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Special Report
The Henchmen of Yesteryear
Releasing France’s Holocaust archives — all of which should be available on the Internet in 2015.
In the aftermath of the Allied liberation of France, the poet Louis Aragon, mimicking his medieval forebear François Villon while channeling a despondent collaborator in the 1945 ballad “The Snows of Sigmaringen,” famously asked not “Where are the snows of yesteryear?” but “Where are my henchmen of yesteryear [Où sont mes sbires d’autrefois]?” It appears that Aragon’s question will finally be answered in full, albeit 70 years after the restoration of the French Republic, as it has recently been announced that in 2015 the classified police archives on French collaboration with the Nazi authorities will be exposed to the light of day. No longer to be confined to cardboard boxes ensconced in the basement of the Parisian Musée des Collections Historiques de la Préfecture de Police, these documents, including thousands of names, police logs, and interviews relating to this parlous era in French history, are to be scanned and made available on the Internet as soon as the 75-year post-war classification order (which on passage was made retroactive to 1940) has run its course.
Though few of the Nazi abettors and Vichystes named in the files will be among the living by the time the archives appear online in their unexpurgated form, the publication of these Second World War-era annals nevertheless will represent a significant event in a country that has long been engaged in a Gallic counterpart to Germany’s so-called Vergangenheitsbewältigung, or “struggle to come to terms with the past.” It was a struggle that began with the bloody post-war épurations (judicial and extrajudicial purges), continued over the subsequent decades, and figures to extend to 2015 and beyond, intermittently capturing the attention of the nation, the continent, and the world.
The French body politic has long come in for criticism for its handling of the legacies of the period between 1940 and 1944, and with good reason. It is genuinely astounding that François Mitterrand, the 21st president of the French Republic, could ever have insisted that France “was never involved” in the discrimination against and deportation of its Jewish population. One need only have considered the events surrounding the infamous mid-July 1942 Rafle du Vélodrome d’Hiver (the Vel’ d’Hiv Police Roundup), in which French gendarmes and civil servants were complicit in the detention and deportation of some 13,152 men, women, and children bound for Auschwitz, or the administrative actions of Louis Darquier de Pellepoix, the odious Vichy Commissioner of Jewish Affairs, to know better than to maintain such a position.
Such outrageous historical myopia was (and is) only a few steps removed from outright negationism, and constituted a profound disservice to the French nation. As Tony Judt put it, “the tortured, long-denied and serially incomplete memory of France’s war – of the Vichy regime and its complicitous, pro-active role in Nazi projects, above all the Final Solution…back-shadowed all of Europe’s post-war efforts to come to terms with World War Two and the Holocaust.” Measures like the release of the Préfecture de Police archives are meant to dispel the “shadow of a lie” cast by statements like that of Mitterrand, or the government suppression of the broadcast of Marcel Ophuls’ 1969 revelatory documentary Le Chagrin et la Pitié (The Sorrow and the Anger). Much work has had to be done. Even as late as 1976, the French Ministry of Veterans’ Affairs was requesting changes to a memorial for French victims at Auschwitz on the grounds that the listed names “lacked a properly French resonance,” while in 2005 the French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy was reported to have queried, during an official visit to Yad Vashem, whether English Jews were also deported to death camps. Events like these gave the distinct impression that the realities of the Holocaust had yet to fully penetrate the French psyche.
Previous efforts, to be fair, had been made to address the legacy of French collaborationism, including the extrajudicial justice meted out to between 8,000 and 9,000 individuals in the immediate aftermath of the war, and the 300,000 official investigations and 124,613 sentences passed down (including 6,763 death sentences, 767 of which were carried out, and the stripping of civil rights of 5,000 more). Yet the “Jewish dimension” was all to often ignored, and it was only decades later, from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, that the most notorious of the anti-Semitic collaborators — Klaus Barbie, Paul Touvier, René Bousquet, and Jean Leguay — would be investigated and tried. By 1990 the tide was turning, as evidenced by the Gayssot Act, which (controversially from a free-speech standpoint) made Holocaust denial a criminal offense, and by 1995 President Jacques Chirac had publicly admitted that those “black hours will stain our history forever and are an injury to our past and our traditions.” France, “home of the Enlightenment and the Rights of Man,” had committed “the irreparable,” but the reckoning had begun in earnest.
