Futility Closet - 138-Life in a Cupboard

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Futility Closet podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history. Visit us online to sample more than 9,000 quirky curiosities from a 10-named newspaper to an arctic mermaid. This is episode 138. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In today's show, we'll tell two stories about people who spent years confined in miserably small spaces. Runaway slave Harriet Jacobs, who spent seven years in a tiny recess trying to evade her abusive owner.

Starting point is 00:00:36 And Irishman Patrick Fowler, who spent most of World War I hiding in a cabinet in German-occupied France. We'll also subdivide Scotland and puzzle over a ballerina's silent reception. There are two stories this week. They are not connected in any way historically. They just both concern people who are confined for appallingly long periods of time in appallingly small spaces. The first of them is a woman named Harriet Jacobs, who was born into slavery in Edenton, North Carolina in 1813. When she came of age, her master, Dr. James Norcom, began to harass her sexually.

Starting point is 00:01:16 He refused to allow her to marry, so she took a free white lawyer as a lover and had two children with him, but because of the laws at the time, those children also belonged to Norcom. By the time she was 21, the harassment had become intolerable, and she ran away, hoping that if she removed herself from the situation altogether, then Norcom's anger might abate, and he would sell her and her children to the lawyer, and she'd just be out of the whole problem. She hid first in the home of a sympathetic slave owner in Edenton in order to keep an eye on her children, and then passed some time in a swamp, because that was the only place she felt safe, and finally took refuge with her grandmother, Molly.

Starting point is 00:01:54 A small shed had been added to her grandmother's shack years earlier, and while she'd been waiting in the swamp, her uncle Philip had made a trap door in the ceiling that opened into the space under the roof, giving entrance into what she called, quote, a very small garret never occupied by anything but rats and mice. It was nine feet long, seven feet wide, and three feet high at the highest point, sloping down abruptly because the roof sloped. Hattie wrote, the air was stifling, the darkness total. A bed had been spread on the floor. I could sleep quite comfortably on one side, but the slope was so sudden that I could not turn on the other without hitting the roof. The rats and mice ran over my bed, but I was weary, and I slept such sleep as the wretched may when a tempest has passed over them. Unbelievably, she would spend the next six

Starting point is 00:02:37 years and eleven months in that space, a space of 95 cubic feet or 2.7 cubic meters. In hiding her, the family were placing themselves at risk. If she were discovered, she'd be sent back to NORCOM, but the relatives who helped her would be fined and prosecuted by the state for concealing a fugitive slave. If they were found guilty of helping a runaway to escape from North Carolina, they'd be subject to a mandatory death penalty. Her relatives would pass food up to her in the space and would sit and talk at night when it was safe to do so. She wrote, It was impossible for me to move in an erect position, but I crawled about my den for exercise.

Starting point is 00:03:10 One day I hit my head against something and found it was a gimlet, which is a small T-shaped tool with a screw tip that's used for boring holes. Her uncle had left it there by accident. She wrote, I was as rejoiced as Robinson Crusoe could have been at finding such a treasure. It put a lucky thought into my head. I said to myself, now I will have some light. Now I will see my children.

Starting point is 00:03:29 To avoid attracting attention, she waited for evening and then bored three rows of holes and cut away the interstices between them to make a hole about an inch long and an inch broad. She wrote, I sat by it till late into the night to enjoy the little whiff of air that floated in. In the morning, I watched for my children. Sawyer, her lover, had purchased the two children from Norcom and let them live with Hattie's grandmother, but didn't free them. So she could glimpse and hear her children from the crawlspace, but she couldn't acknowledge her presence, only watch them, which must have been awful. She wrote, the first person I saw on the street was Norcom. I had a shuddering, superstitious feeling that it was a bad omen. Several familiar faces passed by. At last I heard the merry laugh of children, and presently two sweet little faces

