Noble Blood - From Poland with Love

Episode Date: March 16, 2021

The daughter of a Jewish heiress and Polish count went on to become one of the most infamous secret agents in British history. The story of Krystyna Skarbek reads like part-spy novel and part-political thriller. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. I'm Kristen Davis, host of the podcast, Are You a Charlotte? In 1998, my life was forever changed when I took on the role of Charlotte York on a new show called Sex and the City. Now I get to sit down with some of my favorite people and relive all of the incredible moments this show brought us on and off the screen. Listen to Are You a Charlotte on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and Grimmin Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion is advised. In 1951, the passenger ship, Ruhin, was set to embark on its maiden voyage, a four-month trip from London to New Zealand. For the crew, their uniform required

that they all wear whatever medals or ribbons they had been awarded during the Second World War. Most of the stewards had served, and some even had a few glistening gold medals that made them puff out their chest proudly while chatting with the guests. But then there was one Polish maid who caused a mixture of fascination and consternation among her colleagues. Her name was Christina Scarbeck, although she went by the anglicized name Christine Granville. And though her job on the ship was sweeping and tidying bedrooms and bathrooms, Her uniform was a constellation of military acclaim. Nearly a dozen medals and honors that would be impressive on a general.

Medals that included the incredibly prestigious French Guad de Guerre and the British George Medal. She's lying clearly, some of the other maids whispered to each other, rolling their eyes whenever the male passengers on the ship sought out Christina for conversation. She probably stole those medals or got them from a guy she slept with. Though Christina had quickly charmed many of the passengers on the ruin, her co-workers were suspicious and resentful of the attention that she got. Only one steward, an awkward-looking man named Dennis Muldoni, stood up for her when the rest of the crew mocked her.

Thank you, Christina said to Moldoni, after he deflected a particularly vicious, accusation that one of the other maids had made against her. Christina smiled at him, that charming smile that had made dozens of men across Europe fall in love with her. Maldoni was smitten. More than smitten, he became, well, obsessed. He followed Christina after they docked, wrote her dozens of letters, and watched her in the small hotel in London where she was staying, watching as she came and went. He wanted to know everything about her.

Who was this woman, the maid with a dozen medals on her chest? But even he would never fully be able to understand the strange path that Christina's life had taken, the adventures of a woman driven by passion and by bravery who had wanted to live life to the fullest. Even those who loved Christina Scarbeck would never fully know her, during her life or after her death. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood.

As the 19th century turned into the 20th, an impoverished count in Poland married the daughter of a wealthy Jewish banker. It was a marriage of convenience, not love. The count used his new bride's dowry to pay off his debts. The pair did go on to have two children, but the Count continued to have debts. He spent lavishly and gambled indiscriminately,

and so by the time the Count finally died of tuberculosis, the family had already been forced to sell their lavish Warsaw home. The widowed countess barely had enough money to support herself, and so she and her children would need to work for a living. Their daughter, Christina, age 22, quickly found work at a fiat dealer, ship. Christina was beautiful and charming. She had actually placed sixth that year in the Miss Polonia beauty contest. But the beauty queen was not suited to a life of office work. The clerical work in the

car dealership was dull and monotonous. And to make matters worse, the office was above the poorly ventilated garage. So Christina breathed in so much exhaust that her lungs would have permanent scars on them, scars that you would have for the rest of her life. She dreamed of a much bigger life for herself, something exciting and glamorous. She was more than ready then to say yes immediately when a businessman named Gustav Getlich came into the dealership one day and proposed to her. The marriage wouldn't last long. Within a few short years, they were divorced, but thanks to the settlement, Christina now at least had enough money to live relatively independently in inexpensive and bohemian but still fashionable apartments in the city. She's a nice girl, her ex-husband would say,

but she's always looking for change. She's young and she's romantic. As a young woman, Christina found that she was more compatible with the single lifestyle. She drank champagne with her friends wore silk stockings and orbited a circle of equally glamorous writers, poets, and politicians. Her status as a young divorcee seemed glamorous when she spun it out at cocktail parties, but Christina soon learned that it was making things very hard when it came to finding another husband for herself. She was already getting a reputation, that she was more suited to being a mistress than a wife, and that she wasn't the kind of girl that a respectable prominent Polish man would want for his wife. If she had any doubts as to her