By 1999 a Commission pour l’indemnisation des victimes de spoliations (Commission for the Compensation of Victims of Spoliation) had been founded, which over the following decade would award €453,428,986 to claimants, with an average of €28,700 per application. Claims for reparations would lead to the seminal Conseil d’État (Counsel of State) decision on February 16, 2009 (N° 315499) concerning the damages of “Mme Madeleine A” and “M. Joseph B,” in which the executive branch officially acknowledged its “state responsibility” for the “absolute break with the values and principles [rupture absolue avec les valeurs et principes]” of the republic that occurred during the years of the Occupation. Moreover, the Council of State called for monetary awards to be supplemented by a “solemn remembrance of the collective harm suffered by those victims [reconnaissance solennelle du préjudice collectivement subi par ces personnes]” on the part of the French government and its people. It is hoped that the release of the police archives will enable policymakers, researchers, and ordinary citizens to accomplish precisely that.
One notes with interest the noticeable up-tick of interest in this era of French history during what is now the 70th anniversary of the German invasion. The historian and member of the Académie française Pierre Nora has gone so far as to denounce the ongoing “obsession commemorative” that has led to bookstore display shelves groaning under stacks of freshly-published studies of the la défaite française, including Claude Quétel’s L’Impardonnable défaite (The Unpardonable Defeat) and Jacques Sapir, Frank Stora and Loïc Mahé’s Et si la France avait continué la guerre… (And if France had continued the war…). In a country whose reading public has in recent years voraciously devoured Suite française and other rediscovered masterpieces of the French novelist and Holocaust victim Irène Némirovsky, and whose populace (excepting Jean-Marie Le Pen and his Holocaust-denying ilk) have exhibited a newfound readiness to grapple with the legacy of the Final Solution in France, it would seem that a corner has been turned.
While anti-Semitism remains a serious concern in modern France, with the Jewish Community Protection Service reporting 832 anti-Semitic incidents in France in 2009, as compared with 474 such incidents in 2008, and while Franco-Israeli relations are prone to diplomatic friction and irritation, one imagines that a complete reckoning of the crimes committed during the Occupation, a reckoning enabled by the release of the police archives, will help ensure that those “henchmen of yesteryear” are named and shamed (however belatedly). They can then, as Aragon hoped, posthumously “head away to shame.” The present-day French body politic can only benefit from such an accounting. As former Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin admitted in a 2005 speech at the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, France “is bound forever by the debt she has incurred,” but any action that serves in some small way to discharge that debt is to be welcomed.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (46) | Leave a comment
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Ken (Old Texican)| 7.13.10 @ 9:37AM
Mr. Omolesky,
Thank you for that article.
One thing comes to my mind, is the French seemingly laying down for the Islamics. Is France destined to be the center of Eurabia?
Alan Brooks| 7.13.10 @ 12:34PM
The French are great tacticians; starting with Napoleon and culminating with 'Reverse Offensive' in 1940: attacking in the OPPOSITE direction from the enemy.
Truly ingenious!
Doctor Right| 7.13.10 @ 9:44AM
"...the Jewish Community Protection Service reporting 832 anti-Semitic incidents in France in 2009, as compared with 474 such incidents in 2008..."
You can bet your last dollar that this large increase in anti-Semitic incidents in France emanates almost entirely from the entrenched Muslim population that lives within their borders...
...Bet on it.
Mimi| 7.13.10 @ 10:18AM
Yes sir: We have the enemy from with-out.... who insist on world-wide Sharia Law! We have the enemy from with-IN who wish to destroy our liberties! The constitutional converts of late,.. The Patriots, the young, old, rich,poor....Have thier work cut out for them ... to restore this republic, it's beautiful unique,way of freedom and Democracy. The cause is urgent!!!