Starting point is 00:04:09 were looking up at me, as though they knew I was there and were conscious of the joy they imparted. How I longed to tell them I was there. Norcom was still looking for her all this time. He went to New York to look for her, but couldn't find her there. When he returned, he resumed his efforts to catch her. One day he even walked her children to the shops in Cheapside and offered them silver coins and bright kerchiefs for news of her whereabouts, which they didn't know anything about this, so they weren't able to tell and probably wouldn't have even if they had. When autumn came, the heat abated. She wrote, my eyes had become accustomed to the dim light, and by holding my book or work in a certain position near the aperture, I contrived to read and sew. That was a great relief to the tedious

Starting point is 00:04:43 monotony of my life. But when winter came, the cold penetrated through the thin shingle roof, and I was dreadfully chilled. The winters there are not so long or so severe as in northern latitudes, but the houses are not built to shelter from cold, and my little den was peculiarly comfortless. The kind grandmother brought me bedclothes and warm drinks. Often I was obliged to lie in bed all day to keep comfortable, but with all my precautions my shoulders and feet were frostbitten. Oh, those long gloomy days with no object for my eye to rest upon and no thoughts to occupy my mind except the dreary past and the uncertain future. As Christmas approached, the grandmother brought her cloth and thread so she

Starting point is 00:05:19 could sew these into clothes and toys for the children. She wrote, Joseph and Louisa had their Christmas stockings filled. Their imprisoned mother could not have the privilege of witnessing their surprise and joy, but I had the pleasure of peeping at them as they went into the street with their new suits on. I heard Joseph ask a little playmate whether Santa Claus had brought him anything. Yes, replied the boy, but Santa Claus ain't a real man. It's the children's mothers that put things into the stockings. No, that can't be, replied Joseph, for Santa Claus brought Louisa and me these new clothes, and my mother has been gone this long time. As I mentioned, that winter Hattie suffered from frostbitten shoulders and feet. Fearful of losing the use of her legs, she made an effort

Starting point is 00:05:53 to stretch her muscles and crawl around the space each day. She wrote, when spring returned, I took in the little patch of green the aperture commanded. I asked myself how many more summers and winters I must be condemned to spend thus. I longed to draw in a plentiful draft of fresh air, to stretch my cramped limbs, to have room to stand erect, to feel the earth under my feet again. My relatives were constantly on the lookout for a chance of escape, but none offered that seemed practicable and even tolerably safe. The hot summer came again and made the turpentine drop from the thin roof over my head. Again and again I thought I should die before long, but I saw the leaves of another autumn whirl through the air and felt the touch of another winter. The second winter was unusually cold, even worse than the first. In the attic, Hattie wrote, her limbs were benumbed by inaction and the cold filled them with cramp. I had a very painful

Starting point is 00:06:37 sensation of coldness in my head, and even my face and tongue stiffened, and I lost the power of speech. She lay unconscious for 16 hours and was delirious after that. They drugged her in order to keep her quiet and then almost suffocated her by burning charcoal for warmth in this airless space. When her brother brought up an iron pan full of burning coals, she wrote, I was so weak and it was so long since I had enjoyed the warmth of a fire that those few coals actually made me weep. As the years passed, the days ran together. She marked the passage of time by watching the growth of her children, whom she could watch playing outdoors. Finally, negotiating with her white lover through her grandmother, Hattie agreed to send their

Starting point is 00:07:12 daughter north to be raised and educated by his cousin. And she actually crept down from the attic, taking a huge risk so she could spend one tearful night with her daughter before she left. She had to explain that she was her mother and that she could not come to see her earlier, but she would join her in the North as soon as she could. They made the girl promise never to tell anyone of her mother's whereabouts, and she never did. Finally, in 1842, she escaped herself by boat to the North. A friend who had helped her in the swamp

Starting point is 00:07:37 came with word of a ship that could help her to escape, and she made the same risk to say goodbye to her son, who was still there, as she had to her daughter, and was astonished when he told her he'd known of her presence. He said he'd once heard her cough, and on the night before his sister had left, he'd awakened to find her bed empty, when the two of them had spent the night together. And he'd heard Grandmother whisper a warning to Louise and never to tell of her mother's whereabouts, but he'd never voiced his suspicions to anyone.

