Anthony Charles Faramus (27 July 1920 – August 1990) was an actor, author and hairdresser. He was born in
Saint Peter, Jersey
St Peter (; Jèrriais: ) is one of the twelve parishes of Jersey in the Channel Islands. It is around north-west of St Helier. The parish has a population of 5,003. It has a surface area of .
It is the only parish with two separate coastlines, st ...
and died in
Surrey
Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...
. The autobiographical accounts of his survival of
Fort de Romainville
Fort de Romainville, (in English, ''Fort Romainville'') was built in France in the 1830s and was used as a Nazi concentration camp in World War II.
Use in World War II
Fort de Romainville was a Nazi prison and transit camp, located in the outs ...
,
Buchenwald
Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...
and the
Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp
Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen, Upper Austria, Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with List of subcamps of Mauthausen, nearly 100 further ...
complex were published as ''The Faramus Story'' in 1954 and ''Journey into Darkness'' in 1990. Two books
[ about Agent Zigzag, the double agent ]Eddie Chapman
Edward Arnold Chapman (16 November 1914 – 11 December 1997) was an English criminal and wartime spy. During the Second World War he offered his services to Nazi Germany as a spy and subsequently became a British double agent. His British Sec ...
, also document aspects of Faramus's 'ruse' to join the Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
as a collaborator and a spy, his imprisonment in Jersey, Paris and the concentration camps.
Arrest
Faramus worked as a hairdresser in a Saint Helier
St Helier (; Jèrriais: ; french: Saint-Hélier) is one of the twelve parishes of Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands in the English Channel. St Helier has a population of 35,822 – over one-third of the total population of Jersey – ...
salon and later, during the early stages of the German occupation of the Channel Islands
The military occupation of the Channel Islands by Nazi Germany lasted for most of the Second World War, from 30 June 1940 until liberation on 9 May 1945. The Bailiwick of Jersey and Bailiwick of Guernsey are two island countries and British ...
, was employed in the kitchen of the Miramar Hotel. In the spring of 1940 he attempted to join the Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
but was not accepted. Faramus was also a petty criminal and in December 1940, at the age of 20, he received a 6-month prison sentence for obtaining £9 under false pretenses. Faramus was incarcerated in H.M. Prison Jersey, sharing the same cell as Eddie Chapman, who later described Faramus as "a hopeless crook".
Under the conditions of military occupation, the administration of civil law and order was subject to the dictates of the German authorities. As at the time of his arrest Faramus had in his possession an anti-Nazi leaflet, the German authorities added 1 month to his sentence. Faramus names Centenier
There is an Honorary Police ( French: Police Honorifique) force in each of the twelve parishes of Jersey. Members of the Honorary Police are elected by the voters of the parish in which they serve, and are unpaid.
Honorary Police officers have ...
Arthur Tostevin, an Honorary Police officer of Saint Helier and Detective Constable Benjamin Shenton as the officials who had informed the Germans about the leaflet.
Faramus and Chapman quickly struck up a friendship while in prison. They arranged to meet after they were released, and subsequently shared a flat. For a short period they ran a barber shop together.[ Their customers included civilians and German soldiers alike. The shop also served as a useful front for the ]black market
A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the se ...
activities of another of Faramus's criminal associates, Douglas Stirling.
Deported
In late 1941, Chapman hatched a plan to get himself, Faramus and Stirling off the island. The plan was simple: they would turn traitor
Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...
and offer to work as spies for the Nazis. Stirling was the most enthusiastic, while Faramus was cautious of the risks of becoming an open collaborator, but agreed to follow the plan. Chapman and Faramus composed a letter in German, offering their services as German spies, which they sent to the German Command post in St. Helier, addressed to General Otto von Stülpnagel
Otto Edwin von Stülpnagel (16 June 1878 – 6 February 1948) was a German military commander of occupied France during the Second World War. Arrested by Allied authorities after the war, he committed suicide in prison in 1948.
Career
Otto von S ...
, the officer in command of occupational forces in France and the Channel Islands.
Late one night in November 1941 Chapman and Faramus were summoned by the Germans –– but they were not being recruited, they were being arrested. Their plan to join and work for the Nazis backfired spectacularly, as the pair were taken to mainland France, and thence by rail to Fort de Romainville
Fort de Romainville, (in English, ''Fort Romainville'') was built in France in the 1830s and was used as a Nazi concentration camp in World War II.
Use in World War II
Fort de Romainville was a Nazi prison and transit camp, located in the outs ...
in Paris where they worked and using their skills, stole rations and fuel and made a key to enter the women's section of the prison.[ After a year, Faramus along with other prisoners from Romainville, was taken in terrible conditions by train via ]Compiègne
Compiègne (; pcd, Compiène) is a commune in the Oise department in northern France. It is located on the river Oise. Its inhabitants are called ''Compiégnois''.
Administration
Compiègne is the seat of two cantons:
* Compiègne-1 (with 19 c ...
onto the Buchenwald concentration camp
Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...
near Weimar, Germany
Weimar is a city in the state (Germany), state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany (cultural area), Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg an ...
, 55 of the 120 dying in his carriage en route, from suffocation, dysentery
Dysentery (UK pronunciation: , US: ), historically known as the bloody flux, is a type of gastroenteritis that results in bloody diarrhea. Other symptoms may include fever, abdominal pain, and a feeling of incomplete defecation. Complications ...
and thirst.
