimes, you know, careful, the general's wearing her. Her soldier's boots today. And that would mean, you know, don't cross over this morning. She's tough all her life, but she's also incredibly inspirational. And that's the other thing you get from people is just saying, you know, she gave you this intense, fixed concentration, this focus, and the inspiration that she lent to people. So, yeah, she's a real one off.
- [47:27]
Tommy Mischke
This friend of hers who for so long was also a brave soldier and fighter. Let me See if I have the name right. Amelia Melesa.
- [47:37]
Claire Mulley
That's right, yep.
- [47:38]
Tommy Mischke
She is captured at one point, I believe it's by the Soviets, it's the.
- [47:45]
Claire Mulley
Communist Poles, so the Soviet backed communist regime.
- [47:48]
Tommy Mischke
And she does break and give up members of the resistance. And this is a woman who was a best friend. And it's important to see that for me, because you realize breaking is kind of normal. It's not breaking that is shocking with what they do. And again, I spend some time reading. They are relentless in their torture. Relentless. I would be worthless. And when this woman does give up her fellow resistance members, she's ostracized, which is understandable, and commits suicide. There's the life that could have been waiting for any one of these women or men.
- [48:33]
Claire Mulley
That's absolutely right. To Zoe's great credit, she fights to restore Amelia's reputation. She knows this woman is a heroine. What she had given, given over the six years of the war. And then to be tortured and tortured and reduced until eventually she is tricked, she's deceived and she's broken. And then people would apparently spit at her in the street. And Zoe came to her defence. She actually paid for a memorial to her. She paid for her body to later be reinterred in this honorable military cemetery. We talked about what a patriot she is, but I think she has two key motivations. One is her love for her country. But the other is she's such a feminist. She's a total feminist. And she absolutely is fighting for recognition for the role played not just by herself, but by people like Amelia, the other people she served alongside, and the women she didn't know as well because they are being written out of the history.
- [49:24]
Tommy Mischke
Yeah. And time and time again in your book, the treatment of her because she's a woman. I mean, sometimes it's funny, it's laughable. There's. There's this point where she gets to London after this harrowing trip. I mean, not only is she living in one of the worst places in the world, Nazi occupied Poland. If you want to have any kind of a pleasant life, that's not where you want to be. Then you don't want to make this trek over the Pyrenees and getting shot at in the Pyrenees mountains. Almost being killed in this cafe with these French resistance guys having to. At one point she stows away in a water tank on a train that's used for the steam engine. And then they refill it, almost drowned her. And she gets to London and there's a Polish guy, his nom De Goer is rum, and he's in charge of the British end of this channel of information. Well, that's the end. I want to be on. I want to be on the British end. I want to be having a beer in the afternoon. I want to work 9 to 5. That is so incomparable to what she's dealing with that the way she's treated becomes absurd. So this guy kind of thinks, well, that's kind of crazy that you're a woman. That's kind of unusual. I don't know whether to kiss your hand or what. I mean, this is an accomplished soldier standing in front of him, and he's classic 1940s guy, military guy, and he actually flirts with her at one point and gives her a gift of silk stockings, thinking that might kind of win her over. All she's thinking is, you out of your mind, pal. Only Gestapo wives wear these things.
- [51:00]
Claire Mulley
He's astounded when Zo arrives. Just assumes it's going to be a man. And at first, you know, he does want to kiss her hand. She's like the Joan of Arc of Poland, you know, they're all astounded, but she's so tough with them that they really don't know how to treat her. He ends up calling her a captain in a skirt and all sorts of quite sexist insults, really. And like you say, he tries to flirt with her. He thinks that'll warm her up a bit because he has. And none of these men had any idea of what. What the conditions were in occupied Poland. So it's not to diminish them. They're courageous men who've served in the open fight. And Zo and Drum will actually go on, and they both serve alongside each other in the Warsaw Uprising. So I don't want to belittle anyone in this story, but it is fascinating to highlight their lack of understanding of what the conditions were like behind enemy lines, but also the way that the sexism of the day could be so useful if it's the enemy making assumptions and such a problem if it's your own hometown.
- [51:53]
Tommy Mischke
I did find myself, when it was all done, when the book was done, I did find myself wondering about just human psychology and what makes someone that way. Because she is not like most people in this world. And I mean, even most people who are patriotic, even most people who would fight with her time and time again. It seemed to go a step beyond.
- [52:14]
Claire Mulley
I do think it's right to look in her childhood, the fact that she was born into occupied or annexed territory, Polish territory that was being ruled by an aggressive neighboring country unjustly, that suppressed her and her family, that she couldn't even have her own name. She wasn't allowed to speak her own language as she was growing up. And then the euphoria, when she's still a young child, of seeing freedom on the streets, like you said. Her father, a big man, a veteran himself, with tears running down his cheeks, to hear the Polish national anthem being played openly on the streets of their Polish hometown for the first time in her life. All of these things do fit. Fit into making that psychology of this woman. She was incredibly courageous. I mean, she wasn't without fear, as we've said, but she brings all of this together. And she is. She's not the only courageous woman. There were thousands of them, and there were thousands of courageous soldiers altogether. The Poles do have this determination, this patriotism within them. But she is something extraordinary. She is exceptional within that group. I hope people will enjoy reading the book and make up their own mind as they see what they think about it.
