January 9, 2019
In Full Flight: A Story of Africa and Atonement
John Heminway
Author and filmmaker of many documentaries about the wild corners of our planet
John Heminway and Introducer Landon Jones
Minutes of the 14th Meeting of the 77th Year
President Julia Coale called the meeting to order at 10:15 a.m. on January 9, 2019,
with 135 members and guests in attendance. Julie Denny led the invocation, and
Deborah Poritz read the minutes of the meeting held on December 12, 2018. The
following members introduced their guests: Lanny Jones, Sarah Jones; Michael
Mathews, Cecilia Mathews; and Henry Von Kohorn, Meredith Von Kohorn.
John Heminway began his presentation with a short documentary film about Anne Spoerry, the “flying doctor,” and the subject of his book, In Full Flight: A Story of Africa and Atonement. He first met Anne Spoerry in 1980 when she was almost thirty years into bringing medical care to far-away villages in colonial and then post-colonial Kenya.
It became clear from Heminway’s documentary that the “Flying Doctor” was revered by the Kenyan people, many of whom regarded her as a saint. His decision to try to discover her “secret”—what she did during World War II as a French citizen and why she refused to talk about the war years—caused many Africans to rebuke the author. And it was not until after her death in 1990, at the age of eighty, that, through the nephew who inherited her Kenyan farm, he was able to examine files in a large safe. Those files revealed her complicity with a certain Carmen Mory—a woman of truly evil aspirations—in the torture and death of fellow inmates at the German concentration camp, Ravensbruck.
Heminway then proceeded to examine war crime files at Kew in England, Zurich and Basel in Switzerland and the archives at Ravensbruck in Germany. In France he was informed that the files would not be opened for forty-five years. During the war, Ravensbruck held 137,000 women, of which only 17,000 survived. Of the remainder 10,000 died by firing squad, some by lethal injections (several administered by Anne Spoerry), and many in the gas chambers or from disease and malnutrition.
Eventually, in 2001, Heminway’s persistence paid off and he was able to spend a maximum of three hours looking at relevant files in the town of Le Blanc in central France. He discovered that Anne made two confessions in France: one to a French court and another to a tribunal of former resistance fighters. Heminway also was able to piece together the Ravensbruck story through interviews with three fellow French women inmates. All three bore terrible psychological scars from their time in the concentration camp.
As previously mentioned, the truly sinister figure in Anne’s treasonous behavior at Ravensbruck was Carmen Mory. Heminway described Carmen Mory as “sheer evil” and an utterly “duplicitous” human being. Of Swiss origin, she ran away in her late teens from an abusive father to Berlin, where she lived a very fast life—“something out of Christopher Isherwood”—in the late thirties. She and her German lover had access to Nazi inner circles and knew the likes of Goering and Himmler. In 1938 Carmen Mory and her German boyfriend went to Paris as German agents to spy on someone suspected of helping Jews escape. After being picked up by the French police, she was imprisoned for eighteen months but was released when, true to form, she became a double-agent. She was captured by the Wehrmacht during the German invasion and eventually sent to Ravensbruck. There she became an “arm of the prison-guards” in the notorious Block 10. It was in Block 10 that Anne Spoerry met Carmen Mory and was seduced by her. Whether the seduction had a physical aspect remains unknown, but Anne Spoerry was certainly under Carmen Mory’s baleful spell. Anne Spoerry, who was working toward a degree in medicine when the war broke out, would perform various inhumane operations, including lethal injections.
Heminway returned to the years following Anne’s death, when he was often spurned by Kenyans. As he pointed out, what makes Anne’s story so compelling is how it follows what he called “the arc of life,” with its abysses and its compensatory attempts at atonement. He described a woman who performed very bravely in the French Resistance, was then captured and turned complicit, and who eventually was hailed as a saint for her many years of providing medical care for the poor of Kenya. Whether she felt that she had fully atoned will never be known.
