Sunday, December 13, 2015

Anne Spoerry and the Mau Mau

Text: The Ghosts of Happy Valley by Juliet Barnes, pp 248-249


More unexpected Mau Mau stories emerged when I was doing some research for John Heminway, who was writing the biography of Dr Anne Spoerry.   She'd always been revered in Kenya as the legendary 'flying docor', selflessly involved in humanitarian work in Kenya until she died in 1999.  Then Heminway's article for the Financial Times had caused waves of shock and disbelief.  He'd interviewed Dr Louise Le Porz, who'd known Spoerry in Ravensbrueck.  Spoerry had been sent to this concentration camp in 1944, under the supervision of Carmen Mory, who became Spoerry's lesbian lover.  Le Porz revealed a very different side of Spoerry, a woman who'd murdered and tortured hundreds of Jewish women.