- [53:26]
Tommy Mischke
Please do read the book, folks, because the reason stories like this are worth reading is I got a history lesson. I got a wondrous insight into why there's so much of it that we didn't get. Because guess who got to write the history after the end of World War II in Poland? The Russians got to write it. That's why we're getting a story like Agent Zoe. Now, we would have gotten Agent Zo's story if it were the French in 1952. So I do hope you folks read Agent Zoe, the Untold Story of a fearless World War II resistance fighter. Or as it now says on the British version, the untold story of a courageous World War II resistance fighter. Claire Mully, thank you so much for all your time. And I hope people will read the story of Zo. Her life deserves our attention.
- [54:17]
Claire Mulley
Thank you so much for having me on. It's been great.
- [54:25]
Tommy Mischke
The name of the bank is North American Banking Company. Now, you think to yourself, oh, so they're all over the place, right? All over North America? No, just the Twin Cities. It's a local bank run by local people for local people. It's old school in this sense. They know your name when you walk in. They know about your business. They know the street it's on. They help you with a loan in a way the big guys can't, because the big guys have to contact Dallas to crunch some numbers and see if you qualify. They don't know who you are. They don't care who you are at North American Banking Company. That's all they want to do is get to know you, work with you, help you be your banker. The way people used to be bankers in the old days when you used to say, oh, I got a guy at the bank, I know he'll help me. That's North American Banking Company member, fdic. Equal Housing Lender.
- [55:22]
Progressive Commercial Insurance Announcer
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Commercial Insurance. As a business owner, you take a lot of marketer, bookkeeper, CEO. But when it comes to small business insurance, Progressive has you covered. They offer discounts on commercial auto insurance, customizable coverages that can grow with your business, and reliable protection for whatever comes your way. Count on Progressive to handle your insurance insurance while you do well, everything else. Quote today in as little as 8 minutes@progressivecommercial.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company. Coverage provided and serviced by affiliated and third party insurers. Discounts and coverage selections not available in all states or situations.
- [55:53]
Sleep Number Commercial Announcer
If everybody can please stand as we sing the Polish national anthem.
- [56:18]
Tommy Mischke
In my lifetime there was a war, the Vietnam War, where 58,000Americans were killed. I often think about that number, 58,000. It sounds so ridiculously high. Such a slaughter. 58,000Americans. Then I think of World War II and 407,000Americans dying. It's too hard to fully fathom 407,000Americans. But then I think about how many Poles die. Six million Poles died in World War II alone. 20% of their entire population. Six million. It's a stupid game comparing suffering. But sometimes it's instructive to lose one out of five of your citizens. And then after the war, to stare at not victory, the way Western Europe got to experience victory. Victory, but a new boogeyman in charge, as ruthless as the last one who was defeated. I don't know what word you would use for that level of dejection, Fatigue. You've got to be kidding me. Horror. Stalin. He was Satan incarnate. So how does it feel to have one satanic force coming from the west in September of 39? One that views you as less than human. You're not fully human in their eyes. And 17 days later, to have Stalin coming in with his hordes from the east? You tell yourself, we can't win with two fronts, with two nations attacking us at once. We cannot win. Let's surrender, if we have to, to Soviet troops. Our treatment is likely to be so much better. Better? No, actually, no. The treatment is not going to be better. I'm not sure how Many of you remember or were ever aware that in the first year that Stalin filled POW camps with polls, he picked out 22,000 military and police officers, administration officials, intellectuals, professors, doctors, teachers and others. 22,000 in all. All. And he took them into the forest and he slaughtered them. He slaughtered them all and buried them in graves made with bulldozers. That's when you realize two satanic forces have invaded your country. You won't win this thing because if Germany wins, you're German all of a sudden. If the Allies win, you're Soviet. It's decades of hell. Either way, hell is actually descending upon you. That's why I think about 1991 and that freedom in Poland, that first taste of freedom. I would have liked to have had a drink with Elzbieta Zavetska that year. Agent zo, in her 80s at that point. I would have liked to ask her to describe the best she can and what it felt like to ultimately, ultimately finally win. To finally win. It's interesting to note that when she saw Poland freed after World War I, she got to feel that freedom for 20 years, till 1939 when the Germans and Soviets came pouring in. Well, she's 81 when it's freed once more. And she gets about 20 more years to feel it as a free woman before dying two weeks shy of her 100th birthday. 40 years of oppression bookended by two 20 year stretches of freedom. What a life. Thanks for listening, everyone.
- [60:39]
Claire Mulley
1.
- [60:39]
Tommy Mischke
I'll talk to you again next time.