Dear Fraulein Böhm,
My name is Nancy Wake, and I am an agent working with the Maquis in southern France. We have just captured your father and are going to hand him over to the American authorities. He asked me to send this letter to you. I do not know what he has written, but I imagine it’s something about how he sacrificed his life for the dream of a Greater Germany and how he was willing to do difficult things to protect you and your future.
Your father is a monster. A stunted man and for all his learning, he knows nothing of human life, of love. I saw the regime he served before the war, and saw nothing but cruelty and posturing brutality pretending to be strength. That is not strength, it is weakness trying to disguise itself, lashing out to hide its own lacerating fear. He will tell you he is a patriot, I guess. I know he is a coward.
He tortured and murdered my husband. He killed my friends. He is not a hero to be welcomed home. He and his kind have caused untold suffering to millions of women like me, to millions of little girls like you, and I think we are only just beginning to learn the true horror of what they have done behind this mask of science and patriotism.
You are young. You do not bear responsibility for this suffering, but in the next few years you will have a choice to make. To be angry and afraid for your whole life, and shut your eyes to the truth. Or to be strong, to face it and become part of building a different future.
Yours,
Nancy Wake