MY LETTER TO SENAN MOLONY

Since the airing of the RTÉ tv programme in 2007, and more particularly since the publication of Leentje Folens' book in October 2023, I have felt compelled to write to journalist Senan Molony who played a prominent part in the tv programme.

The programme vilified Albert Folens, who had been my French teacher in Coláiste Mhuire in the early 1960s, and Leentje's book has refuted the allegations made and with concrete evidence.

I reproduce the contents of my letter below.

15/3/24

Senan Molony
Irish Independent
Independent House,
27 - 32 Talbot Street,
Dublin 1,
Ireland
D01 X2E1

Dear Senan Molony

I am writing to you as an outraged former pupil of Albert Folens who was my French teacher in Coláiste Mhuire in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

I assume that you are aware of the recent publication of a book by Folens’ daughter which clearly sets out what he did, and more importantly, what he did not do during WWII and the massive miscarriage of justice which was perpetrated on him by the Belgian authorities and later magnified by the RTÉ programme Hidden History: Ireland’s Nazis in which you played a prominent part.

I am also conscious of your “interview” with Folens of some twenty years earlier, which is referred to in the programme. It appears that this was much less of an interview than a re-traumatisation of an already traumatised victim of WWII.

It is certainly not the kind of journalism I aspired to in my youth.

I would be interested to know if you now have any intention of publicly apologising to the Folens family for the unnecessary trauma you inflicted on that family both before and after Folens’ death.

I also wonder what led to you targeting Folens in the first place.

I expect a reply to this letter. You should treat the letter as not private and in the public domain. I will treat your reply accordingly.

Pól Ó Duibhir

Since I did not receive a reply, or even the courtesy of an acknowledgment, I am now publishing my letter.

I am currently working on a talk on Albert Folens.

THE BOOK LAUNCH

Just feast your eyes on that cover. A real book, and one Leentje has laboured over as a labour of love but also an important statement about her father.

ETHICAL CHOICES REVISITED

Let's start with a few questions:

• Should Vincent Browne have sent an uninformed journalist to interview Albert Folens about his wartime activities when Albert asked for the journalist to be informed and presumably Browne had agreed?

PEELING THE ONION

In 1985 Albert Folens was "interviewed" by a journalist about what he did during WWII. It seems to have been less of an interview and more of an interrogation. The journalist seems to have come "prepared" in that he had already come to the conclusion that he was about to reveal a brutal Nazi war criminal who had penetrated the very heart of Irish society. This was to be the scoop of a lifetime. He was unprepared, however, for what he met.

THE EXTRADITION TREATY

It is often asserted that the lack of an Irish extradition treaty with Belgium influenced post-WWII Flemish and Breton refugees to come to Ireland.

ADOLPH HITLER

My part in his downfall.
(with apologies to Spike Milligan)

Just like Spike, Albert Folens, who made a modest contribution to the defeat of Hitler, could have chosen the above title for his book.

But he died before the book was written and the author, his daughter, chose a genuinely more inspirational title for her book: Albert and Juliette – Love, Loss, Liberty.

IN CAMERA

The Verdict

A very telling aspect of the trial of Albert Folens in 1947 is that much of it was held in camera, that is, in secret or in private, out of the public gaze. The reason given by the court is that airing some of the evidence in public could undermine the Belgian Security Service.

The only part of Folens' evidence which might have been sensitive in this way is the spying missions into the Soviet Zone into which he was blackmailed by the renegade Lieutenant Guy van den Plas.

FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE

Juliette Folens

In the run up to Albert Folens' trial, his wife made a passionate plea to the Prosecuter to treat him gently as Albert's involvement with the Germans resulted from a horrible mistake he had made, based on a misunderstanding. She stressed that in his job working for the Sicherheitdienst he had done his best for his people. This, as we have seen elsewhere, meant mitigating the effects of the occupation on Flemish authors and cooperating with the Flemish Resistance. In doing this he was putting his life on the line.

AN bhFUIL CEAD AGAM DUL AMACH?

