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The Lost Women Spies S01E04 (2025) [Full Movie] [Long Version]Full EP - Full
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00:07April 1945, the war is entering its brutal final stages.
00:17The Nazis are surrounded as the UK and US advance into Germany from the west
00:26and the Soviets lay siege to Berlin from the east.
00:33As the Allied forces sweep through Europe, liberating the citizens,
00:41they begin to uncover the horrors of Nazi concentration camps.
00:50In London, the Allied advance brings news for Vera Atkins
00:57as one of her lost women spies, Yvonne Bazden arrives back
01:04at Euston railway station, but many of her agents remain missing,
01:10presumed dead, like Violet Sabo, who left her one-year-old child to fight the Nazis,
01:20or headstrong Noor Inayat Khan, who many said was unsuitable to be an agent.
01:26Are you ready?
01:27Yes, Miss Atkins.
01:29Vera begins the hunt to find her agents, dead or alive.
01:37Answer me!
01:38But she can't do it alone.
01:42So she turns to Britain's elite fighting service,
01:49the S.A.S., the S.A.S., and specialist Nazi hunter, Major Bill Barkworth.
02:00God, what are you sorry?
02:23This is!
02:31It's the 28th of April, 1945, the Ravensbrück concentration camp for women in northern Germany, 90 kilometers north of Berlin.
02:45SOE agent Odette Sansom is in solitary confinement.
02:50Where is she? Come on, I need her now!
02:54But the camp is about to be overrun by the Soviet Red Army.
02:59At this point in the war, the Germans are completely on the back foot.
03:03They've got the Russians attacking from one side the Red Army and they've got the Americans and the British from
03:07the other side.
03:10Himmler has given the order that all witnesses to the horrors of the camp must be killed.
03:20The man who has come for Odette is Fritz Surin.
03:26Get up!
03:28Move!
03:30Yes! Up, up, up!
03:33Yes!
03:35Out! Out!
03:38Fritz Surin was the commandant of Ravensbrück concentration camp.
03:42It was a women's only camp and Surin had complete control of everything that went on within it.
03:47So the forced labor programs that the women would be sent out into, the roundups for the executions, and also
03:53the medical experiments that were carried out at Ravensbrück.
03:56He would oversee those and have an understanding of what that meant.
04:01Move! Come on!
04:03Odette is about to see daylight for the first time in six months.
04:08But her life hangs in the balance.
04:12Move!
04:12Come on!
04:21Odette is about to see daylight for the first time in six months, but her life hangs in the balance.
04:21Surin flees the Soviet liberation of his camp.
04:25Driving south of Berlin, towards the U.S. army line.
04:33As the Red Army and the Americans get closer to Ravensbrück, the commandant, Surin, panics.
04:40Because at this point he knows he is going to get captured by one army or the other, and he's
04:47going to make that decision himself.
04:49He's going to pick a side, and so he goes for the Americans and the British.
04:53This is who he aims for.
04:57Surin takes Odette with him, believing she is the perfect bargaining chip to win him freedom.
05:06When Odette was captured, she gave the surname of her network chief, Churchill, as her own surname.
05:13Convincing Surin that she is related to British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill.
05:19Hands up!
05:22But Surin is about to get a nasty shock.
05:32Don't fire!
05:35Identify yourselves!
05:37This is Odette Churchill!
05:39Don't shoot!
05:40Get out!
05:42This is Odette Churchill, the niece of Winston Churchill!
05:46Don't fire!
05:48Who are you?
05:53My name is Odette Sanson.
05:57I'm a member of the British Special Operations Executive.
06:04This man is a war criminal.
06:13Can you imagine what Surin would have thought?
06:15Because immediately Odette announces that not only is she not Churchill's niece or any relation to him,
06:21but she's an SOE agent, and she just confesses everything, this key information that he's been after for ages.
06:28It must have been incredibly frustrating and also humiliating for him.
06:33Odette's final act of humiliation is to steal Surin's bag containing his personalised pistol.
06:41She hands him over to the Americans, watches while he's taken in, takes his bag, which has a pistol and
06:48his other belongings,
06:49and hands it over in London to Vera Adkins.
06:53It would have been a huge relief to finally get to safety.
06:57It would also be crucial because she knew about other agents.
07:00She could then give crucial information to Vera Adkins.
07:078th of May, 1945.
07:11The Nazis surrender.
07:17Victory in Europe.
