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On July 16-17, 1942, more than 13,000 Jews were detained in Paris and deported to concentration camps. Many were first sent to the Vélodrome d'Hiver (Vél d'Hiv) stadium in Paris.
Interesting they used French police to do the roundup, I thought that was only in Holland where the SS "outsourced" the collection of jews to local authorities.
That's a scary thought - it wasn't jackbooted Nazi soldiers hunting them down, it was the local cops.
Interesting they used French police to do the roundup, I thought that was only in Holland where the SS "outsourced" the collection of jews to local authorities.
That's a scary thought - it wasn't jackbooted Nazi soldiers hunting them down, it was the local cops.
Much can and has been written about the French police, and other government instruments along with some of French citizens own involvement with the various round-ups and other actions taken against Jews. You can start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vel%27_d%27Hiv_Roundup
Basically German military/Nazis hung back and let French police (who then as now are a branch of France's military), do the nasty work in order to show that the former was not "interfering" in the government of an occupied zone. If you believe that I've a bridge you might want to purchase.....
France never and still has not totally healed over that country's actions towards Jews/part of the Holocaust. It wasn't long into the post WWII years that government and many French (including de Gaulle) wanted to "forget" the whole affair and told people to stop digging up the past.
This goes a long way to explaining why Jews in France are very uneasy with the rise (again) of anti-Semitism including that fueled by increasing numbers of anti-Jewish Muslims. It also explains why despite a good showing and what everyone thought was in the bag win, Mlle Le Pen ultimately lost in her bid to become PM.
On the 70th anniversary of vel d'Hiv, Francois Hollande formally apologized. (2012)
Long time coming, but it did finally happen.
My mother in law lived through that occupation. She was a young woman, in north of France. Her brothers were in the resistance. They did what they felt they could.
On the 70th anniversary of vel d'Hiv, Francois Hollande formally apologized. (2012)
Long time coming, but it did finally happen.
My mother in law lived through that occupation. She was a young woman, in north of France. Her brothers were in the resistance. They did what they felt they could.
Am happy your mother and her siblings managed to make it through. Good for them in doing "what they could".
That it took France nearly one hundred years to "formally apologize" shows just how conflicted that country is still about WWII and the Jews.
On the one had France loves to say they were an "occupied" country and thus had to comply with Nazi dictates. Rubbish. The French state on many levels went along above and beyond to assist in the treatment of Jews within its borders.
Much can and has been written about the French police, and other government instruments along with some of French citizens own involvement with the various round-ups and other actions taken against Jews. You can start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vel%27_d%27Hiv_Roundup
Basically German military/Nazis hung back and let French police (who then as now are a branch of France's military), do the nasty work in order to show that the former was not "interfering" in the government of an occupied zone. If you believe that I've a bridge you might want to purchase.....
France never and still has not totally healed over that country's actions towards Jews/part of the Holocaust. It wasn't long into the post WWII years that government and many French (including de Gaulle) wanted to "forget" the whole affair and told people to stop digging up the past.
This goes a long way to explaining why Jews in France are very uneasy with the rise (again) of anti-Semitism including that fueled by increasing numbers of anti-Jewish Muslims. It also explains why despite a good showing and what everyone thought was in the bag win, Mlle Le Pen ultimately lost in her bid to become PM.
Interesting. There was occupied France, and then there was Vichy France. Vichy was just a puppet state and the police and military and politicians were nothing short of collaborators, I guess I was expecting more from the occupied areas of France, of which Paris was part of.
The Netherlands likewise has never reconciled it's past sins - not only the Dutch police but just about every part of the logistics system of Holland - Dutch trains, Dutch engineers, Dutch administrators, Dutch politicians, Dutch citizens that turned in the jews - was used to send jews to there death. The Gestapo and SS just sat back and let Dutch efficiency do there work for them.
Not to mention Dutch SS divisions.
Am happy your mother and her siblings managed to make it through. Good for them in doing "what they could".
That it took France nearly one hundred years to "formally apologize" shows just how conflicted that country is still about WWII and the Jews.
On the one had France loves to say they were an "occupied" country and thus had to comply with Nazi dictates. Rubbish. The French state on many levels went along above and beyond to assist in the treatment of Jews within its borders.
Mother in law and siblings never talked about it, not even to each other at the time. (she always said she never knew what her brothers were doing) To this day, sensitive subject. Likely for reasons you indicate.
Interesting. There was occupied France, and then there was Vichy France. Vichy was just a puppet state and the police and military and politicians were nothing short of collaborators, I guess I was expecting more from the occupied areas of France, of which Paris was part of.
