"Do you have a serviette?" asked the young Frenchman of a snack-bar manager distributing deck chairs on Brighton beach during the summer of 1937. Why would the young chap want a napkin, the baffled manager wondered, when he seemed ready to set off for a swim? He turned for assistance to a young girl who happened to be passing by. Just the right person, as it would turn out. For, having studied French at school, Dorothy Chamaide knew perfectly well that the French word serviette had two meanings—not only "napkin" but also "towel." What she did not know was that this chance encounter would in due course lead her to within a hair’s breadth of falling into the hands of the Nazis

"The following winter I was on holiday in Nice," the now-82-year-old Chamaide relates from her chic apartment on the Côte d’Azur. "I was sitting with my parents on the Promenade des Anglais when I saw a young man pointing a Leica at me. "Qu’est ce que vous faites?" I asked him (What are you doing?).

"Don’t you recognise me?" he replied. "Don’t you remember the towel?" Within a year Chamaide had fallen head over heels in love—not with the bemused bather from Brighton, but with his older brother, Henri. In the summer of 1938, they married. And lived happily ever after? Hardly.

Europe was on the brink of war, although the French Riviera seemed the most unlikely of settings in which for hostilities to break out. The British seemed to treat the coast almost as a colony. Wealthy families kept large villas in Cannes for the winter season. Despite this carefree atmosphere Chamaide was doubly in danger, being both English and Jewish. The obvious thing to do, surely, was to head home. As the consuls cried, "Retreat," most of the British steamed north towards the Channel on the only available transport—one of two rather rickety coal boats. (Somerset Maugham amongst those travelling.) Chamaide was not on either passenger list. There could be no question of leaving her husband, and she did not hesitate in her decision to stay and face the troubles of war-torn France.

After the fall of her adopted homeland it was merely a matter of months before she came to experience an ominous feeling of isolation, with a constant fear of betrayal. "To be at war and suffer with your fellow countrymen is quite different," she observes, "from living in a country where suddenly you are the enemy. We British were supposed to register and go to a camp near Grenoble. But I didn’t—A friend provided me with a false French identity card. Otherwise I would inevitably have been arrested."

Unbeknownst to Chamaide, a few miles over the border the Italian army was waiting to expand Mussolini’s empire. Meanwhile, Gestapo units from the north of France roamed freely, the Vichy authorities turning a blind eye as anti-Jewish propaganda flowed thick and fast. Despite the looming danger there was a semblance of normality. Everyday life continued, for a while. Her husband set off every day from the couple’s apartment on Nice’s Boulevard Victor Hugo and made his way to his exclusive gentleman’s outfitters, situated in the city’s most prestigious shopping parade.

But Jewish-owned businesses were being taken over by decree, and the clothing store was no exception. The technique of requisition was hardly sophisticated or complex. "Vos clefs s’il vous plait" ("Your keys, please."), the soldiers would ask. In most cases, no one hesitated to hand them over. Then the Italians marched in, as they had been threatening to do for some time. They were thought to be easier going than the Germans, especially on Jewish matters—a great relief for the Chamaides. But one that would proved to be short-lived. When two Italian officers were shot dead in the street, the army retaliated by rounding up hostages.

"I heard the boots marching up the steps," Chamaide recalls. "Then I heard the bell ring. They ransacked the whole of our apartment, ripping open the armchairs with their bayonets: They were looking for arms. My husband was one of the first to have an electric razor, which he kept in the bathroom, and these Italian police thought it might be some kind of a secret arm. I took it and showed them that it was nothing remotely dangerous. Not that that helped much." The last she saw of her husband was him being marched off by two Italian policemen, machine guns in his back. "I was sure that he was going to be shot," she recalled.

Arrests and disappearances were commonplace. A climate of fear descended on the hitherto glamorous Riviera. La belle vie, it seemed, had come to a close, as people ran the risk of being questioned, imprisoned and deported. Chamaide found out that her husband had been taken by the OVRA branch of the Italian Secret Police. Rumours led her to the train that was about to take her husband and the other hostages away. What to do?

