RichardHowe.com – Voices from Lowell & Beyond

The invisible woman who took on the Third Reich and saved art for the ages by Marjorie Arons-Barron

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog.

The Art Spy: The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WWII Resistance Hero Rose Valland by Michelle Young is a richly researched account of an apparently nondescript art historian who rose from a low-level volunteer job just prior to the Second World War to a preeminent curatorial position at the Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris. There, her photographic memory, attention to detail, immaculate record keeping and steely courage fortified her commitment to keeping Hitler and his legions from looting priceless French masterpieces during the war.

Rose Valland’s reserved demeanor belied her ferocity as a courageous protector of the nation’s cultural patrimony. As the war in Europe ramped up, she devised a complicated plan to surreptitiously ship sculptures and paintings to various chateaus in the Loire Valley and beyond. Many of the treasures would remain hidden until Germany was defeated. Some have yet to be found.

When the Germans occupied Paris and the Nazis seized the Jeu de Paume, Valland stayed in place. Her official assignment became monitoring the facility, its heating system, plumbing and infrastructure. The Nazis used the museum as a repository for art treasures they were stealing from France and across Europe, not just from museums and galleries but from private collections like those of the Rothschilds, Paul Rosenberg and Adolphe Schloss. They systematically plundered the collections of Jews who had fled or been killed, their possessions now conveniently labeled “abandoned property.” The booty was destined for Hitler’s planned Fuhrermuseum in Linz, Austria, but the Fuhrer’s henchmen, especially Reichsmarschall Herman Goering and other high-level Nazis, were skimming thousands of irreplaceable works of art from the Jeu de Paume, the Louvre and elsewhere.

Rose Volland was required to curate exhibitions for visits by Goering and other powerful Nazis seeking to add to their personal collections.  Secretly, she kept meticulous notes, often just on small scraps of paper, cataloguing the provenance of art works, recording the specific locations to which the Germans were shipping their selections. She was thus able to track the movements of German officials and convey the information to the French resistance.

The Germans (Hitler especially) viewed modern artists (e.g., Picasso, Matisse, Braque) as “degenerate,” but they didn’t hesitate to confiscate many of those works because they could be sold for money to help finance Germany’s war efforts. Other works, sadly, were mutilated or burned.

Periodically, Rose would be interrogated, and occasionally she was ejected from the museum, only to talk her way back in. She often slept on a straw mattress in the museum to protect its holdings. Overnight, she would secretly copy German inventory. Her life was increasingly in danger toward the end of the war though, as a closeted lesbian, she would all along have been a target for elimination by the Reich.

Some of her subversive activities are worthy of a LeCarre novel, and they are cinematically told by author Young.

Valland’s efforts did not stop after 1945. After the war, she was made General Secretary to the Commission for the Restitution of Art. Her work took her to Germany to locate the pillage. She held the rank of Captain. Thanks to her record-keeping, she was able to facilitate the return of many stolen art treasures to their rightful owners. She was also able to provide concrete evidence of the crimes at the Nuremberg trials.

Rose Valland became one of the most decorated women in French history. There are streets and squares named after her, as is a non-profit institution dedicated to restitution of stolen art. She appears in The Monuments Men (film and book.) Valland is one of the characters in Lynn Nicholas’s book The Rape of Europa. The Art Spy is distinguished by Michelle Young’s deep dig into Valland’s life: her professional battles against misogyny blocking her advancement in the art field and muting her post-war recognition, the perils she faced as a spy, her ingenuity in outwitting the enemy, her infinite patience and seemingly bottomless reservoir of courage.

The depth and breadth of Young’s research is stunning, and a reader would do well to examine the notes in this important book. Beyond Rose’s own copious notes, she had exchanged many letters with prominent figures in the art world, government officials, friends and family. Her correspondence with Jacques Jaujard, head of France’s national museums, was voluminous. Young found historians’ reports and bureaucrats’ papers, public and private, court records, transport records, museum catalogues and library archives, personal diaries and magazines, in Europe and from America. The book’s details are put together seamlessly, with intrigue and revelations at every bend in the narrative.

Lowell Politics: May 17, 2026

The most important actions at Tuesday’s Lowell City Council meeting were brief and procedural with the council formally accepting the following items and scheduling them all for public hearings at upcoming meetings. These include:

• Accept timely submission of FY27 budget
• Appropriate the money to fund that budget
• To borrow $25 million for capital improvements
• To borrow $5 million for parking garage repairs
• To create a Lowell Water and Sewer Department by combining the Lowell Regional Wastewater Utility and the Lowell Regional Water Utility and created the new position of Chief Utility Officer to lead the new department.
• To amend the sewer rate for FY27
• To amend the water rate for FY27

The public hearing on the budget is scheduled for Tuesday, May 26, 2026. In recent years, council budget sessions have been relatively brief affairs with councilors mostly deferring to the judgment of the city manager. While there are fiscal challenges with every budget, this one seems like it will be particularly painful, especially with the elimination of existing positions and employees, so councilors may question this budget more aggressively than has been the case in recent years.

