Bidspirit auction | The White Rabbit - The

The White Rabbit - The Harrowing Story of the British SOE Agent Who Escaped from Buchenwald and Testified at the Nuremberg Trials. London, 1952 - First edition. Presentation Copy, Inscribed and Signed by the Author - The White Rabbit by the Scottish author Bruce Marshall, published by Evans Brothers Limited, London, 1952 - First edition. Presentation copy, inscribed and signed by the author. One of the most important and highly regarded documentary works written on intelligence and resistance activities during the Second World War, and one of the most remarkable stories of courage to emerge from the war. The book recounts the extraordinary story of Wing Commander F. F. E. Yeo-Thomas, a Royal Air Force officer and a daring agent of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE). Operating in occupied France under the codename ”The White Rabbit, ” Yeo-Thomas was responsible for coordinating activities between the British government and the French Resistance, receiving his orders directly from Winston Churchill, who assured him that every effort would be made to rescue him should he be captured behind Nazi enemy lines. He parachuted into occupied territory on several occasions, organized resistance networks, and became one of the Gestapo's most wanted men. In 1944, Yeo-Thomas was betrayed, captured by the Nazis in Paris, and subjected to brutal interrogation and torture at Fresnes Prison and at the Gestapo headquarters on Avenue Foch. Despite severe physical and psychological abuse, he refused to divulge any classified information. He was subsequently deported to Buchenwald concentration camp together with thirty-seven other prisoners. Upon his arrival at Buchenwald, his fate, along with that of the other SOE agents who had arrived with him, was effectively sealed. The Gestapo intended to execute them by hanging in the camp's cellars. He and his companions were confronted with the horrifying sight of the camp's prisoners immediately upon their arrival. As he recounts, one question occupied all their minds: how long would it be before they looked the same? As if to deepen their dread, one of the inmates ”prepared” them for what lay ahead: ”If you do not starve to death, you will work to death, and if you do not work to death, you will be executed.” Yeo-Thomas testifies that during his time in the camp, 300 prisoners died every day from starvation, from beatings administered by the Kommando guards or the SS guards, or at the jaws of savage dogs trained for that purpose. The suffering and torture endured by him and his companions at Buchenwald are described here in harrowing detail.  After learning that his name had been placed on the list of prisoners scheduled for imminent execution, Yeo-Thomas established contact with the camp's underground prisoner resistance leadership (composed primarily of Communist political prisoners, chiefly Germans and Frenchmen, who operated an internal administrative network under Nazi supervision). The plan he devised was extraordinary. With the assistance of prisoner doctors and orderlies who operated the camp hospital (the medical block), the bodies of inmates who had died of typhus or exhaustion and had not yet been registered by the crematorium were identified. Yeo-Thomas was secretly transferred to the hospital under the guise of a terminally ill patient, and his name was ”removed” from the records as though he had died, while the body of the other prisoner was cremated under Yeo-Thomas's name. He then assumed the identity of a deceased French prisoner named Maurice Chouquet. After his ”resurrection” under his new identity, he was transferred to another block within the camp, where the likelihood of being recognized was lower. From there, under his assumed identity, he was assigned to a transport of prisoners sent to a small, less heavily guarded external labor camp (Kommando) near the Czech border. His final escape took place during the evacuation of the camp in April 1945, when the Nazis began forcing prisoners on the infamous ”death marches” as the Allied armies approached. During the march, taking advantage of the chaos, confusion, and the surrounding bombardment, Yeo-Thomas and several French prisoners slipped away from the column and hid in the forests. He was captured once again by a German patrol but managed to outwit his captors, escape within a few days, and make his way across no-man's-land until he encountered troops of the U.S. Army's 4th Armored Division, to whom he identified himself by his true name and military rank. For his extraordinary bravery, he was awarded the George Cross (G.C.), the highest civilian decoration for gallantry in the United Kingdom, and was also made a recipient of the Legion of Honour by the French government. After the war, drawing upon his personal experiences and extensive knowledge, he testified at the Nuremberg Trials against Nazi war criminals.