There are many misconceptions about the Vichy regime, most of them generated by the French themselves. The story concocted and which was widely accepted as the “truth” until recent years, was one of a helpless France being put under the control of an illegitimate, German created government based at Vichy. And Vichy’s leader, Marshal Henri Petain, was no leader at all, but just a senile old man who had become the unwitting puppet of his conniving Nazi overseers. Vichy, they claimed, had no support among the general population, but instead appealed only to the various fringe nationalist and fascist groups in France. Those people were nothing but collaborators and traitors. Real Frenchmen supported Charles de Gaulle, and the Resistance started in the first days of the Occupation.
In actuality, there was nothing illegitimate about the government that evolved into Vichy France. Just before midnight on June 16, 1940, the French Chamber of Deputies assembled at Bordeaux. At that time, Prime Minister Paul Reynaud tendered his resignation. Marshal Petain was elected to replace him, and charged with forming a new government which was to seek an armistice with Germany. Though some elements wished to continue the fight from French territory in North Africa, the majority of those present wanted nothing more than to put a quick end to the hostilities. They, along with Marshal Petain, believed the best way to preserve what remained of the French state as well as French dignity was to immediately sue for peace in hopes of gaining some favorable concessions from Germany. One of the points offered by the Germans in the armistice was that the French were permitted to form their own government in any city they desired, including Paris, to administer the Unoccupied Zone. Additionally, the ability to formulate laws was granted to this government and enforcement of them in both zones would be the responsibility of local authorities, not the Germans.
The signing of the armistice was met with outrage and indignation, not in France, but in England. The armistice clearly violated the agreement reached between the French and British governments at the start of the war that neither nation would pursue or conclude a peace treaty with Germany on their own. Unable to pressure Petain to renege, they searched around for someone to rally the French people and latched on to Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle took to the airwaves from England, proclaiming himself the true “leader” of France, railing against the “traitors” of Vichy, and appealed to the French people to fight on. Yet his words fell on deaf ears. The French population had no desire to shed more blood for what was clearly a lost cause and many expected England to be defeated next. To most Frenchmen, De Gaulle was little more than a pompous, self-aggrandizing buffoon. He had no legitimate claim to lead anything and was merely functioning as a propaganda tool of the British. Still others, Vichy officials included, saw men like De Gaulle as the real traitors, abandoning France in her darkest hour and skittering off to the safety of England to spare themselves the much deserved humiliation of living in a defeated land. These feelings were further reinforced when the British launched their attack upon the French fleet in North Africa, followed later by De Gaulle’s failed attempt to seize control of Dakar in French West Africa.
Vichy was embraced quite warmly by those living in the Unoccupied Zone, and Marshal Petain was extremely popular in the entirety of France. Petain believed France’s defeat was directly attributable to the weak governments that preceded him and the democratic institutions they had established. Granted the power to rule by decree, Petain took the opportunity presented him to launch what he referred to as a new “National Revolution” which would see France transformed into an authoritarian, corporatist state. Convinced Germany would ultimately be victorious, Petain reasoned it was in France’s best interest to be seen by Hitler as an ally, albeit a neutral one. Again, there was no outcry within France over this change of course. The majority of French citizens welcomed the order that Petain’s “National Revolution” promised after the years of chaos and turmoil they suffered during the years of the Third Republic. If there should be any doubt of this, one need only look at the fact that Vichy and to some degree, Petain, did not see a serious decline in public support until nearly two and a half years later in November 1942 when the “Operation Torch” landings took place and the Germans moved into the Unoccupied Zone. It was those two events that finally sparked the formation of the Resistance. After the Liberation and throughout the post-war period, many French trying to escape the taint of “collaboration” created the myth that Vichy and Petain were ALWAYS just puppets of the Germans and nothing more.
The truth is Vichy officials, Petain included, did far more than was expected or required by the Germans under the terms of the armistice. The Germans did not ask Petain to launch a fascist “National Revolution”. They had no desire, as Petain did, to see France become a staunch, but neutral ally in Nazi dominated Europe. It was not at the Germans prompting that Vichy issued their first set of anti-Jewish laws in October 1940. That was Petain’s idea and was motivated by his stated wish to have Vichy laws be “consistent” with those in the Occupied Zone. And lastly, it was Petain and his followers, not the Germans, who insisted that the Vichy political/governmental apparatus continue to actively support German occupation forces after the independent Vichy state ceased to be.
Whether someone qualifies as a traitor or a collaborator is not for me to judge. But there can be little question that many in France, whether they lived in the Occupied or Unoccupied Zones, didn’t exactly have clean hands by war’s end. From the most ardent Vichy adherents to the ordinary citizens who just sat by passively, watching as the local gendarmes helped the Gestapo round up Jews, all share a collective responsibility for what took place in France. And neither a formal apology decades too late nor any amount of creative history writing in the world can change that fact.
On the 70th anniversary of vel d'Hiv, Francois Hollande formally apologized. (2012)
Long time coming, but it did finally happen.
Do you forget Chirac in 1995?
It was 17 years before Francois Hollande.
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