Teaching was his passion. He entered the De la Salle Brothers to teach. And he did teach for a number of years, in both Antwerp and Brussels, while with the order. He was inspired by his own original teacher Mr Trifoen at the primary school in his village and in a different way by the nuns at his French-speaking primary school.

LETTER FROM A JOURNALIST

The poster, of course, is a fiction. Albert's photo did feature on Belgian lamp posts after the end of the war when the local police were trying to find him. Their last address for him dated from August 1944 but no trace could be found of him.

When they did eventually find him, it was at a new and unexpected address, Saint-Gilles prison in the heart of Brussels. He had been repatriated there having spent over a year working for the Germans and subsequently for the Allies in the heart of Germany.

LODE ZIELENS AND THE RESISTANCE

Albert Folens had two difficult facts to establish to the Court if he wanted to get any credit for his work with the Resistance.

First he had to show that he had been in contact with Lode Zielens, a well known Flemish author who he said was his contact in the Resistance. Second, he had to show that Zielens was in the Resistance. This was proving very difficult because all of this had been going on under the radar and you didn't keep written records in a situation like this.

FINDING THE BOOKS

Leentje had got the court records and the tv programme had been long out.

There was one element in the tv programme which disturbed me enormously and the court records seemed to place obstacles in the way of rehabilitating Folens.

WAR CRIMINAL, HONORIS CAUSA

The quote below is an extract from the RTÉ tv programme "Hidden History: Ireland's Nazis" transmitted on 16 January 2007.

But Folens remained an elusive figure. However before his death he gave an interview in a Flemish publication in which he described himself as, and I quote, “a war criminal in an honourable cause”. In this article he made a reference to a controversial interview he had given Irish journalist Senan Molony in 1985 about his wartime activities. This interview has never been published or broadcast before, but it and other evidence raises serious questions about how active a Nazi Ireland's leading educational publisher really was.

This is completely outrageous from beginning to end. Reichsminister Goebbels would have been proud of it.

MAY IT PLEASE THE COURT

WAS GRANDPA A NAZI ?

This book was published in 2012 in French and Dutch. It is a guide to what was going on during and after the war in relation to collaboration with the Germans by Belgian nationals. It explains the épuration (purging) that followed immediately after the war, outlining the process in detail, and it explains how to find out if your granda was one such collaborator. It also gives useful hints on how to trace official records.

The perceived need for such a book shows both how widespread collaboration was in Belgium and the desire of a current generation to dig into or face up to their grandparents' past in this regard.

RTÉ LIVELINE

Make no mistake, the image of Albert Folens, perpetrated by RTÉ in 2007 lived on among the Irish public. As late as 2016 (31 March) on Joe Duffy's Liveline programme, which was dealing with the publication of a book on Otto Skorzeny, a phone-in contributor, Michael Parsons, formerly of the Irish Times, included Folens in his list of Nazis. (25m59s)

[Michael] “and, of course, he [Skorzeny] wasn’t the only Nazi who came here, Pieter Menten, Waterford, Clissman, Folens, two business men in Dublin, Artukovic.

[Joe Duffy] “Don’t the Folens family, of book fame subsequently … and he was … and Albert was books as well wasn’t he initially … don’t they vehemently deny that there was any connection between Albert Folens and collaboration … well … anyway.

[Michael] “That’s another story but there was also Artukovic ...

Factcheck:

The family did not deny that Folens was in the Flemish Legion nor that he worked for the German Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service) during WWII. They denied that he was a Nazi, had ever worked in Gestapo HQ in Brussels and that he had never been a member of the Waffen SS. The family were correct in all of this.

A further phone in contribution came towards the end of the programme from Folens' daughter, Leentje. (44m50s)

She had not heard the earlier part of the programme but a relative had phoned her to say her father was being labelled a Nazi. She had the impression that he was being portrayed as a friend of Skorzeny. She came on air in an emotional state and was unprepared for engaging with Joe.

Joe mentioned her father being on the CROWCASS list of suspected war criminals and having been sentenced to 10 years. Also, that her mother had tried to stop a tape of Folens being broadcast.

