Only the Avenue Remembers Dr. Rodocanachi | Following Nancy Wake's Footsteps in Marseille
Fort Saint-Jean
My feet were already quite tired from walking in the Marseille heat. I'd walked along one side of the Vieux-Port to find Lise de Baissac's house, but I decided I still wanted to see Fort Saint-Jean. It had played such an important part in Nancy Wake's early resistance work through Ian Garrow's escape line, which would later become the Pat O'Leary Line.
My research at home had shown me that you could walk around the grounds and the ramparts of the fort without buying a ticket for the museum. I wasn't particularly interested in spending the afternoon learning about the fort's seventeenth-century history, but by the time I finally reached the far end of the Vieux-Port I was simply too tired to go inside anyway.
I took a few photographs and just stood there, thinking, This is where Nancy stood. This is where she helped escaped British officers in 1940 and beyond. And from here she took them to Dr. Rodocanachi's house.
Memorial for people who couldn't leave Marseille during WW2 Fort Saint Jean
I had already looked up the doctor's apartment at 21 Rue Roux de Brignoles, in the 6th arrondissement, and despite the heat and my sore feet decided to go there next because it was much closer than I had imagined while writing The Ace of Nerve.
Somehow, in my imagination, Fort Saint-Jean had always been much farther outside Marseille, but now I realised that transporting those officers, still in uniform, in the back of Félix's plumber's van had actually been a journey of only about a mile and a half.
That didn't make it any less dangerous, but it changed the logistics.
Looking for Dr. Rodocanachi
After a short rest, I climbed the steep road up to 21 Rue Roux de Brignoles and was surprised to find such an ordinary-looking street. The house numbers had changed over the years, so I found myself looking around wondering, Is it this house? Or perhaps that one?
It struck me that this is often the case with places connected to the Resistance. They rarely announce themselves. Extraordinary courage was so often hidden behind the doors of perfectly ordinary buildings.
As I stood there, someone who was looking at a few cars nearby came over to me. It was Sunday, so he wasn't actually working. He introduced himself as Mr. Mohammed and asked, quite understandably, what I was doing. He had seen other people taking photographs of the building and wondered why.
In my simple French, but with my usual enthusiasm, I explained I was looking for the house of Dr. Georges Rodocanachi, an important member of the French Resistance during the Second World War.
He had never heard of the doctor, or of Nancy Wake, or of British officers being hidden in a plumber's van, but my enthusiasm clearly intrigued him. I showed him my map with the address and a photograph of the Boulevard du Docteur Rodocanachi, which I had already taken.
Scratching his grizzled head, he said, "Well, I really don't know anything about him. I've lived here for quite a while in one of the rooms upstairs, but I'm just a car mechanic. Still... perhaps you should come back tomorrow. The owners of the building are Greek, and I think there are many old photographs inside the offices. Maybe they know something."
House of Dr. Rodocanachi (click to enlarge)
Then he suddenly pointed above the entrance.
"Look."
The modern number beside the door read 21, but carved into the stone above the archway was the original number 25.
"The numbers have changed," he said.
It was another little clue in the puzzle I was trying to solve.
I had already noticed that part of the building now housed lawyers' offices, but nowhere had I seen the name Rodocanachi.
By now Mr. Mohammed had become almost as invested in the search as I was.
"Come."
He led me through the entrance hall and started pounding on the office doors, hoping somebody might be there on a Sunday. Nobody answered.
"Come back tomorrow," he said. "Tell them Mohammed sent you."
So, in the same heat, I walked back down the hill, rested in my hotel room and hoped that perhaps the next day I would be lucky.
One More Attempt
The following afternoon I climbed the hill again. This time I didn't see Mr. Mohammed, but I rang the bell. A young woman opened the door. She was friendly but had absolutely no idea who Dr. Rodocanachi was or what the history of the building was. She was simply the secretary to the lawyers. Nancy Wake meant nothing to her either.
She asked me to wait in the wonderfully cool lobby while she fetched one of the lawyers. He came out in a smart suit, and I immediately pictured him on an expensive yacht in Monaco. He had that sort of air about him.
Listening carefully to my story—or at least giving that impression—he admitted he didn't know anything about the history of the building either.
"But yes," he said, "the director of the company is Greek, so perhaps he knows."
I handed him my business card, the first one I had ever used after hastily creating it before leaving for Marseille, and I must admit I felt rather grand about it. The smart-looking lawyer promised that when the Greek director returned, he would ask him to contact me.
I watched my phone and my email for the rest of the day and the next morning. No phone call. No email. So my search for Dr. Rodocanachi and his wife Fanny ended there.
Only the Avenue Remembers
As I reflect on the one mission in Marseille that produced the fewest answers, I mostly think with gratitude about Mr. Mohammed. The car mechanic has become characteristic, for me, of the people I met in Marseille. He tried to help me with everything he had because I was so determined to find a doctor who had lived there more than eighty years ago—a man he'd never heard of, but who somehow became important to him because he was important to me.
And I certainly didn't leave empty-handed. I now have a much clearer picture of the route Nancy must have travelled many times. I stood where she stood. I walked the streets she walked. Standing in the entrance passage of 21 Rue Roux de Brignoles, I suddenly found myself imagining Félix driving the plumber's van through the gateway before the heavy doors closed behind him, allowing the escaped British officers to disappear from sight.
I don't know whether that is exactly how it happened. But now I could stand there, I could picture it. And how, unfortunately the loyal doctor must have been arrested there, never to return. Visiting Marseille has changed the images I carried in my mind while writing The Ace of Nerve.
Dr. Rodocanachi was arrested in 1943 and later murdered in Buchenwald. His wife, Fanny, survived the war. Today, people stroll beneath the leavy trees of the Boulevard du Docteur Rodocanachi in the 8th Arrondissement probably without giving the name on the blue street sign a second thought. Yet Marseille still remembers him.
And I do, and perhaps, through my stories, a few more people will too.
Snippet from The Ace of Nerve, Book 2, where Nancy first meets the doctor.
A slight, white-haired man appeared in the kitchen doorway, in a doctor's white coat with slim golden spectacles catching the light. He came to Nancy first and took her hand in both of his. They were soft and very steady, the hands of a man who’s been doing precise work for many decades.
"It is an honour to finally meet you, Madame Fiocca," he said warmly. "I have known your husband for many years, of course, but we have never had the pleasure. I am Dr Georges Rodocanachi."
"The honour is mine, Doctor," Nancy smiled, glad for both his steadiness and his warmth.
"And this," said Dr Rodocanachi, turning, "is my wife Fanny."
Fanny Rodocanachi was indeed a good deal taller than her husband. A composed, handsome woman with dark eyes. Younger than her spouse and very French in the way that required no announcement. The two women shook hands briefly and Nancy liked Fanny immediately.
"Coffee!" the doctor’s wife announced to the room at large, and she disappeared into the kitchen, reappearing only moments later with a tray of five cups and a steaming pot. After setting it down, she withdrew quietly. Nancy noted the five cups. Fanny had counted her in without being asked, just as Garrow predicted.
"I'll leave you to it, Captain," Dr Rodocanachi addressed Garrow with the ease manners of a man who’s long decided that trust, once given, requires no supervision. "I'll be in my consulting room should you need me. Take your time. This room is yours today."
And with that he retreated after his wife, closing the door softly behind him.
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