Countesses of the Gestapo explained

The countesses of the Gestapo (French: Les comtesses de la Gestapo) were elite adventuresses of the Paris demimonde protected by the French Gestapo and large-scale black marketeers during the German occupation of France. The Gestapo countesses led extravagant lives despite the misery prevalent in Vichy France at the time. They were French or foreign former actresses or runway models, sometimes in fact truly aristocratic, who engaged in a variety of lucrative practices such as the confiscation of Jewish assets, espionage or black market operations.

Countess Mara Tchernycheff

An actress known by her stage name, Illa Meery, Tchernycheff in 1934 was one of several pretty girls with improbable names, displaying her tanned curves and platinum blondness as an extra in a soft-porn pot-boiler filmed on the Cote d'Azur, Les aventure du roi Pausole, based on the novel by Pierre Louys. She later appeared topless in Zouzou as a foil to années folles sensation Josephine Baker.

A Russian countess, Tchernycheff ran a black market network specializing in cognac and fine wine, and moved shared an apartment with a homosexual socialite from Odessa named, intimate friend of Philippe de Rothschild. Barjanski, an illustrator known for his movie posters, fled to Hollywood after French police wrongly accused him of being a spy.

She married a gambler named Garat and spent some time with him on the beaches of Brazil. But she had an affair and he left her. When she returned to France her former allies had all left for safer places. But other Russian emigres whispered of fortunes to be made selling to the Germans, who were on a monumental buying spree with the "occupation costs" extracted from the Vichy government. Paul Metchersky, Andre Galitzine and Yvan Shapochnikoff were rich now, the whispers said, Soumarakoff, Lazare Mailoff and Michel Szkolnikoff. She joined a salon on avenue Iena and then at the George V hotel made up of entrepreneurs who had no objection to supplying the German war effort, since these former aristocrats were in favor of the Germans taking care of the Soviets for them and perhaps making it possible for them to return to past glories. The Germans did business at what were known as French: bureaux d'achat, known as Amt Otto, Pimetex, ZKW or SS-Essex, where she ran across old friends and former accomplices such as Stephan Djanoumoff, Serge Landchewsky, Boris Ivanowski and the Baron of Osten-Sacken.

She became the mistress of Henri Lafont, who ran the Paris underworld with the help of the French police. [1]

Princess Euphrosine Mourousi

Princess Euphrosine Mourousi, a Greek addict who trafficked in cigarettes and informed on Jewish and Russian émigré families,[2] was sentenced in 1950 to three years in prison[3] and 20 years of banishment from France for informing to both the French police and the Gestapo about several Russian Jews.[4] Her son Yves became a well-known French journalist.

Others

Most of these women were not prosecuted after the Liberation of France.

See also

Bibliography

Notes and References

  1. Book: https://books.google.com/books?id=bS_wDwAAQBAJ&dq=Hans+Leimer%2C+an+SS+officer&pg=PT93 . Tout va très Bien Madame la Marquise. The King of Nazi Paris: Henri Lafont and the Gangsters of the French Gestapo. Christopher Othen. Biteback Publishing. 2020. 978-1785905926. Google Books. Google Books version has no page numbers but multiple pages at the beginning of that chapter are devoted to her
  2. Web site: Sang bleu et nazisme. Blue Blood and Nazism . . 3 June 2013.
  3. https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1950/01/13/la-princesse-mourousi-condamnee-a-trois-ans-de-prison_2048121_1819218.html La princesse Mourousi condamnée à trois ans de prison
  4. Web site: Un jour, un destin (A Day, a Destiny). Le Monde. 13 January 1950. Laurent Delahousse. Yves Mourousi: les mystères d'un prince (Yves Mourousi: The Mysteries of a Prince) . timestamp 10:20
  5. https://www.bibliothequesonore.ch/livre/33689 Les comtesses de la Gestapo
  6. Web site: Les comtesses de la Gestapo. 8 September 2010. 27 October 2017.
  7. Web site: fr. Hédy Sellami. eclairages.eu. Marie Olinska. 27 October 2017.
  8. Book: Guy Penaud . L'inspecteur Pierre Bonny: Le policier déchu de la "gestapo française" du 93 rue Lauriston . Inspector Pierre Bonny, Fallen Policeman of the "French Gestapo" of 93 rue Lauriston. Éditions L'Harmattan. 2011 . 9782296551084 . 3 April 2013.
  9. Book: Cyril Eder . Les Comtesses de la Gestapo . Countesses of the Gestapo . Éditions Grasset . 2007 . Google Books . 978-2-2466-7401-6 . Translated to Spanish by Éditions El Ateneo, 2007

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