Walnut Tree House,
Hernhill, Faversham,
Kent, ENGLAND

23rd March 1971

Dearest Josephine,

Here we are back home at last, thank God! Among a mass of correspondence - two months owing to the postal strike here and our absence abroad - were two letters from you, one from Monaco of 19th January and the other from Sweden of 8th March. The first spoke of the children's August holiday and the second of your plans for the J.B. Foundation.

I will deal with first things first. You mention eight children, Akio, Jean Claude, Mara, Luis, Brahim, Jeannot, Koffi and Noel. Josephine, I don't know how to put this because I know that both you and the boys will be disappointed but our plans are so uncertain and the responsibility is so great that I don't think we shall be able to manage this year. Our neighbours are simple country farmers, not intimate friends, whose children were invited here to give your boys companionship (after all we are both over sixty and what fun is there for them in that!).

Peggy and I feel that by sending so many to the same community you would be defeating your own ends. They will inevitably converge and speak French all the time unless there is unceasing vigilance - as last time. Obviously the best course is to send each one to a separate household and this can be arranged through the school in Cannes through accredited organisations set up for this very purpose. Then they will meet new people and assemble at arranged time to meet their compatriots and English boys and girls for tours of London, etcetera. Every year thousands of French children of all ages are sent to England under this scheme and they seem to enjoy themselves. They must learn to stand on their own feet as they grow up; otherwise they will be a disappointment to you and a burden. So please ask the headmaster of the educational authorities about this scheme and when they come we will try to see them wherever they may be if possible. Please believe me, this is the best thing. There may be difficulty regarding Jeannot as he is a little backward but perhaps he could be paired with Luis; anyway I am sure any difficulty can be overcome. And please don't think any of them are unwelcome in our home - the contrary. But what I am suggesting after much thought is better for them and for you. I speak as one of nine children - only three less than you - who lost their father before the oldest was 18. I myself and two younger brothers were sent away to a boarding school at the age of 11 and I know my mother (who like you had to work to make ends meet) never had cause to regret the way she had brought us up singlehanded.

As to our recommending them to friends or friends' homes to you, imagine how we should feel if anything went wrong? If the boys misbehave then the complaints will be made to us and if the boys are unhappy wherever they may go then we should be even more unhappy.

Madame Joséphine BAKER
Le Continental
Place des Moulins
MONTE CARLO

Monte Carlo, september 28th, 1971

Mister Harry JANES
Walnut Tree House
Hernill, Faversham
KENT

Dear Harry,

You noted down some things about our conversation over the telephone, but I think that some other ones have to be brought up because they really are scandalous.

First of all, I would like to say that I received a letter from Peter Lundin (of the Brian Roxbury Ltd, 33 St Goge Street London W1R 9A tel:499 54 06), whom you telephoned concerning the Berns in Stockholm. He offered me an engagement for the whole month of March at the Park Avenue Hotel in Gothembourg. So, you see, my schedule is getting more and more full.

I told him in my letter that it might be a good idea to get in touch with Adza Vincent, because both of them can work together to get something durable. Nevertheless, they can try. As you know, our interest for this moment is to bring me back to England for the campaign...

Now, I would like to tell you about some episodes concerning the story of the Milandes. that can be true

After the possession of the castle, the law still gave me the right to stay in the castle for a certain time. I only got into the kitchen and two pentries. The other doors were blockaded. We found (I was with two newspapers men and Mr Dirand) a carabin hanging on the window, waiting for my arrival. That is why my lawyer asked me not to go before 9 in the morning for fear of being shot. Of course, they used the excuse of safety...

Another episode: Mr Trijoulet, my book-keeper whom you know, was lured out of our office while in service. And the doors were shut off right away, not allowing him to return. The safe was open in his office and all administrative papers vanished from sight, gone through photographs, some destroyed... etc... and put in a small house near the garage with the doors completely open to whom who wanted to go through them and use them.