Leentje defended her father and denied that he was on any list. She didn’t respond to him being a collaborator, but said he wasn’t a Nazi. She didn’t respond to Joe’s assertion that her mother tried to stop a tape of Folens being broadcast. She denied there were ever any allegations against her Dad. She said every single Flemish nationalist was on the list. Joe asks was he not sentenced to 10 years and Leentje ducks a reply by saying she was only born in 1958. She says the allegations made against him were completely untrue.

Factcheck:

Folens was on the CROWCASS list of suspected war criminals. This was basically a shopping list prepared by the Allies for the UN and, in Folens' case, contained material supplied by the Belgian authorities. Inclusion did not mean you were a war criminal. That would be for the courts to decide. Leentje would not have been aware of CROWCASS at that time. She only learned about it when researching her book. Folens' was sentenced to 10 years for treason and collaboration but not for any war crimes. The court took no account of how he ended up in the German military by accident in the first place, and that he was using his collaboration as a cover for clandestinely supporting the Flemish resistance. Leentje was right that the outrageous allegations made against her father, other than serving in the Flemish Legion and collaborating with the Germans, were false and there wasn't a shred of evidence to support them. In fact the opposite was the case.

Her mother, Folens' widow, was not trying to stop the tape being broadcast. She was suing for the right of reply which had been guaranteed to Folens in an agreement in 1985 between himself, the Sunday Tribune, and the journalist who recorded it.

In the course of her contribution Leentje criticised the journalist Senan Molony who had interviewed her father in 1985 and who was a significant contributor to the 2007 tv programme which made Folens out to be a brutal Nazi war criminal.

After the Liveline programme Leentje was contacted by the team and asked to make herself available to face Molony on air on the following day's programme.

However, Molony didn't show and instead Joe Duffy read out the following statement:

“At the close of the programme yesterday comments were made by a contributor about journalist Senan Molony. RTÉ wishes to clarify that those comments were without foundation. Senan Molony is an an informed journalist and an author of the highest integrity and RTÉ regrets any distress that these comments may have caused.”

This is a bit thick. Molony got an apology from RTÉ for Leentje saying her father called him an idiot, but Leentje has never got an apology from either RTÉ or Molony for the vilification of her father on the national airwaves from these two sources.

Since 2016 and particularly in the last few years, Leentje has done a mountain of research and she has now written a book, introducing the real Albert Folens to the Irish people. Albert emerges as a man of honour and integrity, a great teacher and a loving father.

Some people have a lot to be ashamed of.

Update: In checking back on the link in the RTE player today I realised that Leentje's remarks about the journalist had been edited out which, of course, would make a nonsense of the opening statement on the following day, reproduced above. I don't know if this ever appeared on the player as I can't find that day's programme there. Amazing stuff.

Get the book.

The book is available to readers in Europe here, and to those outside Europe, and particularly in the USA here

SPIKED

As part of the settlement agreed today, a statement from Juliette Folens will be broadcast as part of the programme and a short segment will be edited out.

This is how RTÉ reported one element of the settlement arrived at after Albert Folens' widow took the network to court over their intention to broadcast a television programme accusing Albert of having been a brutal Nazi war criminal. Juliette was 83 at this stage. She had first met Albert when she was 19.

THE STOOGE ?

The more I look at all the evidence around the persecution of Albert Folens in Ireland, the more I am convinced there is a bigger game playing out here than I have understood to date.

FUGITIVE IRELAND

Albert Folens wasn't the only political refugee to arrive in Ireland after WWII. There were other Flemings fleeing the retribution of the Belgian state for having collaborated with the Germans during their occupation of their country. There was also a group of Bretons fleeing French retribution. What they had in common was that the state they belonged to had attempted over the years to suppress their Flemish and Breton cultures and languages. They succumbed to German promises to give their countries independence, or some degree of it, after the war if Germany won.

THE TAPE

In 1985 Albert Folens was interviewed by a journalist from the Sunday Tribune who had been alerted to the fact that Albert's wartime experience was a lot more than he pretended. It was possibly known at the time that Albert had been involved in the Flemish Legion, a supposedly independent regiment sponsored by the Waffen SS (the Nazi party's paramilitary wing).