Starting point is 00:08:02 As she headed north on the boat, she wrote of being on deck admiring the Chesapeake. She wrote, Oh, the beautiful sunshine, the exhilarating breeze, and I could enjoy them without fear or restraint. I had never realized what grand things air and sunlight are until I had been deprived of them. In Philadelphia, she was taken in by friends who opposed slavery. They helped her get to New York, where she found work as a nursemaid and began a new life. She was also able to reunite eventually with her children and published her story as a fictionalized autobiography called Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. She spent the rest of her life as a staunch anti-slavery activist. She ends the book writing, it has been painful to me in many ways to recall the dreary years I passed in bondage. I would gladly forget them if I could. Yet the retrospection is not altogether without solace, for with those gloomy

Starting point is 00:08:42 recollections come tender memories of my good old grandmother, like light, fleecy clouds floating over a dark and troubled sea. So that's seven years in a space of 95 cubic feet. The next one is actually even worse than that. In fact, I found this one frankly hard to believe, except it's so well attested. 72 years later, during World War I, an Irishman named Patrick Fowler was a member of a light cavalry regiment of the British Army. During the Battle of Le Cateau in August 1914, he was cut off from his regiment and surrounded by Germans. His major told the men to split up and make their own way to safety. He actually survived alone in the woods for five months near the town of Combré near the Belgian border.

Starting point is 00:09:20 In January 1915, a local woodcutter discovered him there. Fowler knew no French, so they communicated by signs. The woodcutter pitied him, so instead of turning him over to the Germans, he conducted him by night to the farmhouse kept by his mother-in-law, Madame Balmung-Gaubert, and her daughter. Their house was very small, and there was no place to hide him. Finally, the daughter indicated a cupboard in the sitting room. It was five feet six inches high and twenty inches deep, with two doors. One side was fitted with shelves, and clothes hung in the sitting room. It was five feet six inches high and 20 inches deep with two doors.

Starting point is 00:09:45 One side was fitted with shelves and clothes hung in the other. They took out the clothes and Fowler got in. It was cramped, but the door would close. Uncomfortable as this was, it was much safer than any alternative until they could find a way to smuggle him out of the country.

Starting point is 00:09:59 Soon after he moved in, the unthinkable happened. 16 German soldiers were billeted at the farm. In other words, ordered to live in the house with the family and with Fowler in the closet. Sixteen of them? Yes. They slept upstairs, but spent much of their time in the sitting room with the wardrobe, unaware of Fowler's presence. He had to remain completely still and silent. If he were discovered,

Starting point is 00:10:19 it would mean death for him and probably also for the widow, her daughter, and her son-in-law. It sounds like it wasn't even big enough, though, for him to maybe lie down even. No. No, he was basically, it's somewhat less than the height of a man. Right. And 20 inches is, I mean, gosh, that's barely wider than my shoulders. And he would spend hours and hours there for days and weeks and eventually months. Day after day, Fowler remained motionless in the cupboard,

Starting point is 00:10:43 emerging only at night to eat with the widow and her daughter The family tried continually to make contact with escape organizations, but without success So the days stretched into weeks, with everyone thinking the arrangement was temporary As the war went on, the widow drew some neighbors into the secret The Germans paid well for such information, but the neighbors did not betray her And instead sent food from their own rations to help feed Fowler, as the Germans didn't leave much. Nine months later, a brave British nurse was shot by the Germans for helping 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium. That revelation prompted the Germans to search for more hidden Allied soldiers, and a German captain came to search the widow's house.

