Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris

CHAPTER 33. WALKOUT

1 “We respected Yvan” … “To give information” PC, 247–249.

2 “Germans, notorious collaborators” Fernand Lavie in a letter of November 30, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° IV.

3 “My mother never intended to leave” … “Yet she must know” PC, 249–251.

4 “How many witnesses” Thomas Maeder, The Unspeakable Crimes of Dr. Petiot (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1980), 251. Emphasis added. Many other important witnesses were not found, not least of which was Georges Redouté, who had left town. Report, March 12, 1946, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° III.

5 “Maître, if you manage” PC, 251.

6 “How do you explain this find?” Claude Bertin, Les assassins hors-série: Gilles de Rais, Petiot, vol. 10 of Les grands procès de l’histoire de France (Paris: Éditions de Saint-Clair, 1967), 245.

7 “The moment has not come” … “Do not speak” PC, 252–254.

8 “Very sympathetically” John V. Grombach, The Great Liquidator (New York: Zebra Books, 1980), 268–269.

9 “Why were you released” … “To insinuate” PC, 255.

10 “Me? An agent” Bertin, Les assassins hors-série, 248.

11 “you lawyers of the alleged victims” Grombach, The Great Liquidator, 356–357.

12 this chaotic session The New York Times correspondent calls it a “screaming contest.” New York Times, March 31, 1946.