Inside the Vatican of Pius XII The Memoir of an American Diplomat During World War II

CHAPTER I 1939-1940 In August 1939, my father was appointed U.S. Consul General in Geneva, Switzerland. At that time, Hitler was threatening to invade Poland if the Poles did not meet his demands regarding Danzig and the Polish Corridor. Despite British and French commitments to support Poland if the Germans attacked, Europeans did not want to believe that the Polish crisis would lead to yet another major war. Nevertheless, World War II broke out shortly after my father began his new assignment in Geneva, and he recorded his impressions of this dramatic event in his memoirs: A week before the Nazis invaded Poland, I arrived in Geneva to assume my new job as Consul General. It was the end of August in 1939. I had come from Washington where I had been in the Division of Western European Affairs at the State Department. Looking back, it seems extraordinary that, although we knew many of the details regarding efforts to keep the peace, we somehow lacked awareness that Europe was on the brink of a real disaster. My family was with me; after docking at Le Havre, we motored through France, stopping on the way to enjoy the countryside and to leave our ten year old son, Harold, with American friends outside of Paris for a visit. But he surprised us by arriving in Geneva on the train only one day after we ourselves arrived, explaining as he got off the train that his hosts had suddenly departed for the United States, convinced that France was about to go to war. During our brief stay in France we had not been conscious of the imminence of such danger, and the French people we talked with did not seem at all disturbed. Even when I arrived at my office in Geneva, I encountered little sense of impending danger. Our son had first brought us the sad tidings. It was at a bathing beach in Geneva on September 3, with family and friends, that we heard over the loudspeaker the British and French prime ministers announce to the world that their countries were at war with Germany. There was practically no reaction. We all simply shrugged our shoulders and continued to enjoy the warm autumn sun and the refreshing water of the lake. This extraordinary display of apathy in the light of such catastrophic forebodings was an example of the sentiment that prevailed everywhere in Europe during the following six months. Only Switzerland immediately put in strict rationing. After the surrender of Poland, military activities on both sides were at a standstill and neither one displayed any desire to get them started. This was called the period of the "phony war." *** When we first arrived in Geneva, we stayed at Hotel de la Paix for a month or so while my parents looked for a house to rent. The hotel, relatively small and cozy, was one of Geneva's best, located on a lakeside quai only two blocks from the offices of the Consulate General. I remember particularly the elegant dining room, which had a superb view of the lake and Geneva's trademark jet d'eau, a graceful artificial geyser thrusting hundreds of feet above the lake. One day at lunch, my father commented to the headwaiter that it obviously must be expensive to provide enough energy to throw up so much water. Wouldn't it be better for mankind, my father added, if the funds spent for this spectacle were used instead to help the poor? "Monsieur," replied the headwaiter, "there are no poor people in Switzerland." Indeed, there were no slums in Geneva; the city displayed subdued, well-ordered prosperity that the wartime restrictions would not seriously affect. We soon moved to "Campagne Mallet," a lovely seventeenth-century country house rented by my father in the Geneva suburb of Cologny. I remember particularly the extensive grounds surrounding the house, which included a working farm where we obtained fresh eggs. Campagne Mallet provided my father, for the only time in his career, with an opportunity toTittman, Harold is the author of 'Inside the Vatican of Pius XII The Memoir of an American Diplomat During World War II' with ISBN 9780385511292 and ISBN 0385511299.