Starting point is 00:11:19 This was probably the closest call that Fowler had. Time magazine reports, at last the captain wrenched open the right-hand door of her large black armoire, snorted to see it divided into small shelves incapable of holding a rabbit, banged the right-hand door shut without opening the left-hand door, and strode away.

Starting point is 00:11:35 Oh my gosh. Can you imagine? He must have been just sitting there. Yeah. Oh my gosh. And that's after spending, you know, months and years already. There are, maddeningly, people who tell the story, as I've found doing research for Futility Closet over the years, can't resist embroidering a perfectly good true story.

Starting point is 00:11:53 So there are some details here I'm sort of skipping. I'll just toss in a couple here just because I don't trust them. One is that the widow allayed suspicion by always leaving one door of the cupboard ajar. That may be true. suspicion by always leaving one door of the cupboard ajar. That may be true. Another is that a neighbor had a terrier who was very inquisitive and was always sniffing around the cupboard, and he had to poke it in those with a hat pin. I doubt that very much, but I'm passing it along. It's not impossible. Maybe it's true. A summer passed, then a winter, then another summer. In 1916, when Fowler had

Starting point is 00:12:20 been hiding in the cupboard for 18 months, Madame Belmune-Gaubert was told to give up the house entirely and move her furniture. She found another small house, but how could they move Fowler had been hiding in the cupboard for 18 months, Madame Belmond-Gaubert was told to give up the house entirely and move her furniture. She found another small house, but how could they move Fowler there safely? They couldn't do it during daylight when the streets were full of Germans, and at night there was a strictly enforced curfew. They'd have to move the cupboard with Fowler inside,

Starting point is 00:12:37 and that would make it too heavy for the son-in-law to move by himself to the wagon. Fortunately, a good-natured German offered to help him, and together they carried it to the wagon. He complained about the weight, and the widow said she'd packed it with household goods, especially glass, so it was important not to open it. So they actually got it safely to the second half. So that would have been a second just time where he would have probably felt like he couldn't even breathe.

Starting point is 00:12:59 Yeah, oh, I'm sure. In the new cottage, Fowler could move about a bit more freely, but he still had to hide whenever the Germans approached and at night. One day he was sitting in the room when Germans came to the door. He leapt to the cupboard, but acting on a premonition, the widow directed him under the bed instead. And this time they did search the cupboard and actually thrust bayonets under the bed, but didn't discover the secret. They'd missed him. Finally, in October 1918, British troops drove the Germans out of the village and Fowler rejoined them and told his story. He'd spent nearly four years, practically the whole of World War I, in this cupboard, but was able to corroborate his story and so was not charged with desertion.

Starting point is 00:13:34 In fact, when his tale emerged, Sir Charles Wakefield purchased the cupboard for the Imperial War Museum, where you can see it today. I'll put a link to it in the show notes. You can actually see this cupboard. That's one reason I was convinced finally that the story is true because it's so hard to believe. His granddaughter told the Irish Independent, as a child, my late mother Nora would often tell me about how granddad had to hide in the cupboard, but it was when I was older and saw the actual cupboard at the Regimental Museum in Hampshire that the full extent of his situation really hit home to me. It was a lot smaller than I had imagined. He would have had to bunch his knees up to his chest and remain like that for

Starting point is 00:14:04 hours on end. After the war, Fowler moved to the Scottish Highlands and lived there with a wife and three daughters. He died in 1964 at age 90. In 1927, I'm pleased to say, Madame Belmond-Goubert was named Dame of the Order of the British Empire in thanks for her efforts to keep him safe. Fowler's regiment, the 11th British Hussars, sent her on £100 plus full billeting pay all the way back to 1914 for caring for Fowler, and the French war minister ordered a pension to honor her heroism, ingenuity, and courage. This episode is brought to you by our patrons and by Kryzol No Glare Lenses. If you wear glasses, then you know that fingerprints, smudges, scratches, and glares can obstruct your vision and be a huge distraction. That's what's great about Kryzol No Glare Lenses. They give you the clearest vision possible by offering resistance to glare, scratches, and smudges.