prospects, well, those doubts would soon be put to rest. For a few months, Christina had been dating a young man named Adam, with whom she fell in love. She was half expecting a proposal when Christina accepted an invitation from Adam's mother to meet her for tea at her house. Adam's mother, Squeeze Lemon into her mug of tea and stirred with a silver spoon as she looked Christina up and down. The mother informed Christina that her relationship with her son was over. Christina was broken up with by her boyfriend's mother. In her loneliest moments, Christina wondered if she was destined to be alone forever, a divorcee verging on penniless nearing the end of her 20s and bouncing from,

from meaningless relationship to meaningless relationship. And then, like it always happens, life found her where she least expected it. Christina had been skiing since she was a young woman, particularly in the mountains of southern Poland, where doctors had told her that the air would help her scarred lungs. While skiing down a particularly treacherous slope during a snowstorm, Christina's wooden skis slid on the ice,

and she flew off the trail, only to be rescued, literally swept off her feet by a hulking man over six feet tall who reached out his arms to grab her. His name was Yerjigvijki. Yerjee was approaching 50, but he was charming, smart, and worldly in a way that drew Christina toward him. Unlike Christina, he hadn't come from a noble family. His father was well off, but Yerzei was, had no interest in the responsible future that his father envisioned for him. He failed out of an engineering course and set out for America, where his list of jobs reads a bit like an early 1900s forest gump. Yerja was a prospector, a trapper, an actual cowboy, and even a chauffeur for J.D. Rockefeller. Eventually, his skills with language and his connections

brought him to a job with the Polish legation in Washington, D.C. Yuzha helped Poland's first-ever Olympic team prepared to compete in France, and then he joined an expedition with a Polish explorer in Africa where a hunted elephant and survived malaria, only to make it back to Poland and run into Christina on the ski slope. Here was the man Christina had been waiting for, someone who was mature and financially secure,

but above all, interesting. The pair were married and they set off for Europe together. The photo in Christina's passport was one of the headshots she had used in the Miss Polonia pageant. Yuzha was a powerful man and he was domineering. It didn't take long for Christina to feel claustrophobic in her role as a diplomat's wife. Still in 1938, Yerja was assigned to help open a Polish consulate, in Kenya, and so the pair moved to London while they prepared for their journey together to Africa. What Christina hoped at least would be a new start, a type of adventure that would make her

marriage feel worthwhile again. On the ship to South Africa, though, Christina began to wonder if she had made a mistake in her marriage. Yeja had become more of a, what she called, quote, Svengali than husband. He dominated her life in a way that she hadn't anticipated. Unfortunately, Christina's marriage would soon be the least of her problems. The pair reached Johannesburg just days before Hitler invaded Poland. The two of them, Poles in Africa, were panicked and terrified, terrified for their loved ones and for the fate of their beloved country, and they were 5,000 miles away,

unable to do anything to help. Of course, they immediately turned around. They sold their car in Cape Town and boarded a ship for Southampton, embarking on what would become a journey fraught with distress, the constant worry about what was happening in Poland, and the feeling of impotence that they weren't doing anything to help. Every morning, they received more news on the radio about the German army's steady advance.

On September 28th, one of the British officers aboard the ship updated the lost and found board in the ship's common area. Underneath a notice for a lost pair of ladies' panties was a new notice on the bulletin board. It read, Lost, Warsaw. By the time Christina and Yege finally reached Europe, 200,000 Polish men and women were dead, arrested and killed. killed by the German invaders. Neither had any idea as to the fate of their families. Yuzha tried to join the military in France,

but his advanced age, over 50 at this point, combined with numerous skiing injuries, including a recovering broken collarbone, meant that he was rejected for service. Christina also attempted to enroll in active combat, but being a woman, she was rejected as well. But Christina was persistent. She knew that with her language skills, her social contact she had made across Europe, she would be an asset to the resistance.

And so with her relationship with her husband dissolved in all but name, Christina built a new future for herself as an agent with the British Secret Special Operations Executive, or SOE. The organization wasn't itself fully formed yet, and it wouldn't allow women to a special operations executive, or SOE. it wouldn't allow women to enlist technically for another two years, but Christina demanded that she be put to use. I know Poland, she said. I know the mountains to the south. I can ski across the border of Hungary and into occupied territory. Just let me. And so they did. Christina convinced a former Polish Olympic skier to join her skiing across the Tatsra Mountains where she helped to deliver British propaganda and news material to underground printing presses in Poland so that they could reprint and distribute them.