I was not able to get them in possession again before six months... All of this was without any protection,

.../...2

My costumes, working material, orchestration...etc... were taken out of my bed-room, thrown into the same place as the papers and, later, sold in the community for Carnaval time. I had no protection at all because the police refused to give protection to me, saying that they had not police force enough. That was in Domme. The police of Sarlat completely stopt me from going into the castle, protecting the new comers, saying that I had lost the battle and the battle of my grotesque idea of Brotherhood....

Another episode: 20 young men were hired by the new comers in the castle and paid 100 francs each to bit me if I showed resistance and to put me out of the kitchen where I had got into. They caught me in the morning in night dress, bare feeted (and, the funny point : without my wig on nor my one false tooth...) while I was getting water from a special water tank that had been brought near the kitchen, in as much as the new comers had cut off the water and the oil for the heating. As you know, I was caught, bitten, my left shoulder被打, my head banged against the hot kitchen stove, and taken by the feet, arms和 head to be thrown out of the castle, bodily, in the pouring down rain. My only friends that were left at this moment were the cats and their kittens. They were thrown out of the window and the window slamed after... plus the mattress which I slept on, the kitchen table and all the food that neighbours had brought me. I was thrown in the nude on the ground, under the pouring down rain and the storm, unable to move. I must have lost my senses for a moment through fright, but, all of a sudden, I began to call for help. Then the people who were the God parents of Jean Claude slamed the doors. They were the ones who refused to sell us more milk for the children because I had been late to pay the milk for the month before (25 francs)...

I continued screaming. Mr Dirand who is deaf finally came to my rescue. He had gene to get a rope to tie the dog so I would have a little protecteur. He and another friend found me on the ground in the mud and water. He went for help. Mr Boudoir came to bring me in a corner because I was trembling through cold and fright.

The new owner's son, 20 years old, came and made fun of me sitting in the door sill. Then came the police cars, then the Procureur de la République was warned and he came and still tried to make me answer stupid questions as if he wanted to bring the case against me for insults to authorities. I did not answer, of course. He asked the son, in name of Humanity, to let me go back in the castle, because I had been profoundly schocked and physically brutalised, and, concerning the law, they had unlawfully thrown me out. The son refused my re-entrance in the house. He offered me a room upon the garage that was inundated by the rain. Mme Boudoir refused naturally because I could not speak any more as I lost my speech.

Mr Dirand telephoned for a doctor. The ambulance came right away and took me to the hospital of Perigueux, and then to Paris. Of course, I have the record of all of this: blood transfusions...etc..

.../...

...../... 3

Another episode: one day, I received 20 official blue papers to throw me out of the castle, systematically every half hour during the whole day. At the end, I got a heart and brain attack from fear. I was sent to the Boucicaut Hospital in Paris in the heart ward... and stayed 10 days like that. Then, I was put to sleep and my heart stopped for 2 seconds and put in rythm again. If that operation had not worked, then planes were to make an open-heart operation. But the first operation worked. But I still am under doctor's care.

Another episode: One of the people who wanted to get the Milandes was a man known for his unlawful and immoral attitudes. He had a cabaret in Abidjan and his work is the Traite des Blanches. His name is Grosse and he lives in the Chateau de Beynac, on the other side of the Dordogne.

Another episode: the children have been threatened by the new comers who came unlawfully over the wall and threatened to bit them. As the heating had been cut off, the children had to go in the garden to pick up pieces of dead branches fallen from the trees. They were put against the kitchen door by these 2 men. Elmo, my brother-in-law, whom you know, had just come back home from sanatorium for a lung trouble. Hearing the children screaming for help, he came to their rescue. The two men threatened to bit him too...

Another episode: When the furnitures had been seized and taken away, the salon and my office that you knew were completely empty. All the children, Margaret and myself had to sleep on mattresses on the floor. The house was completely cold with the exception of a wood fire in the fire-place. Margaret and I caught pneumonia. X

The only water we could get to wash the children and send them to school, was a small pail where everybody washed their face and hands. The water had been cut off.

Another episode: Fire was put in the woods around the castle so as to burn us out.....