07:24In London, thousands pour into the streets to celebrate, as Churchill announces peace across the continent.
07:34For the SOE, it appears much of their work is done.
07:41But for Vera, her hunt is just beginning.
07:47Odette arrives back in London.
07:49She meets with Vera to debrief her, and to see if she can help track down the lost women spies.
07:57It's so good to have you back.
08:08After they arrested me, I was kept in prison in Paris.
08:19But then the Gestapo came.
08:25Just tell us.
08:29I didn't tell them anything.
08:36They seem to know so much.
08:42About the circuits.
08:44Who was involved.
08:45Where.
08:46When.
08:51And then they took me over the border.
08:54Into Germany.
08:56Karl Zerrua.
08:59With other women.
09:01Karl Zerrua.
09:03Hmm.
09:05And finally, Ravensbrook.
09:34You said there were other women.
09:45Odette describes seven female agents that she remembers from Karl Zerrua.
10:00It's an important lead for Vera.
10:09Nora Nierkan was one of Vera's favorite agents.
10:12One of the people she seems to really have cared about.
10:14When she was in training, there was some question mark as to whether or not Nora was good enough for
10:19the job.
10:20Because she seemed to be so kind.
10:22She said she could never lie.
10:23And yet Vera was really the one who gave the final approval.
10:26And said, no, you're going to go.
10:28And she'll be fine.
10:29And it'll work.
10:36And Vera seems to have had a very guilty conscience.
10:40A very sort of deeply felt question as to what had happened to this delightful young woman who she really
10:46had been responsible for sending to France.
10:53She's a pretty.
10:55But no.
10:58Don't take my word for it, though.
11:01Ask the b**** at the prison.
11:04Becca.
11:06Fraulein Becca.
11:09She ran the place.
11:13If anyone knows, she will.
11:21I think Vera's reaction to starting to uncover the stories of these women and to trace them to Karlsruher must
11:27have come as a real shock to her.
11:33To understand the dehumanizing process that they'd been put through right from their arrest.
11:38And now they're in solitary confinement.
11:43These women that she would have last seen on an airfield in England, full of life and full of hope
11:47and excitement for their missions,
11:49suddenly in this horrible world, having experienced some brutal things already,
11:54and just starting to unravel their stories and wondering what became of them after they left this prison at Karlsruher.
12:06Thanks to Odette, Vera has a major breakthrough in intelligence.
12:11It's important for Vera, not only professionally, but also personally.
12:18In a way, although Vera never had children herself, she does kind of have maternal qualities here in her investigation.
12:34Vera has the prison in Karlsruher in southern Germany as the last location for at least seven women.
12:45Vera also knows about the Ravensbrück women's concentration camp, situated in north-eastern Germany.
12:54Ravensbrück was a concentration camp just north of Berlin, and unlike every other concentration camp, it was for women.
13:01It was particularly horrifying for the sensibilities of people in the 1940s as well,
13:07where women are meant to be kept out of combat, out of war and treated with some level of humanity.
13:12Ravensbrück was a particular horrific site to end up in.
13:20It's from here that three agents, including Yvonne Basden and Odette Sansom, have come back alive.
13:33Ravensbrück is also the last known location for young mother and widow, Violette Sabo.
13:47But there is one of Vera's agents that has not been spotted at either a prison or a camp, nor
13:55Inayat Khan.
14:02There is a generally held sense that Knorr, amongst the others, might be alive.
14:10And so she realizes, too, that there is a tremendous amount of pressure on her,
14:14that if she is going to find her missing agents, she is going to have to do it fast.
14:20Vera can't travel to Germany and continue her investigations due to her low rank.
14:26So she enlists the help of an army unit who are hunting Nazis across post-war Germany.
14:34A unit that was founded just a few years before.
14:38The SAS.
14:54The SAS, or Special Air Service, are an elite commando unit founded during the height of the war.
15:03The SAS were formed in the North African desert, and the concept behind their kind of operations were these fast
15:09hit-and-run missions.
15:10And they were deploying in these Willis jeeps, which were very maneuverable and nimble, and they were heavily armed with
15:16mounted machine guns.
15:17And the idea was to carry out these hit-and-run raids, largely targeting Italian and German airfields.
15:25And they were extremely successful in the North Africa campaign.
15:29So in those 18 months or so that they soldiered there, the SAS had destroyed 387 proven enemy warplane kills.
15:37That's a spectacular achievement.