Christina recognized how starved the Polish people were for news. Their only source of information about what was happening around them was the German propaganda. And as she brought information in, she also smuggled secrets out, data and information on Germany's shipments and transportation. She traveled back and forth between then neutral Hungary and Poland, undercover as a journalist. Her first time back in Poland, she kept a hat low over her head so she wouldn't be recognized by any friend. Still, an old acquaintance came up to her at a cafe one morning. Christina, Christina Scarbeck!

What in heaven's name are you doing here? We all heard you went abroad. Christina shook her head. I'm sorry, that's not me, I'm not Christina. Why, how odd, the woman, oblivious, exclaimed. I could have sworn you were my friend Christina Scarbeck. It's uncanny. People were looking now.

Christina just shook her head, and to ally suspicion, she hung around a little while longer, pretending that she hadn't been deeply spooked by what had just occurred. How risky it was for her as a British agent to be moving in occupied territory. On her final visit to Poland, she met with her mother in secret. Christina had never registered as a Jew,

but her mother had. Christina knew what Germany was doing around Eastern Europe, and she begged her mother to leave, to stay in a cabin outside the city until she could be smuggled out. Her mother refused. She was loyal to Poland,

and she was teaching an underground French class, She refused to leave her students. Maybe she didn't believe how bad it would become or didn't want to believe. Maybe she was scared. It was the last time Christina saw her mother. Countess Stefani Scarbach was killed by Nazis in a Warsaw prison. Soon, it was too risky for Christina to even remain in Hungary, as Hungary too fell to the occupying Nazi forces.

In Budapest, she connected with another Polish agent working for the British, a man named Andres Kovsky, who would go by the alias Andrew Kennedy. Don't you remember me? He said, grinning when he shook Christina's hand. We used to have play dates when we were toddlers. My father took me over to play at your house in Warsaw when he had business meetings with your father. Andrish fell in love with Christina almost immediately. He was a brilliant tactician and dedicated Polish patriot. Thanks to a hunting accident, before the war, where a friend accidentally shot him in the foot, he was missing most of one leg. But still, he had served with the Polish army during the invasion and had been awarded their

highest honor for bravery. From the time he and Christina reconnected in Hungary, they would remain associates, partners, and sometimes lovers for the rest of their lives. While working in Budapest, the pair was captured by Hungarian police officers and turned over to the Gestapo for questioning. Ever the quick thinker, Christina bit her tongue hard enough to draw blood, which she then coughed all over herself and the Gestapo guards.

She claimed to have tuberculosis, and an x-ray scan revealed the scars on her lungs, remnants from her time working at the Fiat dealership. But the Hungarian police and Gestapoise, Guistapo didn't know that. Disgusted at this woman, presumably moments away from dying of active tuberculosis, the Gestapo released Christina and Andrish from custody. The pair realized that they needed to get out of occupied territory. They got a pair of fake passports, in which Christina became Christine Granville and took seven years off her age. In the trunk of a

Chrysler driven by an ambassador, Christina made it to Yugoslavia and then Bulgaria. Andresz drove across the border in an Opel, claiming that he owned a car dealership and that he was driving a car that he had sold to deliver it. From Bulgaria, Christina and Andres were able to pass along the military intel that would eventually help convince Winston Churchill that Germany was planning an invasion of the Soviet Union. They say that Winston Churchill himself actually looked at the microfilm that Christina delivered. From this point on, the stories of Christina's various exploits in the war just become a string of heroic anecdotes. New lovers, new countries, new missions. But I think my favorite story,

the one that best embodies her combination of quick thinking and independent spirit, came after she had parachuted into France to join the resistance there, as part of a network led by a man named Francis Camer. One afternoon, three agents, including the network's leader, Camer, were driving through the French countryside when they hit an unexpected Gestapo roadblock. The three men, almost immediately identified as agents, were brought to a nearby prison and sentenced to be executed. Christina told the rest of the resistance group that they needed to get them out.

It's too risky, the rest of the group said. We'll see about that, Christina replied. She rode her bicycle 25 miles to the Dignat prison, where she suspected that the three captors were being kept, but she couldn't be sure. And so she circled the walls of the prison, humming the song Frankie and Johnny, an old song that she and Kamer had sung together.