"Mustering as much courage as I could I set off for the station and finally I saw him. I saw his face peering from the window of the train. The men were chained, hands and feet. He shouted something I could barely understand: ‘Spagna—Hotel Hermitage.’ And then the train slowly pulled out of the station, destination unknown to me."

Chamaide wondered what she could do. Who, or what, was Spagna? And what was the significance of the Hotel Hermitage? Was this the key to her husband’s release? Although it would take her some days to unravel the mystery it emerged that Spagna was none other than the head of the Italian secret police.

"I eventually discovered that this hotel had been requisitioned by an Italian counter-espionage unit. Although they were not as horrifying as the Gestapo, there was more than a little common ground all the same. Beatings and torture were taking place at the Hotel Hermitage. In fact, there was so much screaming and shouting that many neighbours packed their bags and moved elsewhere." With some difficulty, Chamaide made it to the hotel, which was guarded by Italian sentries. Determined to help her husband, she responded bravely to their inquiries as to her purpose at the hotel: "I am afraid I cannot divulge it. It’s a secret—it’s personal—and I must speak to Colonel Spagna personally."

Undaunted by the prospect of meeting the most feared man in the area, Chamaide (all 5’1" of her) walked up the steps and wondered what on earth she was going to say. After a great deal of investigation Dorothy discovered that Spagna had been a regular customer at her husband’s shop. And—as well for Dorothy—a satisfied customer at that. On Bastille Day, 1943, Chamaide’s husband was released from custody in the Italian Alps on condition that they both lived under house arrest in Vence, not far from Cannes. As the round-ups and anti-Jewish persecution continued, the couple decided they should go into hiding. Before long the Germans had moved in to replace the Italians. No more half measures now, as the latest occupying regime became increasingly brutal, with an apparently obsessive mission to round up and deport each and every Jew.

Fortunately Chamaide’s English friend who had married a Frenchman offered to let them stay in the couple’s small farmhouse in a remote location in the Dordogne. "It was through her generosity that we were able to hide for one whole year. We owe her our lives." Says the sprightly Chamaide. "It was a wonderful hideout—there was just a tiny pathway. Even with our bikes we had to dismount and walk. It took at least 10 minutes to arrive from the main road to the house. All along this road there were farms, each one with dogs. So if we heard a dog barking, and gradually the others barking too, we knew that there was trouble coming our way. We had a plan to run out into the woods at the back of the house should the day of reckoning come. We managed to convince ourselves that we would somehow be safe in running away, apparently oblivious to the fact that the Germans had tracker dogs."

On 15th August,1944 the Allies landed. Based in her hilltop hideaway Chamaide could see the Liberty ships as they came in. "That was the happiest day of my life," she affirms. "Without the slightest shadow of doubt." One might think that after such an experience Dorothy would have settled for a quiet existence in the sunshine. But the completion of the war saw her forge a close friendship with several of the leading celebrities of the day, including Marc Chagall, Charlie Chaplin and Pablo Picasso. "My brother-in-law was a great fan of Picasso and used to go to Golfe-Juan, where Picasso would hold court on the beach with his faithful coterie of admirers. Later on I used to go over to Vallauris to see him, and then to his various other houses that he occupied over the years in the area. The houses were usually quite bourgeois, but because of his bohemian lifestyle they always looked in a state of chaos, with no furniture, a Borzoi dog and goat living in the house. And although Picasso knew where things were, just walking across a room you would step on paintings—not only his, but those of other famous artists too! As soon as the house was full of paintings, he would never sell it, just lock the door and move on."

You might wonder, as I did, whether Chamaide is full of bitterness and regret. After all, if she had only been unable or unwilling to translate that word, serviette…. "No, no, no—not at all," she concluded, brushing the question aside. "I have had the most marvellous life. I would not have changed it for one moment. I would not have thrown in that towel at all."