Heminway concluded his talk by describing how the writing of the book had been a significant burden for him and his family. Published by Knopf, it has been optioned as a film, and the actress Glenn Close is considering playing the role of the “flying Daktari,” Anne Spoerry.
with 135 members and guests in attendance. Julie Denny led the invocation, and
Deborah Poritz read the minutes of the meeting held on December 12, 2018. The
following members introduced their guests: Lanny Jones, Sarah Jones; Michael
Mathews, Cecilia Mathews; and Henry Von Kohorn, Meredith Von Kohorn.
John Heminway began his presentation with a short documentary film about Anne Spoerry, the “flying doctor,” and the subject of his book, In Full Flight: A Story of Africa and Atonement. He first met Anne Spoerry in 1980 when she was almost thirty years into bringing medical care to far-away villages in colonial and then post-colonial Kenya.
It became clear from Heminway’s documentary that the “Flying Doctor” was revered by the Kenyan people, many of whom regarded her as a saint. His decision to try to discover her “secret”—what she did during World War II as a French citizen and why she refused to talk about the war years—caused many Africans to rebuke the author. And it was not until after her death in 1990, at the age of eighty, that, through the nephew who inherited her Kenyan farm, he was able to examine files in a large safe. Those files revealed her complicity with a certain Carmen Mory—a woman of truly evil aspirations—in the torture and death of fellow inmates at the German concentration camp, Ravensbruck.
Heminway then proceeded to examine war crime files at Kew in England, Zurich and Basel in Switzerland and the archives at Ravensbruck in Germany. In France he was informed that the files would not be opened for forty-five years. During the war, Ravensbruck held 137,000 women, of which only 17,000 survived. Of the remainder 10,000 died by firing squad, some by lethal injections (several administered by Anne Spoerry), and many in the gas chambers or from disease and malnutrition.
Eventually, in 2001, Heminway’s persistence paid off and he was able to spend a maximum of three hours looking at relevant files in the town of Le Blanc in central France. He discovered that Anne made two confessions in France: one to a French court and another to a tribunal of former resistance fighters. Heminway also was able to piece together the Ravensbruck story through interviews with three fellow French women inmates. All three bore terrible psychological scars from their time in the concentration camp.
As previously mentioned, the truly sinister figure in Anne’s treasonous behavior at Ravensbruck was Carmen Mory. Heminway described Carmen Mory as “sheer evil” and an utterly “duplicitous” human being. Of Swiss origin, she ran away in her late teens from an abusive father to Berlin, where she lived a very fast life—“something out of Christopher Isherwood”—in the late thirties. She and her German lover had access to Nazi inner circles and knew the likes of Goering and Himmler. In 1938 Carmen Mory and her German boyfriend went to Paris as German agents to spy on someone suspected of helping Jews escape. After being picked up by the French police, she was imprisoned for eighteen months but was released when, true to form, she became a double-agent. She was captured by the Wehrmacht during the German invasion and eventually sent to Ravensbruck. There she became an “arm of the prison-guards” in the notorious Block 10. It was in Block 10 that Anne Spoerry met Carmen Mory and was seduced by her. Whether the seduction had a physical aspect remains unknown, but Anne Spoerry was certainly under Carmen Mory’s baleful spell. Anne Spoerry, who was working toward a degree in medicine when the war broke out, would perform various inhumane operations, including lethal injections.
Heminway returned to the years following Anne’s death, when he was often spurned by Kenyans. As he pointed out, what makes Anne’s story so compelling is how it follows what he called “the arc of life,” with its abysses and its compensatory attempts at atonement. He described a woman who performed very bravely in the French Resistance, was then captured and turned complicit, and who eventually was hailed as a saint for her many years of providing medical care for the poor of Kenya. Whether she felt that she had fully atoned will never be known.
Heminway concluded his talk by describing how the writing of the book had been a significant burden for him and his family. Published by Knopf, it has been optioned as a film, and the actress Glenn Close is considering playing the role of the “flying Daktari,” Anne Spoerry.