Dan Snow's History Hit - Toto Koopman: Socialite, Vogue Model and WWII Spy

Episode Date: June 28, 2023

Toto Koopman was remarkable; she was a high society socialite who risked her life wining and dining with Italian blackshirts in order to gather information for the Dutch intelligence service in WWII. When she refused to work as a spy for the Italians, she was thrown in a detention camp. She escaped and hid in the mountains. When she was captured again she was taken to Ravensbrück concentration camp. There, got a role at the hospital by pretending she was a nurse; she risked her own life forging documents to save the lives of women destined for the gas chamber. She was truly unapologetic about who she was, individualistic and brave. Before the war, she'd defied society's expectations as a Vogue cover model working with Coco Chanel by having high-profile relationships with both men and women - including Hollywood star Talulah Bankhead and newspaper baron Lord Beaverbrook. So why have most of us never heard of her?In this episode, author and historical novelist Maryka Biaggio gives a roaring account of the incredible life, achievements and character of Toto Koopman, a story we should all know.Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world renowned historians like Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsely, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more.Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW. Download the app or sign up here.If you want to get in touch with the podcast, you can email us at [e-mail], we'd love to hear from you!You can take part in our listener survey here.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. For Pride Month we have a bisexual icon. You will not have heard of this person, but you are going to love her, as clearly did nearly everyone she came into contact with. She was Katerina Koopman, known as Toto. She was Dutch-Javanese, born in Southeast Asia, and she had an extraordinary life as a model, a socialite, an actor, a spy, an art dealer, and an archaeologist. Anytime anyone from now on asks you a question about who you'd invite to your historical

dinner party, any person from any period, you need to clear one of your guests out because Toto is going straight on that table and you'll see why. She was a spy for the Allies during the Second World War. She was imprisoned in Ravensbrück concentration camp. She had many, many adventures and you've got to listen up to find out how it all ends. Tell me all about this remarkable one I got, Marika Biagio. She is an award-winning novelist. She specialises in historical fiction and she has spent a long time researching the life of this remarkable person, who moved effortlessly through the upper echelons of European society,

with senior politicians, press magnates and aristocrats falling madly in love with her, as she also experienced the horrors of fascist imprisonment and torture. So, here's Marika to tell us about a bisexual icon. Enjoy. T-minus 10. The Thomas bombs dropped on Hiroshima. God save the king. No black-white unity till there is first and black unity.

Never to go to war with one another again. And lift off, and the shuttle has cleared the tower. Marika, thanks very much for coming on the podcast. Glad to be here with you. This feels very modern, this story, right? You don't associate this with the dusty early 20th century. You're right. She was a very modern woman, Toto Koopman,

and it's surprising that we don't know more about her, actually. She spends her life in the Dutch colonies in Southeast Asia, Java. What does she do? Does she just leave that behind? Yes, she was born in 1908 in Java, which was then occupied by the Dutch, part of the Dutch Empire, to a Dutch officer in the cavalry, and to an Indonesian mother, a Javanese mother. So she was biracial. She had an older brother there, was brought up until the age of 12, when her parents, who were very progressive and wanted to see her well-educated, sent her to the Netherlands to complete her education. So she's 12 years old in 1920.

They put her on a passenger ship all by herself. She goes to the Netherlands, starts boarding school there. She never saw her parents again. She was an excellent student. She excelled at languages. She became very fluent in Dutch, French, German, Italian, and English. And those who spoke to her in those other languages said she spoke them impeccably without even the hint of an accent. And would she have been accepted? Was it reasonably normal for kids from the colonies to come back and be educated in the Netherlands and particularly of mixed race kids? kids? It wasn't uncommon, but since she was biracial, she would have been known in Java as a green Dutchman and would have faced some prejudice, although I believe her parents cushioned her

somewhat because they were very proud of their children and they recognized her intellect and her self-confidence. But she did face some discrimination when she came to the Netherlands. However, again, her supreme self-confidence saw her through. During her years in boarding school, she carved out a place as a very unique individual. For instance, one of the family friends of her father's family in Holland, she spent time with them. They had two daughters her age, and these daughters would often go to Paris and bought the latest fashions. And Toto was very influenced by that. So she would wear the latest fashions to school and she did not wear her hair in the long braided style that was common of Dutch girls at this time. And a teacher once took her aside and said, you know, you don't really need to dress like that and act so different from everybody else.

