Posted on 12/29/2015 4:48:29 PM PST by SJackson
FILES detailing French collaboration in the murder of 76,000 Jews were made public for the first time yesterday after being locked away since the end of the Second World War.
The secret archives were opened as France faces up to its Nazi shame.
They relate to the so-called Vichy regime, led by Marshal Philippe Petain from 1940 to 1944 after the country's defeat by Hitler's Germany.
There was often enthusiastic collaboration with the Nazis by French police and paramilitaries during the Holocaust
Jews were rounded up as "enemies of the state" and sent to death camps in Germany.
Yes, the criminal folly of the occupiers was seconded by the French - by the French state
Many victims came from major cities including Paris, where occupying German forces worked closely with local officials.
Others came from the so-called "free zone" in southern France, which was at first unoccupied and from where Petain ran his puppet government in the spa town of Vichy.
A new decree says the newly opened archives can be "freely consulted" by civil servants and historical researchers - "subject to the declassification of documents covered by national defence secrecy rules".
Among the files will be disturbing evidence that French Jews were pinpointed and then betrayed.
Names of those responsible will be listed.
It comes six years after the French Council of State, the country's highest judicial body, said the Vichy government "held responsibility" for deportations and they could not solely be blamed on the Germans.
It ruled that Nazi officials did not force the French to betray their fellow citizens but anti-Semitic persecution was carried out willingly - by organisations including the Paris police and SNCF, the national railway.
Post-war French governments had previously refused to acknowledge any Vichy role in the Holocaust.
The Council of State ruling in 2009 called for a "solemn recognition of the state's responsibility and of collective prejudice suffered" by the deportees.
But it said there would be no payments for survivors or for the families of victims.
Lawyers around the world, especially in the US and Israel, are working to change that.
During his term of office, which ended in 2007, President Jacques Chirac made the most outspoken reference so far by a French head of state to involvement in the Holocaust.
He said: "These dark hours forever sully our history and are an insult to our past and our traditions.
"Yes, the criminal folly of the occupiers was seconded by the French - by the French state."
Today France has western Europe's largest Jewish community, with around 500,000 people.
Many of them still complain of discrimination and persecution and claim anti-Semitism remains prevalent in the country.
The British and the French were the ones who had treaties with Poland and did nothing. (what could they do?) The US was neutral.
This has been a very open “secret” since the war.
Part of the reason they welcomed Muslim immigrants is that they also hate Jews. The laugh’s on them (and soon to be on us as we take more,)
ping
There is a memorial for the Jews France betrayed. It is across from Notre Dame but not well publicized. I visited it and found it stark and moving.
Westerplatte, where the Polish Garrison held out for seven days before surrendering, the Germans respected them so much they allowed the Polish soldiers to keep their sabres.
They were counting on the Russians to at least oppose the Germans, once they signed the Non-Aggression Pact, it was moot.
France & Britain tried; we watched. Does nobody else find irony in our propping up the USSR, Hitler’s partner in dividing Poland? They killed people, too; just different groups than the Nazis did.
In the early days of Fascist Italy there were many Jews in Mussolini’s government, his “anti-semitism” came with heavy pressure from the Nazis, who really didn’t even respect Mussolini at all.
They declared war, and less than a year later France lost that war. The neutrality of the US should serve to silence American critics of Europeans (who couldn’t choose neutrality) who were faced with a decision between Nazism and Bolshevism.
And Stalin hated the Jews as much as Hitler did, I'm sure he didn't mind the favor Hitler did for him in taking care of the Russian's "Jewish Problem", before defeating him.
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Jews did run the Banking, and legal professions in Italy.
They have been there since the early first century.
I’m not sure about that, the USSR had plenty of Jews, and as I understand it they had it better then when they lived under the Tsars.
The biography of the famed jet constructor Marcel Bloch Dassault is the most telling. French did not lift a finger to get him out of Buchenwald. After the war, he changed his surname to Dassault explaining that he learned very well who the French really are.
You might find it hard to believe, but there was a time when every war on the face of the earth was not considered to automatically involve us.