From the other side of the stone walls, she heard humming back, the counter melody to what she herself was humming. The agents were inside. Gathering herself up, Christina approached the guard of the prison and began one of the most dangerous faints possible. I admit, she said, I'm a British agent. In fact, I am the wife of one of your captives, Frances Camer, and the niece of just a judge. General Bernard Montgomery. Of course, she was neither. I'm not supposed to be here, she said, but I care about my husband and so I'm going to be straight with you. You and I both know that Allied forces landed in Normandy last month, but what you don't know is they made it through the country

and they're just miles away now. They weren't, but Christina continued. And when they reach your prison and find out you killed these men, my husband and his friends, there is going to to be hell to pay. I don't need to tell you that the soldiers aren't going to have mercy on you. Retribution on you personally will be swift and terrible. The Nervous Guard relented. Some sources say that she paid them off with two million francs that she had wired to her, or that the money was airdropped directly to her, but the sources on that payment isn't quite clear. What is clear is that the three resistance, men were led from their cells in the early hours of the morning, sure that they were being taken to the yard to be shot.

Instead, as they shielded their eyes from the sun, they saw Christina Scarbeck leaning on the door of an idling car to take them back to safety. Christina often spoke, half-jokingly, about her horror of peace. How nervous she was for the end of the war when she would no longer have a job or a noble person. purpose. From the time the war ended, she had a pension that lasted five months from the SOE. But her application of British citizenship kept getting tangled up and delayed in bureaucracy. Unable to find a government position without citizenship, she bounced between a few odd jobs in London, too proud to take any gifts or money from friends. Christina worked as a telephone operator, saleswoman, waitress, and then, finally, as a steward on the passenger liner, Ruhin.

One of the three men that she had rescued in France, Zan Fielding, wrote of Christina in his memoirs about how she chose to work on board a ship rather than take any of her friend's hospitality. Quote, she embarked on a life of uncertain travel as though anxious to reproduce in peacetime the hazards she had known during war. On board the ruin as a foreigner with a strange array of impressive medals, the rest of the crew quickly grew to resent her, while the rest of the crew except for Dennis Moldoni. He stood up for her that one time and Christina had thanked him, and from then the two became friendly.

He claimed later that they were lovers, but Christina described him to a friend as obstinate and terrifying. Once he latched his attention onto Christina, he just wouldn't let go. Christina was still a relatively young woman, younger even according to her passport, and while on leave from the ship in London, she made the decision that she would marry Andres after all. He had been proposing to her continually.

He had loved her his entire life, and she did love him too in her way. She had been running for so long, trying to find that rush of adventure. But maybe love could be an adventure too. She was living at a hotel in London, Michelle Bourne, but maybe it was time for her to build a more permanent life. And so, to the delight of Andres, plans were made. She would meet him in Belgium, and the two would get married

and continue on together to build a life together. She packed her suitcase the night before her flight, shoes, clothes, but also stowed away in the bottom of the trunk, her old SOE wireless radio, and the command of knife that she had always kept on her person while in service. Even as she was flying away to a more stable life of marriage, she was still prepared for adventure. But her flight was canceled because of an engine failure and pushed back to the following morning. and so Christina had one extra day in London. That day, she met a friend for coffee and neatly laid out her travel outfit on her chair for the next morning. She borrowed an ink and pen from the hotel housekeeper and neatly labeled her linen with her name so that she could put them in storage. And then that night she met a few more friends for supper before she boarded the two and walked from the station back to the hotel.

unbeknownst to her, Dennis Muldoni was watching her. He slipped into the shell-borne after her and waited until she was in the stairwell to confront her. He demanded his letters back. I don't have them, Christina said. I burned them. Maldoni sputtered in something like despair. To Christina, he was pathetic.

He had no self-respect. He was obtuse, and worse than that, he would. was boring. There's nothing here between us, Dennis, she said. He charged at her. A porter heard Christina's shout, get off of me. And he raced into the stairwell where he saw a man pressing Christina against the wall. The porter assumed that the man was forcing himself onto her, and so he ran ahead and yanked the man off of her. Christina crumpled to the floor. Dennis Muldoni had stabbed her with a five-and-a-half-inch blade into her chest, and Christina Scarbeck was already dead.