15:41But in the winter of 1942, Hitler fights back.
15:47His Nazi high command issues the so-called commando order.
15:53What the commando order said was that any parachutist, so any allied parachutist, that could be SAS, it could be
16:00commandos, it could be special operations executive agents.
16:03Any of those captured behind the lines, whether in uniform or out of uniform, whether fighting or not fighting, whether
16:10trying to surrender or not, would be kept alive only for as long as it took the Gestapo and the
16:16SAS to interrogate them and find out what they knew, and then they would be shot out of hand.
16:24In other words, murdered.
16:34Despite the order, the SAS continue their raids and are a key part of the Allied success in northern France
16:43that sees the Nazis defeated.
16:49With the end of the war, SAS Major Bill Barkworth and a team are sent to Germany to hunt down
16:56the Nazis who carried out the commando order and bring them to justice.
17:04Major Eric Bill Barkworth is an extraordinary figure in World War II, and especially within Special Forces history.
17:10He's eccentric, he's single-minded, he's a maverick, he's a rule-breaker, he's one of those very, very archetypal individuals
17:19who can think the absolute unthinkable.
17:22But the other thing about Barkworth as well, which is key to how he develops as a character during the
17:26war, is he's got this unshakable moral compass.
17:30His sense of right and wrong is absolutely inflexible.
17:37Barkworth has commandeered a private villa, the Villa Degler, in Garganau, near Karlsruhe, on the edge of the Black Forest.
17:51And he is here on a special mission for the SAS.
17:59On the 12th of August, 1944, an SAS team was dropped behind enemy lines in the Vosges mountains of eastern
18:08France to hit the Nazis before an Allied advance.
18:14But the team were tracked down.
18:18And 31 soldiers were captured.
18:26After months of interrogation, the soldiers were taken to the woods, stripped, and shot.
18:38Such a loss of life would have a profound effect on everyone in the SAS.
18:45When you are serving in a unit like the SAS in World War II, you forge these bonds of brotherhood
18:51with your fellow operators, which are extremely, extremely powerful and close.
18:56You read the accounts from people at the time, or you interview veterans, as I have, and you speak about
19:01those kind of relationships, they are very, very, very special.
19:05It's the kind of spirit that means you will lay down your life for your fellow brother-in-arms, and
19:11that's what so often happens.
19:20Barkworth is determined to find those responsible for the deaths of the 31 SAS soldiers.
19:30Chief among them is Hans Kiefer, the head of the SD, the Nazi intelligence agency in Paris.
19:45A man Vera also believes may know what happened to her lost women spies.
19:54So Vera shares the photos of her agents with Barkworth, in the hopes he can help her.
20:01Both Barkworth and Vera, their investigations led them to one name, and that was Hans Kiefer.
20:09He was in charge of the SD.
20:11He was responsible for all of the investigations that the Gestapo and the SD were doing in Paris.
20:16So he was responsible for the interrogation of what the agents and what the soldiers of the SAS went through.
20:26He was a spider at the centre of the web, issuing all these orders for interrogating,
20:31and this is the man that they were desperate to find.
20:35But as the atrocities of Kiefer and other Nazis come to light,
20:40people back in the UK begin to ask some difficult questions.
20:52Vera receives a letter, alerting her to the actions of Violette Sabo's father, Charles Bushell.
21:02Violette has a child called Tanya,
21:05and Bushell wants to know when the baby's mother will return.
21:33Bushell is talking to his MP and giving interviews to the newspapers about his mission.
21:43For Vera, and the SOE, this could be a major problem.
21:49Vera is in a very difficult situation because suddenly the war is over,
21:54and these young women who have gone off to serve somewhere,
21:58and their families don't know anything about what they really did in the SOE,
22:01aren't coming home.
22:07Violette Sabo's father, who's been left with her infant daughter,
22:11is starting to ask questions, is starting to push for answers.
22:14What's happened to my daughter? Why hasn't she come home?
22:16And there are others starting to step forward and say,
22:18listen, we've heard nothing. We don't know where they were serving.
22:21We don't know what part of the world they've ended up in.
22:23We don't know why they're not home.
22:25And so there starts to become this pressure from family members and friends
22:29and other acquaintances of these young women who've just suddenly vanished.
22:34And Vera has another problem.
22:38She has a new boss.
22:43Head of SOE F section, Maurice Buckmaster,
22:47has returned to his civilian role of public relations manager at the Ford Motor Company.