And Toto said, I don't dress for anybody but myself. And that was like her mantra. She pleased herself. Well, she moved to Paris in the 1920s. She was still pretty young when she did that, right? Yes, this would have been 1928. She was about 19 years old. She had finished her schooling. She moved to Paris. Paris was a city of much allure to her. And she, in short order, found a

job working for Vogue. She became a model for Vogue, was sometimes on the cover of Vogue. She was an extremely elegant woman with very distinctive looks. She became the first biracial model to really become famous and attain a certain degree of celebrity. She was photographed by some of the best photographers in Europe. She worked with Coco Chanel for a short time. She apparently did not like the way Coco touched her. So she left Coco Chanel's employ after only six months and went on to work with some of the best designers in Europe at that time, wearing their fashions to parties. She was very celebrated in Paris, though she herself was not well-to-do. She was subsiding on a model's salary. She really rubbed elbows with the wealthy, with the artistic community, with politicians, ambassadors. She was very sought after. She openly espoused her bisexuality.

She had affairs with men and women. Tallulah Bankhead was one of her more torrential affairs. They appeared together in public, and it was somewhat scandalous for women to showcase their sexuality at this time. And here she's not only showing that she's a sexual being, but she's a bisexual being. It was somewhat shocking, but the circles that she ran in did not look twice at her. She was well accepted in those circles. So Tallulah Bankhead was one of the stars. People recognize her from some Alfred Hitchcock films. She was a star of Hollywood at the of the stars. People recognize her from some Alfred Hitchcock films. She was a star of Hollywood at the time. Yes. And so she's sort of spending her time between London, Paris. I mean, she's traveling widely at this, these halcyon pre-World War II

days. Exactly. She was a great lover of opera and she traveled the European continent, going to La Scala, Vienna, all the great opera houses. She became an aficionado of the opera, and this was a lifelong interest of hers. And because she was multilingual, she was able to move around Germany, Italy, France, Austria, very easily. And she cultivated friendships in all these cities. She moved to London around 1933. She became tired of work as a model. And a lot of people were interested at this time in the movie industry. And Alexander Korda was producing a film in London, The Many Lives of Don Juan. She auditioned for and was brought on for a role in that movie. And she shot several scenes. And then she got tired of that too. She felt like there was too much waiting around and that it was only a small step up from modeling. So her contract was terminated and

she did not appear in the movie, but interestingly, they used some of the shots of her to promote this movie. So she's moved to London and continues with this bon vivant lifestyle of hers. And she becomes interested in politics while she's in London. She sees Adolf Hitler rising to power in Germany. She sees the winds of change and totalitarianism sweeping the continent, and she becomes very concerned about this. And around this time, she meets Lord Beaverbrook. Beaverbrook was the William Randolph Hearst of England. He owned numerous newspapers. He was extremely wealthy. He was about 55 when they met,

and she was about 25, and they became lovers. And he was glad to see her traveling around Europe, because he was also very interested in the political scene. And she began to gather information for him him because she would go to Berlin and she would listen to what was happening and what people were saying about the political winds in Germany. And Beaverbrook was only too happy to have her reports. It is even reputed, though there is no proof, that she went with him when he met with Hitler and Ribbentrop in Berlin, and also when Lord Beaverbrook went to Italy and met with Mussolini and his son. Some claim that she was his interpreter at these meetings, but we don't have any clear evidence of this.

She spoke very little about her experiences during World War II afterwards because the war was a very, very traumatic experience for her. But she became fascinated with world politics, and Lord Beaverbrook was kind of her mentor with respect to politics. And it was through him that she met Stuart Menzies, who was in the British Secret Intelligence Service at the time. And he was a model for the supervisor of James Bond. And he was a model for the supervisor of James Bond. And it was through him that she learned many of the techniques of a good spy. Just before we come on to the spying, things were a little complicated in the Beaverbrook family, didn't they? Oh, yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. Here she is having an affair with Lord Beaverbrook and meets Lord Beaverbrook's dashing son, Max.

They fall in love. A pilot, an ace pilot. Yes, he became a pilot in the RAF and he flew during the war. So they embark on a relationship at which point Toto, of course, leaves Lord Beaverbrook. Well, he finds out about this relationship, and he is absolutely raving mad about this. He uses his newspapers to smear her. He shuns both of the couples. He uses as much influence as he can to exclude them from his high society circles. Basically, what happens is people learn not to invite Lord Beaverbrook and his son to the same parties. So they go on to live kind of separate lives, Max and his father.

