The Z in my name stands for Zeelie. That was my maiden name. It is German and once it had been Scheele. Then, a civil servant couldn't quite work out how to spell it. That was way back in the 17th century and the clerk sat at a desk at the Cape of Good Hope. That was where I was born -- not, though, in the 17th century!
Today, I live and write in Paris.
It was here in Paris that I became interested in Dr. Marcel Petiot. Yes, Petiot drew me down into him - and I use the word 'down' consciously. He existed in the basement of the human spirit in a time and place that struggled, like everywhere touched by the Nazi poison, to find the light. Yes, I allowed myself to be pulled down, as much out of curiosity as anything else.
Strangely, once I started to research Petiot, I discovered that I could see the mass grave where he lies buried from my apartment windows. I go and visit him every now and then ... it is a most tranquil spot. When I need to pull myself together after a particularly tough day, that is where I go...
Now that my book is written, I've started my research for another one. The new book will be about the guillotine; about its history and anecdotes about it. Did you know that as Marie-Antoinette walked up to the guillotine, she stepped on her executioner's toes? She smiled at him and said: "I beg your pardon, sir". Those were her last words. And did you know that one executioner had a blood phobia? Imagine, someone who has to guillotine people, who faints, or goes berserk when he sees blood!
There is also something else that is strange about my interest in Petiot and in the guillotine. On April 17, 1792, a machine with which to chop off people's heads had been tested close to where I live. It had been tested on three cadavers. Having done what it had to do, quite 'neatly', a few days later, on April 25, the 'machine' - the guillotine - was put to work. It was set up on Place de Greve (today Place de l'Hotel de Ville, in front of the Paris town hall) and it rapidly ended the life of its first victim. That was a man named Jacques Pelletier. Pelletier did not know that he was only the first of very many. Capital punishment was abolished in France in 1981, but the last guillotining was in 1977: Hamida Djandoubi was guillotined at Baumettes prison in Marseilles on September 10 for the savage murder of a woman.
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(Visit my blog on http://www.french-marilyn.blogspot.com and read some of my true crime articles on http://www.crimemagazine.com)
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