Books and Stories Part 1: Anna de Beir

There are photographs of Anna de Beir

and of her pension on Sint Annarei

in this book.

I have failed to find them on the Internet!

John Julius Norwich.

Winston Churchhill

I continue, most days, to take up each book from its place and check the signature, the date of acquisition and importantly, if possible, dip into it to refresh my memory at least. This enjoyable activity seems to be lasting as long as Lock-down and indeed is giving me real feelings of achievement and pleasure as I re-arrange; remove for a second reading; and in several cases, relay into labelled piles on the dining table for future family gifts. One volume which I kept out to re-read was John Julius Norwich’s Christmas Crackers, 1970-79, an annual anthology of quotes from many sources. And what a pleasure that has been. Imagine my delight when I happened across the following extract from Churchill’s book, Painting as a Pastime:

“If you cannot read all your books, at any rate handle, or as it were, fondle them, – peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that if you do not know what is in them, you at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them at any rate be your acquaintances. If they cannot enter the circle of your life, do not deny them at least a nod of recognition.”

Churchill’s advice could not more delightfully describe my two months, [so far, and continuing], of book sampling, re-acquaintance, re-arrangement, re-direction, re-reading in selected cases and re-alignment. Thanks to the exigencies of Coronavirus, I have stumbled over a most rewarding book- based sorting of an important part of my life.

Brugge during World War One

One re-read book, Bastion: Occupied Bruges in the First World War, acquired in the Brugge Museum Shop in 2017, caused further memories. Though a recent acquisition, I had quite forgotten the splendid story of a woman spy in WW1 from Dunkirk; Anna De Beir was a young widow trying to raise three children on the proceeds of a newspaper stall she ran in Dunkirk station. In June 2015, the stationmaster asked her to work for the French military intelligence and she accepted. She garnered information through her elder daughter who worked for Anna’s sister who managed a hotel, Pension Forrier on Krom Genthof, used by the German military. Meanwhile Anna also garnered continuing intelligence on the submarine base in Brugge. She physically smuggled her reports from Bruges to the Netherlands via a circuitous route through Boekhoute, always travelling alone before returning to Dunkirk and later back to begin her circuit again in Brugge. This involved, especially for a solo spy, negotiating a considerable number of barriers, but Anna did in fact manage to re-instate an important coastal connection between France and Holland She bribed a certain German guard on each return trip and developed a little group of informers including her seamstress; a friend who ran a jewellery stall on the Grote Markt in Brugge and the man who supplied fresh produce to her sister’s pension in Krom Genthof. 

During German occupation, Smedenpoort.

Anna was inevitably noticed and eventually picked up after only a few months, on the Maalse Steenweg in Sint Kruis on October 18, 2015. She was carrying only two letters from Belgian soldiers and questioned thoroughly, gave nothing away. Nor was any incriminating evidence against her ever found but she was, nonetheless, sentenced to death by the German authorities who could prove only that she smuggled letters from Belgian soldiers on the Yser. The only person empowered to decide on the capital condemnation of a female spy, following the Cavell execution earlier the same year which had caused an international storm of protest, was the Emperor and diplomats persuaded him to pardon Anna. In February 1916, after three months in Bruges prison, she was taken to Germany where she endured very harsh prison conditions in the notorious Belitz Prison, for the remainder of the war. She refused the offer of her release if she spied for Germany but survived and returned to Brugge in 1918 and on April 22 was awarded the French Iron Cross. Soon after the end of the war, Anna opened a hotel on Sint Annarei which became very popular with English guests and from where her guests could buy the memoir she had written.  

Given her history, in World War Two, Anna tried unsuccessfully to flee to Britain and eventually the Germans seized her hotel. In 1943 extraordinarily, she joined the Resistance near Ypres but was arrested on April 1st 1944 in Moorslede and sentenced to imprisonment in a German concentration camp. The train carrying her to Germany was ambushed by the British and she was released. Hearteningly, she lived until 1971 and died at 97 in Brugge. An extraordinary life by any measure.

German soldier inspecting papers.

The Kaiser in Brugge between 1914-18.