records. "I was probably the only person who could do this," she said. "You had to know every detail of the agents, names, code names, every hair on their heads, to spot their tracks." The confessions she obtained from the Auschwitz commandant, Rudolf Hss , were used as evidence at the Nuremberg Trials. She always shuddered at Hss's reaction to her suggestion that 1.5 million people had been killed in Auschwitz. "Oh no," he said, as if offended. "It was 2,345,000." Ms. Atkins was born Vera Maria Rosenberg in Bucharest, Romania, and went to London with her parents in 1933, where she adopted her mother's last name. She studied modern languages at the Sorbonne and went to finishing school at Lausanne. Her perfect French and her just as perfect manners would come in handy later. At the outbreak of the war, she joined the Special Operations Executive, which Winston Churchill set up "to set Europe ablaze" through sabotage and subversion. The unit started slowly. But after victory in Europe, Dwight D. Eisenhower said, "It was the equivalent of 15 divisions." Hitler said, "When I get to London I am not sure who I shall hang first -- Churchill or that man Buckmaster." Hitler, perhaps, did not know about Buckmaster's assistant, Ms. Atkins. The spymasters headed the unit's F section, for France. They began by interviewing candidates in a hotel room with a desk, two chairs and a lightbulb. After the initial questioning, they had a general conversation in French to