Free Republic

According to a article in German that was published in the German magazine "Der Spiegel" the ruthless French nazi-collaborator Maurice Papon died in the age of 96 years on February 17, 2007. As secretary general of the prefecture Bordeaux Papon signed orders for the imprisonment and deportation or the jews in that area. Altogether there were 76.000 jews -among them 12.000 kids- arrested in France and displaced into the concentration camps of the nazis. Only 2.500 survived the Holocaust. Papon is definitly responsible for the deportation of 1,560 Jewish men, women and children. The majority were sent directly to detention...

Maurice Papon - a former French police chief imprisoned for his role in sending Jews to Nazi death camps - is to be set free on health grounds. A French appeals court ordered the release of Papon, who was jailed in 1999 for complicity in crimes against humanity for the deportation of 1,600 Jews. The court accepted two medical reports which concluded that the 92-year-old - whose career flourished after the war - was virtually incapacitated and should be set free. Papon was the highest-ranking French official to be sentenced for helping the Nazis and his six-month trial reopened painful...