Beaverbrook actually bribes Toto into not marrying Max and promises her he will give her a lifetime allowance if she promises this. Well, Toto was a confirmed bachelorette. She, if anybody called her a madame, she corrected them and said, it is mademoiselle. She vowed to never marry. So she took his money. But Max did want to marry her. They lived together for four years. She adamantly refused to marry him. And their relationship dissolved over that around 1939. You listen to Dan Snow's history.

We're hearing all about Toto Kupner, an amazing woman. More coming up. Sing, muses. Sing to me a history of Olympus and the deathless gods who govern Earth, Sea and Sky. That is Zeus's command. It's the Ancients from History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and every month on the podcast,

we're taking a deep dive into the Olympian gods. None of them are as simple or as single-faceted as we've kind of reduced them to in our heads when we think about the gods of the pantheon who do one thing each. With world-leading experts, we'll be telling the dramatic story of who they are. Aphrodite was the goddess of love and sex and passion, and specifically she was considered often to be love itself. Their myths and their meanings. Hephaestus was already there and that he split Zeus' head with an axe

in order to liberate Athena from Zeus' head. And how they've influenced the course of history. Imagine ourselves back in the footsteps of people who are trying to explain and understand a world around them. A world which is not fair or just. That gets us into absolute key facet of how to understand the ancient Greek gods,

which is that they are not good people. Join us as we explore some of the most fascinating deities history has ever known. Listen and follow on the ancients from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts. To be continued... Vikings, Normans, Kings and Popes, who were rarely the best of friends, murder, rebellions, and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. So let's get back to the spying. she goes to Italy and plays an important role there yes she moves to Florence ostensibly to join some friends there who are art collectors and she meets and falls in love with a man in the Italian resistance. So this is her entree into the

politics in Italy. And she begins spying for the Italian resistance and also for the Allies. So we're on the eve of World War II. And she's there. And then France and Britain declare war on Germany over this invasion. The British had decided at this early point that they were not going to involve or hire women as spies, but Toto would hear none of that. She said, I don't care if you hire me officially or not. I have secrets and here I'm sharing them with you. Also, at this time, she'd had an affair with Randolph Churchill, Winston Churchill's son. So she had an avenue into the higher powers in Britain, and she simply took on the role of a spy without having the official imprimatur of the British government.

Did she produce useful intelligence and was it dangerous work? It was dangerous work. She traveled around Italy. She actually had an affair with Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law. although he was careful not to provide her with state secrets, she would often go to meetings of the black shirts and the fascists in Italy. She had a very good friend there, Elizabeth Eichmann, who was an art student in Italy and had left Germany because she was unhappy with the political currents there, Toto and Elizabeth would go to fascist meetings. And so Toto would be taking mental notes about the strategies that the fascists were using to drum up support within Italy. And in this way, she did learn some important things.

She learned, for instance, about the design of one of the tanks that Italy was using and drew up a design of this tank and passed it back along to the Brits. And Ciano was not only Mussolini's son-in-law, he's also his foreign secretary, right? So she would have been mixing in pretty important circles. Wow. Yes, he was the foreign minister for Mussolini, and he would have been Ribbentrop's counterpart. How did it end for her? Did she manage to navigate that well?

She was arrested in Florence by the fascist government. She was afraid at first that they had found out about her spying activities. As it turned out, however, they arrested her because of her prominence. They knew that she had celebrity status and that she had moved freely around Europe. They were trying to recruit her to spy for Italy and Germany. She adamantly refused to do this. So she was imprisoned. And she was moved around among three different camps, detention camps in Italy. And finally, after a few years, again, she kept refusing to cooperate. She refused

to give them any information. And at one of the camps, she met a man called Raspigliosi, who was himself a part of the Italian resistance. And he was being brutally tortured while they were trying to extract the names of other collaborators from him, and Toto realized this man will not live if they continue this interrogation. She managed to get him out of the camp. She was instrumental in moving him into freedom. And they later met, and he was very grateful to her for saving his life. But she did finally escape after a couple of years in these camps and fled to Venice and continued her intelligence-gathering ways for a time in Venice. In fact, she was stowing away at the Hotel Daniele in Venice, which is still much the same as it was during the war years. And she got word that the Germans who occupied the city of Venice, Venice was saved from bombing because the Germans moved into Venice early on and occupied it. But she was informed that the Germans were going to be searching Hotel Daniele.