Related to that, the lead story in Friday’s Lowell Sun carried the headline, “Major layoffs hit Lowell: Proposed budget cuts 50, including police and fire” by Melanie Gilbert. Among the jobs to be cut immediately, according to the article, are six firefighters, five police department employees, six from DPW, 13 from Health and Human Services, and six from MIS. Additional jobs are to be eliminated through attrition, which I take to mean when someone retires or leaves for another job, their position will not be filled.

****

The most controversial topic that arose on Tuesday was funding for nonprofits. A report from the council’s Non-Profit Organizations Subcommittee from its May 5, 2026, meeting, and a handful of council motions that flowed from that meeting brought the matter to the floor. The issue is that local nonprofits that believed they were to receive funding this year ultimately had that funding denied by the city. The loss of the expected funding has left these organizations in precarious financial condition and has angered city councilors who on Tuesday were questioning the competence and veracity of city officials.

Like so much of the chaos that engulfs the world today, the proximate cause of this crisis is the Trump regime. Let me explain:

The funding in question is the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, a mechanism for the federal government to provide annual grants to state and local governments to help them deal with the challenges of urban communities. The program was established in the 1970s and is administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Lowell receives its annual funding directly from HUD and has significant flexibility in how it uses those funds. For example, for two decades a major expenditure of CDBG funds by Lowell has been to pay rent for the Senior Center (with the technicalities of CDBG funding a big contributor to the ongoing controversy surrounding the Senior Center, but that’s a topic for another day).

The city has also allocated CDBG grants to nonprofits in the city. However, when President Trump took office in January 2025, he immediately issued an executive order barring any federal money from going to organizations that supported DEI programs, equity plans, environmental justice, or many of the other values that are at the core of the mission of many nonprofits.

In the past, I’ve written about the moral dilemma this poses to nonprofits: Do they stand by their values and lose federal funding that allows them to keep operating; or do they erase banned words, concepts and terms from their mission statements, websites, and grant applications to access essential funding. Because the loss of funding would pose an existential threat to their continued existence, some nonprofits chose the latter course.

These organizations prepared grant applications that were on their face in compliance with the Trump executive order and then submitted them to the city for a type of pre-review. The feedback from the city to the nonprofits seemed to have been mostly positive but also conditional. However, when the city’s Department of Planning and Development, which administers CDBG funding locally, sought further guidance from HUD (the federal agency that oversees the program), none was forthcoming. The city received no answers from the feds.

The city faces twin dilemmas: First, Lowell is essentially a guarantor of these grants. If the city disperses money to a nonprofit and then HUD, after the fact, deems the nonprofit to have been ineligible, the city will have to pay back the money to HUD. Perhaps the city could also pull back the money from the nonprofit, but by the time HUD acted, it’s likely the money would already be spent so the chances of the city getting reimbursed by the nonprofit would be slim.

The second dilemma is that it is not enough to simply “scrub” current applications, websites, and other materials of the “offending” DEI-type language. It is my understanding that HUD and other federal agencies retroactively search for “obscured” DEI language, meaning grant recipients that may have changed the language they use post Trump executive order, but which had previously used such language. Since it’s almost certain that the nonprofits now scrubbing DEI language formerly embraced it, especially in prior grant applications that would still be on file with HUD, the risk that new grants would be disallowed by HUD for past DEI language is high, further increasing the fiscal jeopardy the city would face.

With that in mind, City Manager Tom Golden’s response to councilors was that he took a more conservative approach and “erred on the side of caution” in not approving any of these CDBG grants at the city level. As much as this harms the nonprofits and the people they serve, it seems like a prudent course for the city from a fiscal stability perspective given the erratic and harmful course of the federal government these days.

****

The council received an update on the portion of the Riverwalk that runs along the Merrimack behind the Massachusetts Mills. Back in March 2024, a portion of the Main Power Building collapsed onto the Riverwalk which has been closed ever since for safety reasons. A letter from Mullins Real Estate Development which owns Mass Mills (and has, since it was first renovated in the 1980s), explained that reopening the Riverwalk is directly linked to the redevelopment of the Power Building and that construction is not expected to begin until next spring. Although disappointed in that timeline, councilors seemed to accept there is no alternative under all the circumstances.

****

This week in my Seen & Heard column, I wrote about last weekend’s Doors Open Lowell; the obituary of Dean Tavoularis, an Oscar-winning native of Lowell; an article on the success of two print publications when so many others are failing; and commented on a review of the Venice Biennale, a big international art show.

****

In observance of Memorial Day, this coming Saturday, May 23, 2026, Bob Forrant and I will lead a free walking tour of downtown Lowell on the topic of Lowell in World War II. The walk begins at 10am from the National Park Visitor Center at 246 Market Street. The tour will take approximately 90 minutes and requires no advanced registration. Just show up.

