Karen#1
Well-known member
[Paulette and her sister Suzy]
We had a pleasant conversation yesterday with Paulette Cooper, the person who is the inspiration for pretty much everything we do here at the Underground Bunker, and the subject of our book The Unbreakable Miss Lovely.
“Miss Lovely” was Scientology’s code name for Paulette in the years that its spy wing, the Guardian’s Office, was trying to destroy her for daring to write an early book about L. Ron Hubbard and his strange organization, The Scandal of Scientology.
When we set out to write about Paulette, it was already well known that she had been targeted with one of the most harrowing of Scientology’s retaliation campaigns. We really enjoyed working with her and interviewing others and reviewing records to piece together just how much the Guardian’s Office and later the Office of Special Affairs had put her through from 1969 to nearly the day our book came out.
It’s always a treat to catch up with Paulette. She and her husband Paul Noble live in Palm Beach, Florida, and she tells us they are slowing down a bit now and don’t go out as much. But she continues to follow the news here and elsewhere about Scientology.
Beyond the intense Scientology “Fair Game” plots against Paulette that we had investigated with her, we were also fortunate to help her learn more about another part of her life that had been something of a mystery: How she had survived the Holocaust as a child.
She was born in Antwerp, Belgium under Nazi occupation, and both of her parents were killed at Auschwitz while Paulette and her sister Suzy ended up in an orphanage. We helped her piece together how she had managed to survive that experience so that she could be adopted by a New York couple, the Coopers, after the war.
After our book came out, Paulette and her sister continued to learn more about those years, and she was even reunited with a friend from the orphanage. And now, she told us there had even been more news about her days in Belgium…
There is a remarkable group in Europe who goes around and marks the homes where Jews were seized during the Holocaust, placing permanent plaques there so that no one will ever forget what happened at those addresses.
My parents’ home in Belgium—where they were arrested before being deported to Auschwitz and murdered—was chosen this year as one of those places of remembrance.
On May 17, a special ceremony was held in Belgium to honor them. (By coincidence, it was also Paul and my 38th wedding anniversary.)
Now, a permanent plaque bearing my parents’ names and the date they were taken away is affixed to what was once their home.
Today, on my birthday, I find myself thinking of them. I like to believe that, as they were being led away, they would have derived some satisfaction had they known that their two little daughters, my sister Suzy and I, would survive for over 80 years, and still be here to honor them, remember them, and ensure that their lives—and the terrible injustice they endured—are never forgotten.
What a piece of news to get from her on this auspicious occasion. Happy Birthday, Paulette, and thank you again for letting us all into your remarkable life.
[Paulette at Idlewild Airport on her first day in America, August 18, 1948]
[Paulette at about 8, already determined to become a writer.]
[Paulette in high school.]
[Paulette and Jackie O, captured by a New York Post photographer.]
Happy birthday to Miss Lovely: Paulette Cooper remains dauntless and defiant!
We had a pleasant conversation yesterday with Paulette Cooper, the person who is the inspiration for pretty much everything we do here at the Underground Bunker, and the subject of our book The Unbreakable Miss Lovely.
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