Oh, Christine, Dennis Muldoni shouted. I did it because I loved her. The police arrived shortly after, and Maldoni offered his full confession, but he also tried to pour a bottle of powdered aspirin into his mouth, but the police had to knock out of his hands. In the end, he was as impatient as Christina. I killed her, he told the police.

Let's get away from here and get it over quickly. Andres flew to London the next morning and identified the body. He was the last to say goodbye to her. Christina Scarbeck was buried in the cemetery of Kensel Green in London. Under a dusting of Polish soil, with all of her medals and honors buried with her, pinned on a velvet cushion. The Polish National Anthem was

sung as the coffin was lowered into the ground. During the funeral, a strong gust of wind blew over the iron cross at the head of her grave, and Andres raced forward to write it. He would be protecting Christina and her reputation for the rest of his life, until he would eventually be buried too, his ashes at the foot of Christina's grave. Her death certificate, which said that she was 37, got her age wrong. Christina Scarbeck was 44 when she died, killed by a man who claimed he loved her, but only wanted to possess her. She was the first female British special agent and their longest serving female agent, a woman who had lived a life filled with adventure and bravery, the daughter of a count and a Jewish woman killed by the Gestapo, who had lived life only on her

terms, who had probably imagined death a thousand times coming in the glory of battle or in the line of duty, but had died instead in a hotel stairwell. That's the story of Christina Scarbeck, but keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more about her legacy. If you are a founder or a freelancer or the friend who always says, hey, you know what, what if I started that? This is for you. I'm telling you, I had nothing to my name. I didn't know a single person in New York, and somehow I'm dressed by Oscar de Lorenta walking down that red carpet. This month, we sit down with entrepreneurs and creators who actually did it, who turned the scary leap into a business, a paycheck, and a life they are proud of.

Direct center of our happiness or our regrets is whether or not we're taking action on the things that matter to us. They're not selfish. They're so important. They actually lead to our greatest contributions because when we're living fulfilled, we actually show up better everywhere. We lead better. We're better friends.

We're better relationships and collaborators and all those things because we have passion about the things we're doing. If you're trying to build something of your own this year, join us in these conversations that will make you braver and smarter with your money. Listen to Dos Amigos as part of the Michael Tutta podcast network available on the I-HeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Kristen Davis, host of the podcast, Are You a Charlotte? In 1998, my life was forever changed when I took on the role of Charlotte York. on a new show called Sex and the City. Now I get to sit down with some of my favorite people and relive all of the incredible moments this show brought us on and off the screen.

Like when Sarah Jessica Parker shared that she forgot we filmed the pilot episode. You forgot about it? I completely forgot about it. And when the show was picked up, I panicked. And Cynthia Nixon reveals if she's a Miranda. We both feel confident about our brains. But that's kind of where it ends.

Plus, Sex and the City super fan, Megan the Stelion, doesn't hold back on her opinions of the show. Carrie will literally go sit New York on fire and then come back and type about it at the end of the day. Like half of it wasn't her fault. Listen to Are You a Charlotte on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Even if you've never heard of Christina Scarback up until this podcast, there's a good chance you've heard of one of the characters that she's inspired in fiction. Rumor has it that Ian Fleming, the author of the James Bond novels, was inspired by Christina while writing the character of the double-crossing agent Vesperelynde in his novel Casino Royale. Some sources even claim that Fleming and Christina were secretly lovers,

although some others argue that there's no evidence the pair actually met in person ever. Still, one can easily understand that Fleming would have only needed to hear rumors of this glamorous, globetrotting beauty queen spy who spoke multiple languages, and create in his mind the architecture of what would become that famous archetype, the Bond Girl. Still, I think one of Christina's biographers, Claire Mulley, says it best when she says that in real life, Christina wasn't a Bond girl. Christina Scarbeck was James Bond. Noble Blood is a production of IHeart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky. The show is written and hosted by Dana Schwartz and produced by Aaron Manky, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Trevor Young.

Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the show over at Noble Bloodtales.com. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm Kristen Davis, host of the podcast, Are You a Charlotte, in 1990? my life was forever changed when I took on the role of Charlotte York on a new show called Sex and the City. Now I get to sit down with some of my favorite people and relive all of the incredible moments this show brought us on and off the screen. Listen to Are You a Charlotte on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.