Starting point is 00:15:01 And that means no more fingerprint smudges from taking your glasses on and off, or scratches from cleaning your lenses on your shirt. Thank you. And because Krizol No-Glare lenses stay clear and reduce distracting glare, your friends and family can actually see your eyes, not just your glasses. Look better, feel better, and most importantly, be prepared for whatever comes your way with clear vision. Go to Krizol.com to learn more. That's C-R-I-Z-A-L.com and start living life in the clear. and start living life in the clear. Nick Middlebrook wrote in about episode 79, where Greg talked about how in 1955, Quaker Oats included in their cereal boxes a deed to one square inch of land in the Yukon. Nick said,

Starting point is 00:15:58 I came across your site and by proxy your show a few months ago when researching the Harvey's Casino bombing of 1980, and I'm so glad that I did. Your show is nearly the exact amount of time I commute each day, so it fits perfectly into my day. I'm still working through the backlog, and I've yet to come across a show topic that wasn't really interesting. Regarding the Quaker Klondike Big Inch Land promotion, there is actually a Scotch distillery named LaFroigue that has a similar promotion for the

Starting point is 00:16:25 friends of the distillery from their site. The Johnston brothers had to fight three times to protect our precious and unique water supply. The final solution involved buying the land that our water ran through. So we decided that every friend of Laphroaig should have for their lifetime their own personal square foot of isla from a portion of this land each plot is registered and you may visit it or view your plot on our members website and more importantly collect your rent from us a dram of the finest well i am not much of a scotch drinker myself i found i found this idly reading a bottle at a party and thought of you guys and really i'd rather own a piece of scotland rather than the Klondike, less bears.

Starting point is 00:17:08 And not having heard of Islay before, I looked it up and learned that it is the fifth largest Scottish island. Interestingly, although it has only a little over 3,000 inhabitants, it has eight active distilleries, which I thought was a bit impressive for distilleries per population. The climate definitely seems more moderate

Starting point is 00:17:24 than the Klondikes, and while Isla is known for a variety of wildlife, and birdwatching in particular is a big draw for tourists, as Nick suggested, it does not seem to be known for its bears. So probably a pretty nice place to own a bit of land in, even if it's only a square foot. In episode 136, I covered how some different languages, such as Icelandic, Danish, Swedish, and Scots, showed some overlap, probably due to Old Norse having been spoken in all those countries centuries ago, with Old West Norse being spoken in countries such as Iceland and parts of Scotland, and Old East Norse being spoken in countries such as Denmark and Sweden. Bjorn Gedda, who graciously gave me permission to mangle his name, but hopefully I didn't do too terribly, wrote to say, as a Swede, I beg to differ. Swedes don't talk East Norse. The Norwegians spoke West Swedish, whatever those pesky linguists say. They appear in one of my favorite web comics, Stand Still, Stay Silent. And this web comic that Bjorn mentions is based in a post-apocalyptic Scandinavia where the countries have been returned to their mythical Nordic past.

Starting point is 00:18:40 It's produced by Minna Sundberg, who is a self-described Finnish-Swedish woman who has lived in both Finland and Sweden. Her website includes various resources to help readers understand the context of her comic, including some about languages. And as Bjorn notes, one of her graphics explains the relationship between the different Nordic languages, with her saying that Icelandic greatly resembles the Old Norse spoken by the ancient Vikings. The Scandinavian languages were also born out of Old Norse, but are no longer mutually intelligible with Icelandic. also born out of Old Norse but are no longer mutually intelligible with Icelandic. Of Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, she says, knowing one of the Scandinavian languages is enough to understand all three, especially in written form. Spoken Danish can prove tricky to grasp, particularly for Swedes, but Norwegian bridges the gap between Danish and Swedish. And Finnish is,