22:54He is replaced by new broom...
22:57Vera.
23:03A man who comes from the SOE security section
23:08and whose main interest is in keeping things secret.
23:13But Mott doesn't help Vera very much.
23:16He doesn't see this as the sort of passionate necessity that Vera sees it as.
23:21And she's now started to get information about the camps.
23:27And she's pushing to see if she can get a chance to have some sort of contact
23:32or interrogate the heads of these camps where her agents might have ended up.
23:39And yet she's given the cold shoulder.
23:41She's really effectively told that this isn't of interest to the government,
23:46this is not of interest to her former colleagues,
23:48and would she please just leave it alone?
23:56So it's really tense for Vera.
23:58She doesn't know how much power she will have to carry on this investigation.
24:02She needs to find out if there are agents surviving in these camps,
24:06she has to find them before they are dead or gone,
24:08or any evidence of them is wiped out.
24:11So the timing is crucial, and she is basically racing against the clock.
24:17Vera has to fight to convince Mott and the war office
24:21to allow her to go to Germany and speed up the hunt for her missing spies.
24:30Letters from agents' relatives asking difficult questions
24:33puts pressure on the home office.
24:38And after months of lobbying, Vera gets her answer.
24:45Vera will be given the rank of flight officer in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force,
24:51allowing her to travel to Germany.
24:56But she is told that she has just four days to demonstrate she can get results.
25:14December 1945.
25:19Vera's destination is Berlin.
25:23A capital city in ruins.
25:28A city conquered by the Soviet Union.
25:34In among the destruction of Germany,
25:36Vera has just a few days to prove her worth to the war office.
25:46Vera's first mission is to identify the grave
25:49of F-Section's male agent, Clement Marc Jumeau,
25:53who is believed to have died of tuberculosis
25:56at a hospital north of Berlin.
25:59Many women were sent to Germany post-war,
26:02but mostly in secretarial roles
26:03or in a way to assist with the men of the armed forces
26:07who were trying to reconcile Germany.
26:10But Vera was there in a totally different capacity.
26:13She had a mission that she wanted to fulfil.
26:20And although she was probably very nervous and had a sense of trepidation,
26:24she really had to mask that and to go forward with an air of confidence
26:28and to prove that she was the right person
26:31to uncover the stories of the missing agents.
26:35But Vera has a problem.
26:37Jumeau's grave is most likely in Soviet-controlled Germany,
26:41north of Berlin.
26:43After the fall of Germany,
26:45the country is split into zones
26:47under control of the US, the UK, France and the Soviet Union.
26:56At a checkpoint in Buch,
26:59Vera is stopped by a Soviet sentry
27:01and her progress is halted.
27:18Vera is blocked from entering the Soviet zone.
27:26If Vera fails here,
27:28she knows there is no chance that Mott and the war office
27:31would allow her to continue her investigations.
27:36But then Vera addresses the sentry in Russian,
27:43something the sentry would not have been expecting.
27:48They come to a Russian checkpoint and she speaks in Russian
27:51and it must have been a real shock
27:53because for him, she was a member of the WAF, you know.
27:57She was a lady in a blue uniform
27:59and suddenly she's speaking Russian,
28:01which would have been something
28:02he would have been completely unprepared for.
28:06Vera, somehow, not only speaks Russian,
28:11but she does so with a level of fluency
28:13that the sentry lets them through.
28:17Vera is able to continue her journey
28:20into the Soviet zone
28:21thanks to her unexpected ability to speak Russian.
28:35At the hospital, Vera questions the staff
28:44and they direct her to the location of Jumot's grave.
28:51Within the first day of her time in Germany,
28:54Vera proves to the war office and to Mott
28:57that her investigations get results.
29:01Now she can move on to the main reason for her journey,
29:06Ravensbrück.
29:16Ravensbrück.
29:17Ravensbrück.
29:20The women's camp.
29:2590 kilometres north of Berlin.
29:32Ravensbrück.
29:33Ravensbrück is a hideous camp which was set up specifically to hold women
29:38and tens of thousands of women died there.
29:42I think over 50,000 women were imprisoned there.
29:48Ravensbrück is of particular interest to Vera
29:51because she interviewed Odette who'd come out of Ravensbrück,
29:55who had told her about her agents who were there.
29:58So Ravensbrück seems to be the place, the concentration camp,
30:02where a lot of her agents disappeared.