In chapter 7 of ''Journey into Darkness'', Faramus describes the crime for which he was taken out of the Buchenwald camp and forced on a journey to Mauthausen via Leipzig, Dresden and Prague:''"... a freezing cold morning, at my place of work — ‘Kommando das Grab' (communal graves) — I had momentarily set aside my shovel to blow into my hands and fingers. I had not seen the approach of the SS Warrant Officer. Failing to acknowledge the man's presence and not coming to attention and removing my cap from my head until he had passed by was one crime, the interruption of my work without permission was another. I was punched and booted; worse, my number (E)42324 was noted in his book of reports."''
The Nazi Party defined Mauthausen as "Grade III". Its purpose was to punish "Incorrigible Political Enemies of the Reich" with extermination through labour. In ''Journey into Darkness'' Faramus acknowledges Captain Maurice Pertschuck who was murdered in Buchenwald in 1944, Christopher Burney
Christopher Arthur Geoffrey Burney MBE (1917 – 18 December 1980) was an upper-class Englishman who served in the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II.
Biography
In 1941, Pierre de Vomécourt organized AUTOGYRO, one of the fi ...
and Lt Jack H. Taylor. In film footage gathered by the US Department of Defense after the 11th Armored Division of the 3rd US Army entered the camp on 5 May 1945, Lt. Jack H. Taylor spoke about his capture, imprisonment and the conditions at Mauthausen. Faramus also mentions Pierre Serge Choumoff, a mathematician and engineer, imprisoned in Romainville and Mauthausen, who later investigated the Mauthausen-Gusen complex.
Post-World War II
For over a year after the war Faramus lived in Paris as he searched for some of the women and men that he had known whilst imprisoned in Fort de Romainville. During this period he lost a lung following surgery for tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...
which he contracted during his imprisonment in Mauthausen. He returned to Britain and after a series of jobs in hotels and bars he found work as an extra in various films produced at Pinewood Studios
Pinewood Studios is a British film and television studio located in the village of Iver Heath, England. It is approximately west of central London.
The studio has been the base for many productions over the years from large-scale films to te ...
.
Faramus emigrated to the United States with his wife Mary where they both had careers in the film industry. Faramus worked as an actor and played the roles of a British officer in ''The Colditz Story
''The Colditz Story'' is a 1955 British prisoner of war film starring John Mills and Eric Portman and directed by Guy Hamilton. It is based on the 1952 memoir written by Pat Reid, a British army officer who was imprisoned in Oflag IV-C, Colditz ...
'' and a POW
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
Belligerents hold prisoners of war ...
in '' King Rat''. He also worked as Clark Gable
William Clark Gable (February 1, 1901November 16, 1960) was an American film actor, often referred to as "The King of Hollywood". He had roles in more than 60 motion pictures in multiple genres during a career that lasted 37 years, three decades ...
's butler and chauffeur. After living in California, he and Mary moved back to Britain, living in London and later in Farnham, Surrey.
In the 1970s, he joined the Hunt Saboteurs Association
The Hunt Saboteurs Association (HSA) is a United Kingdom organisation that uses hunt sabotage as a means of direct action to stop fox hunting. It was founded in 1963, with its first sabotage event occurring at the South Devon Foxhounds on 26 De ...
an organisation whose aim is to disrupt blood sports
A blood sport or bloodsport is a category of sport or entertainment that involves bloodshed. Common examples of the former include combat sports such as cockfighting and dog fighting, and some forms of hunting and fishing. Activities charact ...
using direct action
Direct action originated as a political activist term for economic and political acts in which the actors use their power (e.g. economic or physical) to directly reach certain goals of interest, in contrast to those actions that appeal to oth ...
tactics. In 1989 he was arrested at a hunt in Hampshire. He refused to be bound over
In the law of England and Wales and some other common law jurisdictions, binding over is an exercise of certain powers by the criminal courts used to deal with low-level public order issues. Both magistrates' courts and the Crown Court may issue b ...
to keep the peace in the sum of £500 and was sent to Winchester prison for a month. He described his experience to a fellow hunt saboteur as "worse than his time at Fort de Romainville: no officer at Winchester Prison ever called him Tony", it was always the impersonal Faramus.
An operation to remove his lung in the 1950s as a result of the TB contracted in the concentration camps led to his death in August 1990, aged 70. More than 100 people, including actors, hunt saboteurs and concentration camp survivors attended his funeral at St Andrew's Church, Farnham
St Andrew's Church is an Anglican parish church in the centre of Farnham, Surrey. It is a Grade I listed building and surviving parts of the structure date back to the Middle Ages. It in the Archdeaconry of Surrey, in the Diocese of Guildford. ...
in 1990. Dave Wetton, a founder of the Hunt Saboteurs Association in the 1960s read a funeral address.
References
Notes
Bibliography
*Anthony Faramus. ''Journey into Darkness''. Foreword by Greville Janner
Greville Ewan Janner, Baron Janner of Braunstone, (11 July 1928 – 19 December 2015) was a British politician, barrister and writer. He became a Labour Party Member of Parliament for Leicester in the 1970 general election as a last-minute ...
. Grafton. (1990)
*Anthony Faramus. ''The Faramus Story: Being the Experiences of Anthony Charles Faramus''. Wingate (1954)
*Anthony Faramus. ''Hands of the Devil'', (Digit)
*Ben Macintyre. ''Agent Zigzag''. Bloomsbury (2007)
*Nicholas Booth ''Zigzag: The Incredible Wartime Exploits of Double Agent Eddie Chapman''. Portrait ( 2007)
External links
Anthony Faramus Frank Falla Archive
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Faramus, Anthony
1920 births
1990 deaths
Jersey male actors
Jersey writers
Prisoners and detainees of Jersey
Buchenwald concentration camp survivors
Mauthausen concentration camp survivors
British male film actors
20th-century British male actors