Description
Joseph Anatole Côté hid for 80 days in Holland. During his stay, he had false papers that gave him a new identity.
Joseph Anatole Côté
Mr. Côté was born in Quebec City on October 7, 1917. He studied forestry engineering at Université Laval. When war broke out, he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force to become a pilot. He started his training in Trois-Rivières, then went to Trenton. He was then sent to England and began his career as an airfield controller but was soon assigned as a pilot on several missions, particularly the famous Market Garden operation and another mission over Germany which led to 80 days of exile…
Transcript
MY FALSE PAPERSI had occasion to use false papers during my stay; I was called Johannes Smit . . . S-M-I-T. And I was [Annehmer], but I was told it was entrepreneur, I don’t know if it’s . . . for the German army. I had a pass, signed and stamped and all that . . . It was all false, eh? But, the funny thing was that when we went to Holland, in May, we met a woman we knew, who had fed me while I was at [inaudible], hidden there . . . with the American. And she told us it was her husband who forged those documents. She hadn’t told us that before. Her husband was a pretty good artist, and he could forge signatures. I had that pass, Passieren Zu Lassen, they called it. I gave it to the Musée de la Citadelle along with my identification card, the Johannes Smit one. The funny thing is that, according to the card, I was born in Apeldoorn, but I had never set foot there until May when the ceremonies were held at Apeldoorn . . . I told people that, I said, “I was born here, in Apeldoorn . . .” After that, I told them my story. . . It was funny . .