30:05Vera is here to interrogate the commandant, Fritz Soeren.
30:10Ravensbrück camp is the camp which Odette left alive.
30:15It is also the last known location of Vera's missing agent,
30:19Violette Sabo, along with two others,
30:23Lillian Rolfe and Denise Bloch.
30:27Soeren holds the key to not just one,
30:29but possibly the lives of three of her agents.
30:34The pressure is on.
30:38Vera's not particularly experienced yet at interrogations,
30:43and she knows he has information.
30:47He knows everything that went on in the camp,
30:49and if there were special prisoners considered to be agents,
30:53he would have known.
30:59How many English women were at the camp?
31:06There were no English women at the camp.
31:11Odette is English.
31:14She was a special prisoner,
31:16for whom I had special responsibilities,
31:20because we thought she was related to Churchill.
31:25So the other English women,
31:28how many were there?
31:32I already told you,
31:35there were no others.
31:37I have testimony that there were.
31:48Answer me!
31:52I have nothing else to say.
32:00Soeren offers Vera nothing.
32:12Without any new evidence,
32:15Vera leaves Ravensbrück
32:16and returns to London empty-handed.
32:29Back in London,
32:31Vera gets some news
32:32that could prevent her
32:33from ever finding her agents.
32:36Have a read, please.
32:40She is informed that F Section
32:43is to be closed down.
32:45Permanently.
32:48Norman Morton tells Vera
32:50that she's to wind down,
32:52she's to close the office,
32:53and really nobody's very interested
32:55in what's happening to these agents of hers.
33:02There is no sense
33:04that there should be accounts
33:06from surviving agents,
33:08which is what we see
33:08from other military intelligence departments.
33:11So there's no accountability,
33:13there's no learning
33:15from the mistakes of the past.
33:18SOE was so embarrassed
33:20by some of its mistakes
33:21that it was just going to
33:23hush everything up
33:24and close it down
33:25as quickly as possible.
33:28If F Section is shut down,
33:30it would see Vera
33:32without the mandate
33:33to find her lost women spies.
33:36They would remain
33:37missing, presumed dead.
33:41But for Vera,
33:42this wasn't acceptable.
33:43It wasn't fair.
33:45It wasn't fair on them.
33:46It wasn't fair on their families.
33:47And so she was determined
33:49to find out what had happened,
33:51particularly to the young women agents
33:53that she had personally
33:54sent to France.
34:03What Vera needs
34:05is new evidence
34:07that will shock her bosses
34:08into letting her continue.
34:21Vera receives word
34:23from SAS Major Barkworth
34:25about evidence
34:26from a secret concentration camp.
34:30A camp that has been liberated
34:32and filmed by US forces.
34:38Known as Natzweiler Struthof,
34:40the camp is hidden
34:41in the Vosges mountains
34:42of eastern France,
34:44close to the German border.
34:52It is the only camp
34:54of the Nazis build
34:55in France.
34:57A camp built
34:59to destroy
34:59the French resistance.
35:05On the 7th of December,
35:071941,
35:08Hitler passes an order
35:10code named
35:11Night and Fog.
35:14This secret order
35:15means anyone believed
35:17believed to be endangering
35:18German security
35:19can be abducted at night
35:21and without trial
35:22taken to Natzweiler.
35:26People would be,
35:27according to the Nazi order,
35:29turned into mist.
35:33It's a way of punishing people
35:35that was more feared
35:37than any other.
35:41But it's what Barkworth
35:43includes next
35:44in his report
35:45that has the most
35:46shocking impact
35:47on Vera's hunt
35:48for her lost
35:49women spies.
36:01Vera reads
36:02Barkworth's interrogation report
36:04of a former prisoner
36:06at Natzweiler,
36:08Franz Berg.
36:28Berg tells Barkworth
36:29he worked in the crematorium
36:31as a stoker.
36:34One day,
36:35in July 1944,
36:38Berg and the other stokers
36:39are told to expect
36:40some English women.
36:46From his crematorium's cell,
36:48he witnesses
36:49their arrival.
36:56Franz gives a detailed
36:58deposition.
36:58He describes
37:00these English women
37:01who come.
37:02And on the night,
37:03he says that
37:04the head of the crematorium
37:06has told him
37:07to light the fires
37:08and take it
37:09to the hottest point
37:10by 9.30pm.
