Transcript of Letter from Katherine Fite to Mr. and Mrs. Emerson Fite

XVI 16 Sunday, Oct.14th Dearest Mother and Daddy, 12 S. TRUMAN "NATIONAL I believe last week I wrote you that your letter of AND Oct.1 reached me Oct.6. Well, it was followed on Oct. by one written, I be- lieve, on Sept.28 or maybe even Sept.26. So there's no telling. To you probably the most interesting experience of this week will be my meeting with a woman lawyer on the French staff. She sat next me on the bus and seemed so pleasant and intelligent that I suggested we have lunch togeth- er. In the course of lunch she said that her name was Aline Chalufour. I re- meuroered that I had semn her name in international law periodicals and had won- dered if she were related to Andre Chalufour. She looked astonished and said - Why, that's my own brother. She is a woman I suppose a few years older than I and really very intelligent and congenial - and, I lack congenial feminine companionship. She speaks fluent English. Andre is now married and has 3 small children and a "very nice little wife" (no enthusiasm). He appears to have travelled in the U.S., to have worked in banks and I think travel bureaus, and to have been in the Army and a PW for a while. And is currently engaged in go- ing around France establishing the offices in which the French Gov't repaye the luxury taxes paid by the American soldiers. She also knows Cecile Thureau- Dangin - still keeps in touch with her. Believes that she and Andre were a lit- tle in love with each other, but, characteristically French, Andre was "young and not established". Cecile has had several operations, has had one leg re- moved, has a wooden leg which no one would ever know. But if anyone pays her court, malicious friends tell him she has a wooden leg. She has been brave but is somewhat bitter. Lives alone in a big house in Paris, coming from a wealthy family. And so we gossiped about Chateau d'Oex which she had visited. She re- membered having heard of Mrs. Shackelton who "took a great interest in Andre". And also vaguely remembered having heard of our taking the ice cream freezer up the mountain. This afternoon another Chalufour sister arrived- working with UNRRA south of Munich, somewha less attractive, but very pleasant and intense about DP's (displaced persons). The Chalufours must be quite a family. As a mah- of principle none of them has ever patronized the black market. Qli was working for DeGaulle in Canada during the war. Drove out with them to the French quarters in a village some miles out, in a little German car in which the sister had driven up here, alone and without a gun, some 150 miles across country. The village in question is so picturesque, so clean. Why couldn't the Germans have been satisfied? They rather terrify me. This city is coming to life so quickly - street lights, railroad trains running, etc. I suppose that's the result of American energy, but the Germans are ener- getic too. And they have so many, many babies - fat ell-fed, well clothed lit- tle Krauts. They say the French babies are thin and scarce. This afternoon to a concert by the same orchestra I heard in July - was larg- er and very good. The Opera House is freezing cold -being open to the air in its upper unseen regions. So as it gets colder, it will be less and less pleas- ant. That's where they have their USO shows and movies and the GI's stand in lines around the block to get in. Yesterday I engineered any interrogation of Frick, formerly Minister of Interior later pushed out by Himmler. I mean I set the wheels in motion and we gave our questions to the interrogator. He's a ratty shifty looking man. You find yourself feeling sorry for the devils because you have them at bay, but then you stop and think of the fiendish mass exterminations they engineered. Goering was being questioned the same morning and I saw the back of his head through a door. They say the palms of his hands are great paunches of flesh. He is extremely clever in his answers. bad Last night I met some of the Russian officers at our night club. One talked French. The General only Russian, but he informed me through his intérpret- ex that I looked like a Russian, which is undoubtedly the highest compliment a General knows how to give pay you. And so we clicked glasses. is And fascinating so our narrow life proceeds. But narrow as it is, it is history and it to it all and get ahich on we each tend other's to forget nerves. as the The novelty Justice wears asked off me the and we other get night used