****

Also related to Memorial Day, my latest book, Regret to Inform You: The Human Cost of WWII in Lowell, Mass. is now available. The book examines the lives of the 441 servicemembers from Lowell who died during World War II, whose names are inscribed on bronze tablets in the Lowell Memorial Auditorium.

The book is available for purchase online here and lala books on Market Street is expected to have several copies for sale.

A PDF version is also available for free on my website for those who prefer an ebook.

New Book: Lowell in World War II

Regret to Inform You: The Human Cost of WWII in Lowell, Mass.

By Richard P. Howe Jr.

I’ve long been intrigued by the bronze tablets in the entry hall of the Lowell Memorial Auditorium. They memorialize Lowell residents who died while serving in the military during time of war. I was particularly interested in the tablets devoted to World War II which contain 441 names.

From time to time, other projects caused me to research several of the individuals listed. I found their stories fascinating and wanted to learn more. I’ve now done that with my latest book.

Regret to Inform You: The Human Cost of WWII in Lowell, Mass. provides a biographical sketch of each of the 441 individuals listed on the World War II tablets. Where and when were they born? Where did they live? What were their families like? Where did they work before joining the military? Where did they serve, how did they die, and where were they buried? I tried to answer these questions for each.

The book may be purchased from the online print-on-demand publisher Lulu.com at this link.

A PDF of the full book is also available for free elsewhere on this website if you prefer reading an ebook.

As a sample of the book’s contents, here are three of the stories contained in it:

Elisee Dufresne – Born in Quebec in 1897, Elisee Dufresne, also known as Joseph Elisee Dufresne, came to Lowell in 1910 with his parents and six brothers. The family lived at 2 Lavallee Place, and all worked in a cotton mill. Elisee entered the U.S. Army in 1918 and was stationed at Camp Devens. While there, he became a U.S. citizen. After that war, he returned to the family home and resumed work in a mill. However, he rejoined the U.S. Army in 1925 and became a career soldier. When the United States entered World War II, Elisee was a Corporal with the 31st Infantry Regiment in the Philippines. He was taken prisoner by the Japanese in the surrender of Bataan and died in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in the Philippines on May 31, 1942. He is buried in the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.

John F. Gormley – Born in Lowell in 1922, John Francis Gormley lived at 408 Middlesex Street with his parents. John worked at Merrimack Manufacturing Company on Dutton Street. An Ordnanceman 2nd Class in the U.S. Navy, John was assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Princeton. He was killed in action on October 24, 1944, at age 21, when a Japanese bomb caused a tremendous explosion on the Princeton, killing 229 of its crew and eventually sinking the ship during the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines. John is buried in the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.

James P. Scondras – Born in Lowell in 1920, James P. Scondras lived at 287 Dutton Street with his parents and four siblings. His mother and father were born in Greece. His father owned a restaurant in which the entire family worked. James was a student and a star athlete at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester. A 1st Lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps, James was assigned to the 3rd Marine Division. He was killed in action on Iwo Jima on February 25, 1945, at age 24. He is buried in Westlawn Cemetery. In 1965, Lowell dedicated the gymnasium at the Rogers School to his memory as the James Scondras Gymnasium. His brother, David, was killed in action in France in 1944.

Endless Courage

Diane & Leo (the author) on her 48th birthday

Endless Courage

By Leo Racicot

26 February 2026. On this date, a year ago, I lost the best part of me. Whereas I am flighty, my sister was practical. Where I struggled to learn common sense and logic, she seemed to have been born with both. Where she was pleasing to look at, I was not.

I’m the first to admit I took the wayward brother bit way too far. I was forever getting myself in one mess after the other, to the point of ridiculousness. Diane would always, with unquestioning swiftness, race to rescue me.

I marveled at her strength; Life dealt her one lousy hand after another. Rather than whine, sulk and pout (my years-long chosen M.O.), she got down to the business at hand, playing each round, overcoming the odds, often winning.

There was a fearless aspect to her character, a pit bull quality. One time, I remember, she found a thief trying to break into the house. The guy had to be 6′ 4″, if he was an inch.  Tiny Diane, 5″ 4″, cornered and confronted him. I couldn’t believe the speed with which this guy, his rear end full of verbal buckshot, took off, a fox caught.

Diane’s stubborn streak saw her through myriad hospitalizations, myriad calamities. untold disappointments, unexpected heartbreaks.

Ours was never an affectionate family — few kisses, fewer embraces. How I wish I’d told her how much I loved her.

When the time came that it was clear her time in this world was coming to an end, I tried as hard as I could to keep her from leaving.

I don’t know where we end up when we go: whether we become a part of the celestial ether, whether worm food and ash. My beliefs tell me she is surely in a better place, free of her lifelong suffering.

A year on, every day is a struggle. But I’ve learned that it’s selfish wanting to keep our loved ones beside us forever when they decide to journey on…