Starting point is 00:19:22 not from the same language family as the other four Nordic languages, absolute gibberish. And these descriptions are accompanied by four kitties standing together representing Iceland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, with each kitty saying something similar that I would assume is the Nordic version of meow, and one lone Finnish kitty all on its own looking unhappy and saying something very different. There's also a chart on the page showing how a number of words are rather similar in the four languages but not in Finnish. Bjorn says, poor Finnish kitty who has almost nothing in common with the rest of us even though our cultures are almost the same. Bjorn also sent

Starting point is 00:20:02 a link to a really nice graphic of a family tree of old world languages that Sundberg has created. You can see from the branches of the trees what languages developed from the same roots and how closely related different languages are. So most of the languages we've been talking about overlapping some are on the Indo-European tree, specifically on the Germanic branch, with Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Icelandic coming off of the North Germanic branch, and English and Scots coming off the West Germanic. And then, as represented in her other graphic, you have Finnish on an entirely different tree. And it just seems funny to me how distinct its language apparently is from the other

Starting point is 00:20:38 Nordic countries, given its geographical proximity and similarity of cultures. That's really interesting. We'll, of course, have a link in the show notes to Sundberg's linguistic family tree, which is rather informative and visually quite striking, and not only because she has populated the trees with various kitties. M.J. Knuster from Goede, the Netherlands, wrote in about the Boston molasses disaster from episode 136, saying, In 1999, a couple of tanks burst at a factory in Delft, the Netherlands, saying, thousand gallons, much less than in Boston, but apparently it could have been a lot worse if a third tank had burst as well. It sustained damage but only leaked some of its contents.

Starting point is 00:21:29 As far as I can find, no people were hurt, but it was a very expensive cleanup. There was an added complication with the cleanup when the pond that took the majority of the molasses turned out to contain several grenades from an old army base. I used to live nearby and that is definitely not its normal color. MJ sent in a couple of links to two photos of the spill, saying that the color photos might give a better idea of what it was like than the black and white photos that we have from the 1919 Boston incident. And we'll have those links in the show notes. It was good to hear that unlike the Boston accident, no one was actually killed in the Delft accident, though as MJ noted, it was a very expensive and difficult cleanup.

Starting point is 00:22:07 And an article accompanying one of the photos says that the molasses hit a transformer, causing a local power outage. I tried finding more information about this Delft incident on the web and turned up a report from 1999 about how the power outage impacted a nearby plant that is the world's largest single source of penicillin, causing a loss of about a month's worth of production of the drug. And this effect was apparently felt worldwide at the time. So we will all maybe need to take molasses a little more seriously than perhaps we did before. And we sometimes hear that the stories we cover on the show have been made into books, movies, or songs, but this might be the first time that we were told that a band was named after one of these stories. Vadis Gintotas wrote to say, I thoroughly enjoyed your horrific segment on the Boston Molasses Disaster.

Starting point is 00:22:54 I thought you may like to hear that my wife and some friends and family play in a South Carolina bluegrass band called Molasses Disaster, named by me after the tragedy. That's a great name. Thanks for the great podcast. So thanks so much to everyone who writes in to us. Because of the amount of email that we sometimes get, we can't always respond to everyone

Starting point is 00:23:15 individually or read all the email on the show, but we do read everything we get, and we appreciate the comments and feedback. So if you have anything you would like to say, please send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. It's Greg's turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. I'm going to present him with a strange sounding situation, and he has to try to figure out what is actually going on, asking only yes or no questions. This puzzle comes from Sid Collins, who wrote, Good evening, Greg, Sharon, and Sasha. I have been a longtime listener of the podcast and enjoyer of the Futility Closet website's seemingly random yet highly entertaining stories and facts. As a side note, I am a student at

Starting point is 00:24:00 North Carolina State University and was so pleasantly surprised to learn that my favorite podcasters also enjoyed the wealth of knowledge offered by our libraries. Sid said that he Okay. All right. puzzle is a young ballerina finishes a performance for a local fundraiser however the large audience is totally silent why uh okay can they speak yes so they're capable of all right uh you said finishes a fundraiser for a local finishes a performance for a local fundraiser. However, the large audience is totally silent. Are the audience human? Yes. I don't know why you put that. I take that back.