And while you have a case of the fainting vapors over Poland, you say nothing of Ethiopia. You think we should have intervened in Ethiopia when Italy invaded?
For perspective, Poland as a nation had existed about 20 years in 1939. From 1815 until Versailles in 1918, most of it fell it fell under the Russian Czars and under Prussian rule starting with Fredrick II.
In WWI 21 years before, 38 million people had died. America saw Germany and Russia invading Poland and disliked it, but basically saw it as restoring the pre WWI territory they had claimed for 200 years.
While Britain and France, had alliances, there was no way America was up for going to war over Poland. No more than we would have over Ethiopia.
And remember, you are looking at hindsight. Katyn was carefully hidden for a few more years. The holocaust was in its infancy and was also hidden.
Its bullcrap for you to say America did nothing.
“The neutrality of the US should serve to silence American critics of Europeans”
Not really. Don’t forget, at Versailles, we tried for a very different outcome to the peace. The Euros flipped us the finger and went for the full revenge route on Germany.
So yeah, not our problem to clean up the Euro mess in 39 which the Brits and French created with the vengeful behavior at Versailles. We were totally justified in neutrality at that moment. Up until Japan attacked us and Hitler declared war on us. (Japan, a WWI ally flipped off by the Euros at Versailles and given no German possessions in the Pacific when the spoils were divided up)
A battalion of French SS soldiers were the last defenders of Hitler’s bunker as the Ruskies yanked the noose on Berlin. I’m willing to bet that 1/4 to 1/3 of the Nazi war machine consisted of fascist leaning volunteers from the conquered countries. They all had 5th columnist and sympathizers. Hell, we had the German-American Bund, Britain had Oswald Mosely’s British Union of Fascists and there were a handfull of American citizens in the Weremacht.
Read “Fellow Travellers of the Right” by Richard Griffiths, a well researched scholarly expose of the various British factions that supported Mussolini and Hitler. Most were Tory conservatives and aristocracy. This book names the names. Rudolf Hess knew damned well what he was doing and flew to Scotland on Hitler’s orders to meet with the Duke of Hamilton, a closet Hitler lover. Hitler held up his drive on Dunkirk, waiting for the outcome of Hess’ mission. Churchill had a serious struggle overcoming the aristocracy’s intransigent Tory “pacifists”.
“Ten Days to Destiny: The Secret Story of the Hess Peace Initiative & British Efforts to Strike a Deal with Hitler”
by John Edmond Costello
About the only Occupied Country during WWII that can be proud of there conduct toward their Jewish citizens are the Danes. Just before the Germans were to start rounding up the Danish Jews, the Danes ferried over 7,000 Danish Jews to Sweden. Not only did the help the Jews escape, the Danish citizens protected and tended to the property and businesses of their Jewish neighbors. When they returned after the war, their property was returned to them in the condition that the left it in. The Danish government actively intercede for the few hundred Danish Jews arrested by the German. As a result, Danish Jews were sent to a concentration camp in German and not to the death camps in Poland. As a result of the actions of the Danish citizens and Government, 99% of Danish Jews survived the war.
My mistake, the Danish Jews were sent to Theresienstadt Concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. This camp was probably the mildest of the camps. The Danish government arranged for the International Red Cross to inspect the camp and the Germans allowed that to happen. The camp probably had the lowest percentages of deaths of any in the German system. It was no garden but considerably better than camps like Buchenwald.
You admitted we did nothing but justified it; I don’t even care that we avoided the war, but think we should reserve judgment of those who couldn’t.
Katyn was documented by the Red Cross as being perpetrated by the Soviets DURING THE WAR. They knew immediately (from the victims’ clothing) when it had happened, and told the world so at the time. Germany was the one who initially sounded the alarm, and 50 years later the USSR admitted they had done it.
Like Margherita Sarfatti, his highly effective propaganda advisor, biographer and mistress. Mussolini didn’t bow to Hitler’s pressure till 1938 with the Manifesto of Race, until then Jews were welcome in government and politics. And weren’t rounded up until Italy surrendered in 1943 and Mussolini fled north to head a puppet government.
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