And she was afraid to leave because they were surrounded. The hotel is a prelude to conducting this search. So one of her friends in Venice actually called a dinner party of some of the higher ranking Venetians, including some German officers, and brought Toto to this meeting so that she was kind of hiding in plain sight and escaped notice while the Germans thoroughly searched the Hotel Daniele. Now, unfortunately, a few days later, somebody betrayed her and she was arrested on the streets in Venice by the German government. And she ended up in Ravensbrück concentration camp. Yes, she was transported by train to Ravensbrück, which was the largest concentration camp for women only in Germany, a little north of Berlin, very cold. She arrived there in October

of 1944. And the conditions there were far worse than anything she had experienced at the detention camps in Italy, as you can imagine. I mean, there were a lot of Jewish women there, but there were also many other women. They had a large number of Polish women. Polish women probably predominated among the captives at Ravensbrück. Food was very scarce. She lost a lot of weight. And in a bid to both survive and try to help other captives there, she claimed that she was a nurse. She claimed she had been educated at a nursing school in London, and she knew that the Nazis would not be able to corroborate this because, of course, they weren't going to be able to get any information from the English about this. So, she successfully got herself placed as a nurse in the infirmary, which was not really an infirmary so much as a unit in which a lot of experimentation was done. One of the experiments that the Nazis did was on infecting wounds.

They would wound women in the legs, and then they would infect their wounds with various awful substances. And then they would do experiments to see which kinds of agents had antibiotic qualities and would heal. So they were using this for their own medical knowledge. So Toto saw this experimentation. She herself also was sterilized while they were there. This is another thing that they were doing. And because she was biracial, she was sterilized along with some very young girls. Toto did some very

courageous things while she was there. Many of the women in this supposed infirmary were among the weakest in the camp. Regularly, the truck would come around to cart them off to the crematorium. to cart them off to the crematorium. And she often manipulated some of the records so that she could hold back some of the women who she thought had a chance of surviving. And she would sometimes lie about the numbers of dead that day so that she could hide some of the people and claim that they had already died. And if it had become known that she was doing these things, she likely would have been shot on the spot. So she again showed her courage and she was a very principled person, had a lot of empathy for others. Astonishing, astonishing story. She got out of Ravensbrück and ended up in a Red Cross camp. And then there's a very interesting

gentleman comes to retrieve her. Yes, she was freed as Ravensbrück was liberated and taken to Sweden by the Red Cross. She's very emaciated at this point. Her hair was cut off, so her hair is very choppy. And Randolph Churchill, her old flame, comes to her aid. He brings her a wig. He brings her stylish clothes, even though they hang on her skeletal frame And he brings her money to help her get started again So this is Winston Churchill's son? Yes, this is Winston Churchill's son Extraordinary

Who comes to her aid and helps nurse her through her stay at the Red Cross Her post-war life is almost as interesting She becomes a hugely important patron of artists, and it seems to me she lived the most extraordinary life. Do you think she found her place? Did she find happiness eventually? Was she always moving and searching? I think she did. After Sweden, she moved to Ascona, Switzerland. She thought this would be a peaceful place. And there she met Erika Brausen, who fell in love with her. And they were lovers, partners for the rest of their lives until Toto's death in 1991.

Erica was a great patron of the arts, and she was just embarking on the founding of an art gallery in London. And she convinced Toto to move to London with her and open a gallery. Now, Toto was still very frail and very shaken. I mean, the war experience did have a profound impact on her. I mean, the war experience did have a profound impact on her, but Erica loved her deeply and did everything she could to bring Toto back to her vivacious lifestyle. And they opened this gallery near Hanover Square in London and called it Hanover Gallery. Erica Brawson had come across an artist who was doing very modern and groundbreaking work at this time. Nobody recognized this or wanted his art, but she was fascinated by his work. This is Francis Bacon, And she started showing his art in her gallery. You know, we know him now today as one of the groundbreaking people of the modern art movement. So her gallery became probably one of

the top three galleries in all of Europe. In later years, she opened a gallery in Geneva. So she had two galleries and she was a very successful art dealer. She herself was a somewhat brusque person. So Toto became kind of the face of the gallery and managed all the openings and the parties. The gallery became much more than a gallery. It became a salon where all of the lot of artistic people, painters, writers frequented this place. And Toto kept all the contacts up. She did all the invitations to their events. So she really helped manage this gallery while Erica did the work of scouting out new art. Together, they were very successful art dealers. What a wonderful, albeit traumatic, no doubt, and terrifying life journey that woman went on.

She's extraordinary. She absolutely was. And I think she didn't speak much about the war afterwards. She wanted to leave it behind. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Tell everyone what the book is called. My novel is called The Model Spy, and it focuses on Toto's World War II experience. Well, thank you very much, Marika Biagio, for coming on the podcast.

Thank you, Dan.