Starting point is 00:24:49 Are they located physically in the same place where the performance? Yes. Okay. So they're all in like an auditorium or something. Yes. Ballerina. Ballerina. Okay.

Starting point is 00:25:00 Is the fact that this is a fundraiser important? Moderately, but not one of the most relevant. is the fact that this is a fundraiser important moderately but i mean it's we couldn't just say that it's relevant it's a ballet performance in front of a human audience and you possibly could but i mean it's but no i mean that's trying to think how to say it's somewhat important but probably not the most thing for you to pursue the strongest okay is did this really happen i mean yes uh so do i need to tease that out like exactly where and when and who? That would help. Okay.

Starting point is 00:25:28 Did this happen in the present day sometime? No. No. Okay. This is interesting. Okay. Did it happen in the 20th century? Yes.

Starting point is 00:25:43 The first half of the 20th century? Yes. Do I need to know more specifically than roughly that? Yes. Really? Yes. Okay, did it happen, okay, let me think, before World War II? No.

Starting point is 00:25:57 Careful answer. Do you have a specific year in mind? Not a specific year, but... We said the first half of the 20th century. Yes. But after World War II. During World War II. Yes.

Starting point is 00:26:10 Yes. Not before World War II. Not after World War II. Did it have something to do with the war? Yes. Okay. So was the fundraiser to raise funds for the war in some way? For the war effort?

Starting point is 00:26:22 Yes. Yes? Sort of. Okay. Do i need to know uh what country this was done in um not specifically but was it an allied country um oh my goodness i'm not even sure okay that's all right that's okay it's a european country yes all right yes uh do i need to know the ball you said a ballerina ballet dancer ballerina uh Do I need to know the ballerina, ballet dancer? Yes, ballerina. Do I need to know her specific identity?

Starting point is 00:26:48 I know it, but that wouldn't probably help you. Okay. Now it might help to figure out what kind of fundraiser. Earlier, that wouldn't have meant much to you. Okay, that has something to do with the fact that the audience- Yes. You said didn't make a sound. Didn't make a sound.

Starting point is 00:27:04 The audience is totally silent. Okay. Is the fact that they're silent, are they maintaining their silence for a reason to do with the war? Yes. Is it to avoid detection in some way? Yes. Really?

Starting point is 00:27:16 And this really happened? Yes. So she performed for them for a fundraiser during the war. Yes. And they appreciated what she did. Yeah. But stayed quiet to avoid... Oh, wow.

Starting point is 00:27:27 Was this... Were they prisoners somewhere? No. But wanted to avoid making their presence known to the enemy, whoever that was? Something along those lines. Something along those lines. Because they were physically present?

Starting point is 00:27:39 I mean, close by? No. Like, would overhear their applause? Possibly, yes. Yes. Directly? I mean, would they hear it with their ears or was this sort of like they'd be audible or

Starting point is 00:27:52 detectable by some electronic means? I'm thinking they would hear it with their ears. Okay. They were trying to avoid being heard by other groups of people. Okay. Well, the picture I'm getting is that they were, you've said they weren't prisoners,

Starting point is 00:28:10 because I'm picturing they were in some camp somewhere. Right, they weren't prisoners. You wouldn't call them necessarily prisoners. Who were they probably trying to avoid detection by? Well, you said the enemy. Enemy soldiers? Enemy combatants? Sort sort of not exactly but along those lines um well it sort of depends where this takes place then i mean how yeah was was this in a combat zone would you say no um were they and they weren't captive in some way,

Starting point is 00:28:46 she and the audience, I'm assuming, were? I think not in the way you're thinking, but in a very broad sense, you might say they were. Okay. Was the performance being broadcast in any way? It was just her performing for this group of people? Yes. And you said they wanted to avoid being perhaps even overheard.