37:12They're hearing
37:13that these girls
37:14are going to be killed
37:15by lethal injection.
37:20They see three women
37:22being dragged.
37:23These are the English women.
37:24Two are unconscious.
37:25One of them
37:26seems to be moving.
37:27There's groans and grunts.
37:28And one even speaks
37:29and says,
37:30Purkwa?
37:32They are then dragged
37:33into the crematorium.
37:34They can't see anymore.
37:35And they say later
37:36that one of the women
37:37was alive
37:38and had scratched
37:39one of the men
37:40who had come.
37:42Then they heard
37:42the crematorium doors
37:43being shut
37:44and they knew it
37:45and they knew it was
37:45all being fired up.
37:49After that,
37:50there's silence.
37:54It's horror
37:56at what these girls
37:57would have gone through.
37:58There is no way
37:59when they prepared them
38:00for their training,
38:01for the torture
38:02that might lie ahead,
38:03they would have envisaged
38:05something like this.
38:10After being shown
38:11Vera's photographs
38:12of her missing spies,
38:14Berg says
38:15that he believes
38:16one of the women
38:16brought to the crematorium
38:19is Noor Inayat Khan.
38:24Vera would have been
38:26absolutely horrified
38:27and the thought
38:28that this could have been
38:29Noor as well.
38:30I mean,
38:30horrified for all the girls.
38:35and the fact
38:36that maybe
38:37this is what happened
38:38to Noor
38:38is something
38:39that really haunted her.
38:52Armed with Berg's testimony
38:54from Natsweiler,
38:56Vera heads
38:57to her superiors.
38:59She will not
39:01give up
39:01on her women.
39:11Berg's testimony
39:12makes disturbing reading
39:14for the British
39:15security services.
39:23Whitehall will be
39:24deeply troubled
39:25by the evidence
39:26that Vera
39:27is actually gaining
39:28of the sheer horror
39:29of the concentration camps
39:31because let's not forget
39:32that the public
39:33don't know
39:34that women
39:35were sent
39:36behind enemy lines.
39:39Whitehall would not want
39:40this highly secret
39:42organisation,
39:42the SOE,
39:44knowledge of it
39:44to come out,
39:45but even more sensitive
39:47and potentially
39:49a public outcry
39:50to hear that women
39:51had been dropped
39:52into these dangerous areas
39:54and that some of them
39:56hadn't come back
39:56and had been horrifically
39:58tortured.
40:00After seeing Berg's testimony,
40:02MI6 agree
40:03to fund Vera
40:04for another three months
40:06of investigations
40:07in the hope
40:08that Vera
40:09can keep the story
40:10of the lost women spies
40:11out of the public eye.
40:16Vera heads back
40:18to Germany.
40:41Vera is assigned
40:42to the war crimes unit
40:44at the British Army
40:45headquarters
40:45in Germany.
40:48The war crimes unit
40:49was based at
40:50Bad Orenhausen,
40:51which was the headquarters
40:52of the British Army
40:54on the Rhine.
40:55So it was a very
40:56important place.
40:57And the war crimes unit
40:58was really trying
40:59to find high-ranking Nazis,
41:01people who would have
41:02been involved
41:03in what we would call
41:04war crimes.
41:05So with executions,
41:07with maltreatment
41:08of prisoners,
41:09with the concentration
41:10camp system in general.
41:12And the idea
41:13would not only be
41:13to find these officers,
41:15but also to find evidence
41:17about crimes against humanity
41:19that they had committed.
41:20So various murders
41:22or procedures
41:24that they had followed
41:25that were against
41:26the Geneva Convention.
41:30Vera will support
41:31the British judges
41:32in their evidence gathering.
41:40Vera's main role
41:41within the war crimes unit
41:42was to trace
41:42the missing SOE agents.
41:45And her job would be
41:45to trace them
41:47as best she could.
41:48This was going to be
41:49exceptionally difficult for her
41:50as the prisoners
41:51were classified as
41:53Nacht und Nabel,
41:54Night and Fog.
41:54So most records
41:55would technically
41:56have disappeared
41:57if they'd ever been kept
41:58in the first place.
41:59But her job
42:00was to trace them
42:01through the various
42:02prison systems
42:03that they'd been through,
42:04had they gone into camps.
42:06And not only to trace them,
42:08but to trace the people
42:08responsible for their
42:09imprisonment
42:10and murders
42:11if that was going
42:12to be the case.
