“To those who served to save a little of the beauty of this world.” – epigraph, memoirs of Rose Valland

 
Surprise! I know I said I was done with Women At War, but then I immediately sat up in bed one night and smacked myself in the forehead. This series is the perfect opportunity to tell the story of my favorite unlikely heroine of all time: Rose Valland. 
What better way to wrap up the fourth year of this podcast than an adventure story? Intrigue, stolen masterpieces, underground Rèsistance, and a happy ending! Please enjoy this little bonus episode, delivered just in time. 🙂
Episode 59: “Women At War BONUS: The Witness (Rose Valland)”






Transcript
Bienvenue and welcome back to The Land of Desire. I’m your host, Diana, and I have to confess something: I lied! I said that last month’s episodes were the conclusion of my series on Women at War, but I realized that I’d missed the perfect opportunity to tell one of my all-time favorite stories. This story has everything: espionage, famous art, dastardly villains, an unlikely heroine and a happy ending. So consider this a bonus episode, an extra present from me to you, just in time for the show’s 4th birthday today! Before we kick off another year, let’s put a bow on this one by paying tribute to one of my favorite French women of all time: Rose Valland.

On May 8th, 1945, Europe embarked on one of the most ambitious projects in human history: cleaning up the wreckage of World War II. The continent was in shambles: bombed out, burned down, busted. No matter where you stood, from the United Kingdom to the Ukraine, everything was chaos, and the task of putting all the pieces back together again seemed impossible. There was so much to do: cleaning up rubble, distributing food, capturing Nazis on the run – but there was one task that was more urgent, and more overwhelming, than all of these: getting everyone back home. The most universal experience of World War II wasn’t physical violence, or even hunger: it was displacement. 60 million people were displaced over the course the war, whether they were evicted from their homeland, deported to a concentration camp, deployed to the front lines, or forced to flee an invasion. By the time the ink dried on Germany’s surrender, 11 million Europeans were located outside their home country. Many of them would never return.
 
But it wasn’t just people who had been displaced during the war. For the past six years, the Third Reich had looted its way through Europe. Everything disappeared into the Reich’s gaping maw: jewelry, luxury cars, gold bouillon, designer clothes, family heirlooms, and above all else, priceless works of art. Led by the world’s most famous art school reject, Nazi leaders treated the museums and galleries of Europe like a giant buffet, helping themselves to grand masters and lining their own hallways with ancient sculptures. In the best case scenario, a world treasure sat hidden in a German study or bank vault. In the worst case scenario, it got melted for scrap. From the empty rooms of the Louvre to the piles of charred canvases in Berlin to the stripped walls of Saint Petersburg, every curator and collector in Europe asked the same, staggering question: where did all of the art go? And would it ever come home again? In France, one person held the key to solving this mystery – but after six years in the shadows, who could they trust with their secrets?

Rose Valland wasn’t the kind of woman who attracted the world’s attention. Born in a teensy, tiny town southeast of Lyon, Rose was the daughter of a blacksmith. With no money to her name, Rose pursued one of the only career paths available to women intellectuals: teaching. When she won a spot at the fine arts academy in Lyon, it was a tremendous accomplishment for a woman of her socio...