Don't forget that I had left the Milandes to join the french and British troops in England in the Resistance to do my duty. At that time, I left the castle with all its belongings for seven years without expecting for one second to find anything again. That which has been seized and stolen would have been lost in a better and more honorable way during the war, than to have been taken by the unlawful, in a dirty way and without any dignity.

I think all of these different episodes extremely important because they are all recorded and are shamefull and scandalous. Use them right away in your preparation of the campaign. I like the title: "Joséphine BAKER comes to ask for help from England like she did in 1939 for the dignity of her adopted country France".

...../.

["4 ... / ..", "I told you the great satisfaction I had by Moïse asking to go back to Israel, before not realizing that he was a Jew and now having complexes. I remember your saying on the telephone that the children would not really mind and did not really belong to me in as much as they really belong to their own original countries, to their own people. Therefore it is quite natural that I send them back to their original countries. not to stay for ever but to loose complexes if they have any...", "Jean Claude, Moïse and I were talking about these problems. Moïse with his complexes, me having had some when I was young because of discrimination in America. Moïse told Jean Claude that this problem could not touch him because he was in his own country, and both him and me were adopted in a country that was not really ours. Therefore Jean Claude did not understand our complexes. He told that if he went to Africa, he would not have any complex in front of black people because he knew that he, being white, was superior to the Black, for the Black are lazy, dirty and nonchalant, without any intelligence...... He thinks that if white people had not gone to the colonies, the colonies would still be wild, which means that my educational system had been strongly tempered with by outside influences...", "That is why at the end of the conversation, I asked myself if I had been right to bring them all together as a symbol of the Universal Brotherhood.... The schock has been terrible.... Jean Claude is racist.... The words of Hitler came back to my memory: the famous aryan race..... We find the same feelings from the white towards the Black, from the Yellow toward the White...etc.. whatever we tried and wherever we go...... I remember when I was young that I wrote that we have to sterilize the soil and not cut a tree... if not, the roots would continue to live and a new tree would grow, being it bad or good, right or wrong.....", "If you go to the Milandes, with the NEWSPAPER news
newspapers man, you personally must not leave Mr Dirand or\nMr Trijoulet. I think you should even live with Mr and Mrs Boudoir\nbut be more than careful with the documents and all the papers...", "Most sincerely yours to both of you", "Josephine BAKER"]

Hernhill, 26/7/1973

8. a.m.

Dear Josephine,

I have just got up from a day in bed from nervous exhaustion and heart burn. Peggy went yesterday afternoon so that the children could be on the Folkestone boat at 5.20 p.m. English Summer Time. She too is exhausted but of a stronger constitution.

The whole thing, a disastrous 10 days, since you returned from Barcelona, has been a misunderstanding on both our parts. You over-estimated our capacity to overcome the impossible nature of Marianne. We under-estimated the difficulty of her character as we have seen so little of her. We have placed our hearts at Marianne's feet because we both love you and appreciate your difficulties. But, wilfully, selfishly, etc. she has kicked our hearts about like a football.

Peggy was decorated by George WI more than twenty years ago for her work for the old, the sick and problem families. Marianne and Stellina could never learn more about life for others than here. Rama and Stellina have been no problem. But Marianne, despite our insistence that she should not speak French has poisoned darling little Stellina's attitude who loved us. This is not RIGHT because that little Arab girl must one day grow up to live her own life and please, I beg of you, do not let Marianne because of lack of discipline or lack of time on your part to impose it, let her grow up to admire and imitate her younger sister and end up on the streets.

Most serious of all, is that Marianne should have made that little darling cry and destroyed our love for us and spoilt her holiday, Rama's and our good intentions towards an old friend.

Marianne has stolen, lied and cheated. It is too late to do anything for a girl of 17 who thinks she is the Queen of England. Cast her out or send her to a school for those beyond parental control. She is beyond your control, our control and control of herself. If you take her side through some emotional process against Peggy and me, who have nothing to gain and to whom you entrusted us with these young children, then I'm afraid, dear Josephine, I am no longer your brother and friend.

I am very tired and disappointed at the defeat of ourselves by the philosophy of France, so please forgive me if this letter seems hysterical. It will not be shown to you until you are quite well and ready to go to America again.