42:16Vera begins
42:17by tracing back
42:18her agent's whereabouts
42:20before they get
42:21to the camp
42:22at Natsweiler.
42:24And her attention
42:25turns to a witness
42:27who could hold the key.
42:29It's a name
42:30given to Vera
42:31by Odette Sansom.
42:34It is the chief warder
42:35of Karlsruhe prison,
42:37Fräulein Becker.
42:44Vera leaves
42:45the war crimes office,
42:46headed for Karlsruhe prison,
42:48in the hope
42:49that finding Becker
42:50might give her
42:51the information
42:52she needs.
42:56Fräulein Becker
42:57would have been
42:58really important
42:58for Vera
42:59to get her hands on.
43:00She'd been identified
43:01in one of the affidavits
43:02of the surviving agents
43:03anyway,
43:04and Vera needed
43:05to go out
43:06and find her.
43:07Because as the chief wardress,
43:08she would have received
43:09all new prisoners
43:10coming into Karlsruhe.
43:12She would have met
43:13them personally,
43:14taken away
43:14their personal effects,
43:16made a record
43:17of what they were.
43:18She would have also
43:18recorded their names.
43:20So be they real names
43:22or their aliases,
43:23she would have recorded
43:24the names of the SOE women
43:25going into that prison.
43:34On arrival at the prison,
43:37Vera discovers
43:37that Fräulein Becker
43:39hasn't even left
43:40her post
43:42as chief warder.
43:45Vera can now
43:47begin her questioning.
43:52Karlsruhe was technically
43:54a civilian prison,
43:55so it wasn't really
43:56used for political prisoners,
43:58which arguably
43:58the SOE agents were.
44:01When they arrived
44:02at Karlsruhe,
44:03they were put
44:04into solitary confinement.
44:09Food would have been
44:10pretty grim
44:11and very scarce.
44:13They would have only
44:13had the clothes
44:14they were standing up in.
44:15And we know
44:16that the cells
44:17were quite sparse,
44:18a single bed,
44:19maybe a bucket
44:19for a toilet.
44:20So it was
44:21a very grim place.
44:26I didn't want them here.
44:28This is a regular prison,
44:29not for politicals
44:30like them.
44:31They should never
44:32have been here.
44:45Them?
45:07Yes.
45:11All of them.
45:16And they all left
45:17in July 1944.
45:21No.
45:23The one you mentioned,
45:24Adette.
45:25She left then.
45:27The others,
45:28it was later in the year.
45:31So these seven
45:33in the photographs,
45:34they didn't leave
45:36in July.
45:36That's what I said.
45:38They left later.
45:41I need to see
45:42your records.
45:43Now, please.
45:44We don't have any.
45:46I can't imagine that.
45:50The French.
45:52When they came,
45:53they destroyed everything.
45:54Smashed it all up.
45:58All gone.
46:08Thank you,
46:09Fraulein Becker.
46:10I'm sure I'll see you
46:12again soon.
46:17Vera
46:17doesn't have the written
46:19records she needs
46:20as evidence,
46:21but she does have
46:22something more
46:23important.
46:25Becker's testimony
46:26directly contradicts
46:28the evidence
46:29of the crematorium
46:30stoker at
46:30Natsweiler,
46:32Franz Berg.
46:34Berg stated that
46:35four women
46:36are killed
46:37at the Natsweiler
46:38camp in July
46:391944.
46:41But Becker
46:42claims that,
46:43including Noor,
46:44seven of Vera's
46:45lost women spies
46:46are still in
46:48Karlsruhe prison
46:49later than July
46:501944.
46:51So those women
46:53could not have been
46:54the ones killed
46:55at Natsweiler.
46:57Vera already has
46:59an eyewitness
47:00testimony from
47:00Natsweiler saying
47:01that Noor is dead.
47:03And now she has
47:04another eyewitness
47:04testimony saying,
47:05no, that is not true.
47:06She is here.
47:07She needs some
47:09sort of
47:09corroborating evidence
47:10to prove where
47:12Noor is,
47:12one way or the other.
47:15Vera leaves
47:16Becker and
47:17Karlsruhe
47:18with the chance
47:19that some of
47:20her lost women
47:21spies could still
47:23be alive.
47:27Noor is done
47:27to be
47:27have
47:27one to
47:27do.
47:28Never
47:28or
47:43matter
48:12Transcription by CastingWords
48:13CastingWords
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