What was certainly not widely known was that Albert had worked for the Sicherheitsdienst, the Nazi intelligence service, albeit in a purely desk job translating newspaper reports and keeping an eye on potentially subversive anti-German Flemish authors.

LEENTJE

Author Leentje Folens
Photo Andrew Watchorn

Leentje has written a wonderfully evocative book about her father, Albert Folens, and her mother, Juliette.

FOLENS' NOTES

An early copy of Folens' Notes

I am very aware of Folens' Notes because I used them in school. They were in a class way above the traditional cog notes where you just learned everything off by heart and regurgitated it at the exam. As we all knew, exams require regurgitation if you're to get the marks, but it does help if you also have some reasonable understanding of what you are dealing with.

PERSPECTIVE

Our Boys vs The Schweinhunden

CONTEXT ! CONTEXT ! CONTEXT !

Something we always have to bear in mind when looking beyond our own inner selves. I am always aware of its importance when I am pursuing my family or my local history. It is a mistake to interpret people's actions from the past in terms of todays knowledge and values. You have to see the world as they saw it and give them credit where credit is due for taking decisions within the options open to them and the background against which they were reared.

BRUGGELING HONORIS CAUSA

Brugge, SPQB, Senatus Populusque Brugiensis
Window in the College of Europe residence
in anticipation of a visit by Napoleon

This post is a little piece of indulgience on my part.

Albert Folens' associations with the Belgian city of Brugge (Bruges) are fairly tentative. His aunt was a nun there. He nearly ended up in prison there. And some of his relations live there today.

My own associations with the city are somewhat stronger.

HIDDEN HISTORY: IRELAND'S NAZIS What they got wrong

Fictional Albert Folens in zany uniform

The tv programme was screened by RTÉ on 16 January 2007, fronted by Cathal O'Shannon, and by God did they get a lot wrong. These were not mistakes but a conscious effort to cast Folens in the worst light possible.

THE NAME "ENGLISH"

Cover of Albert's 1958 book "Aiséirí Flóndrais"

Albert was very taken with the similarity between the Celtic and the Flemish cross and he puzzled over this for a number of years. He finally came up with an explanation of his own and it seemed quite logical, so he included it in the book he published in Irish in 1958.

THE BEE STING

"Some Nazis had fled to Ireland after the war. The big Irish schoolbook company was founded by a Nazi.That was another reason the education system was bullshit" he said.

The quote is from Paul Murray's latest novel "The Bee Sting" and it is uttered by a vacuous youth trying to impress his girlfriend when he finally managed to get his tongue out of her mouth.

UNDER FIRE

Bombed out area of Göttingen at the end of WWII

Albert's first encounter with being under fire was not personal. It was not him who was under direct fire. It was the brewer's three sons in his native village of Bissegem in Flanders, Belgium. They died in an Allied air attack on the village during WWI and their memory lives on in the company of the Battle of the Golden Spurs and The Lion of Flanders. These all imbued the local youngsters with a spirit of patriotism and a hate of the French and of the English bombers.

OF FLEMISH AND CELTIC CROSSES

Just in case you think I exaggerate when I say the Belgian state was attempting to suppress Flemish culture and language, you might just be convinced by this example which draws on Leentje's book.

GULDENSPOORENSLAG

Monument to the Battle of the Golden Spurs
Markt Brugge (Bruges)

The Battle of the Golden Spurs (Dutch: Guldenspoorenslag) was a military confrontation between the royal army of France and rebellious forces of the County of Flanders on 11 July 1302 during the Franco-Flemish War (1297–1305). It took place near the town of Kortrijk (Courtrai) in modern-day Belgium and resulted in an unexpected victory for the Flemish. It is sometimes referred to as the Battle of Courtrai.

AISÉIRÍ FLÓNDRAIS

Albert published this book in 1958 in response to a request from two prominent Irish speakers. The idea was to outline the struggle to achieve equal status for the Flemish language with that of French. They felt this might be useful to those campaigning for the revival of the Irish language in Ireland.