Starting point is 00:29:08 Detected. They wanted to avoid being detected. By enemy people who didn't suspect they were present? That they were even there? No, I wouldn't say it like that. So they knew they were there. They just didn't know there was a performance going on? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:29:23 A fundraiser performance or a gathering. They knew people were in the area. Okay. When you say fundraiser, do you mean she was trying to raise funds from the people in this audience? Yes. By performing for them? Yes. Were she and they, well, they must have been. she and they were on the same side in the war?

Starting point is 00:29:49 Yes. Did she have a specific application for the funds she hoped to raise? Somewhat, but I mean, what group were they trying to avoid probably being detected by? Well, I'm guessing, I'll take a guess. Sure. Nazis? Yes, yes. But they weren't prisoners

Starting point is 00:30:08 and they weren't in a combat zone. They weren't, but what else was going on in certain countries where you might need to avoid detection by the Nazis? Espionage? Not exactly, but this was happening in certain countries in Europe where groups might meet and need to avoid being detected even meeting by the Nazis. Okay, let me just tell you.

Starting point is 00:30:36 Yeah, I'm sorry. This was the ballerina, Sid says, the ballerina was a young Audrey Hepburn who would organize fundraising performances in order to raise money for the Dutch resistance during World War II. This was a Nazi-occupied country. I see. It was illegal to either gather in this kind of way and certainly to be doing it, to be fundraising for the resistance. I see. Okay. And so the audience had to be completely silent.

Starting point is 00:31:03 So that's what Sid told. And I looked into it, and it turns out that I knew pretty much nothing at all about Audrey Hepburn. I guess I didn't either. Yeah. Her father was British, and her mother was Dutch. And the family had moved around Europe a fair amount when Hepburn was growing up. So she actually spoke five languages. Hepburn's father left the family in 1935.

Starting point is 00:31:21 And after Britain declared war on Germany in 1939, Hepburn's mother moved with her daughter back to the Netherlands, thinking the Netherlands would remain neutral in the war and be a safe place to be. But the Germans invaded the Netherlands the following year, and Hepburn and her family were profoundly affected by the occupation. Hepburn later said, had we known that we were going to be occupied for five years, we might have all shot ourselves. During the occupation, her uncle was executed, one of her half-brothers was deported to a German labor camp, and her other half-brother went into hiding to avoid the same fate. Hepburn was a young teenager and studying ballet during the occupation and was very active in the Dutch resistance, including performing at

Starting point is 00:31:58 these clandestine fundraising events. She later said, the best audiences I ever had made not a single sound at the end of my performances. After the war, she continued to pursue her ballet training, but she'd suffered malnutrition in the Great Dutch Famine of 1944 to 45, when the Germans had blocked supply routes into the country, and the resultant health problems combined with her lack of being able to train consistently would have prevented her from succeeding at the level that she'd wanted to, so she instead switched to acting, which is what she ended up becoming famous for. I didn't know any of that. Yeah. So thanks so much to Sid for that excellent puzzle. And if anyone else has a puzzle they'd like to send in for us to try,

Starting point is 00:32:36 please send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Futility Closet is a full-time commitment for us, and we really do depend on the support of Thank you. more lateral thinking puzzles, and updates on Sasha, the hardest working podcast mascot in the industry, then check out our Patreon campaign at patreon.com slash futilitycloset or see the supporters section of the website. If you're looking for more quirky curiosities, check out the Futility Closet books on Amazon or visit the website at futilitycloset.com where you can sample more than 9,000 arresting vedenda. At the website, you can also see the show notes for the podcast and listen to previous episodes. If you have any questions or comments about the show, you can reach us by email at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written and performed by Greg's wonderful brother, Doug Ross.

Starting point is 00:33:39 Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.

Futility Closet - 138-Life in a Cupboard

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.