Nate| 7.13.10 @ 4:15PM
The "enemy from within" who "stabs our troops in the back" was a classic trope of the Nazis. Who writes your stuff Mimi?
Nate's Mom| 7.14.10 @ 7:50AM
Na-a-a-a-ate!
consolidated edison conservati| 7.14.10 @ 12:47AM
Actually a french poll found that 79 percent of the french think jews are disloyal to france. My sister has been living in the north for 13 years and says Jews are almost universally despised among the under 30 crowd.The french see War with Iran as Jewish manipulation of their government on behalf of Israel. Its getting bad in france for Jews and the muslim population has vnothing to do with it, they are marginalized and live in ghettos far removed from the politiical activism in france.Its a shame that france is now dangerous for the jews.Bless them and be blessed I was taught. We are seeing the beginnings of this activity in america also among the ron paul followers who openly state that jews spy on us,incite muslims by killing their women and children and then america is attacked for supporting israel,they say aipac is pushing us into war with iran and jewish media is complicit, they openly condem candidates they say are slaves to the jewish lobby and call them traitors. We need to make sure the paul nazis dont become a political force in 2012 or jews will be banned from media and government just like in germany.
Christopher Holland| 7.14.10 @ 2:08AM
The ball just got volleyed back to you, Nate. Care to smash this one over the fence and into the parking lot?
nicolas ziener/Grenoble France| 7.15.10 @ 2:00PM
Are you crazy ?
- our president is of jewish origin (father)
- a great number of our media people are declared jews
- a solid number of our top party (left & right) politicians are declared jews
- an even more solid number of bankers & company leaders are jews
- you find a lot of jewish people in the health sector
I could go on forever
I wonder where your sister has seen a jewish gettho in France ????? This one really baffles me.....
Chris B | 7.13.10 @ 10:01AM
A minor quibble. Why include Barbie ( a German) with Bousquet, Touvier, etc?
Chris B | 7.13.10 @ 10:01AM
A minor quibble. Why include Barbie ( a German) with Bousquet, Touvier, etc?
KyMouse| 7.13.10 @ 10:35AM
My father, an Army captain on Guadalcanal in WWII, had a favorite response whenever he heard someone taking credit when they didn't deserve it, or rewriting history:
"Sure. And every Frenchman was in the Resistance."
And after the war, it turned out that every German had wanted Hitler overthrown. Sure.
I wish Dad were alive to see these documents.
loulou| 7.13.10 @ 10:52AM
Right, they were all in the Resistance.
Just like the Germans who either hid Jews OR didn't know about the atrocities.
Maxwell| 7.13.10 @ 1:50PM
Remins me of a saying I many times see on my gun forums, French gun for sale , never use, dropped once.
Alan Brooks| 7.13.10 @ 3:10PM
"French gun for sale , never use, dropped once. "
or
'Gun fired towards the West, to frighten civilians away from the line of retreat.'
Tim*| 7.13.10 @ 11:07AM
Dad was there . He led his troopers into Paris before Le Clerc's column could get in. France awarded him The Croix de Guerre .
Later in the war , his recon & ranger troopers were first to liberate one of the Nazi concentration camps along The First Army line of march.
RCV| 7.15.10 @ 7:15PM
Kudos to your Dad. Mine served in Normandy and then in Antwerp during the massive German bombardment of that city which lasted about 6 months, for which he received a commendation from the Belgian government.
Ned| 7.13.10 @ 10:44AM
From the article"
While anti-Semitism remains a serious concern in modern France, with the Jewish Community Protection Service reporting 832 anti-Semitic incidents in France in 2009, as compared with 474 such incidents in 2008,
Yes, but how many of these incidents are the result of attacks by the angry youths of France.
The Real Ned is off this week| 7.13.10 @ 1:27PM
and who is it that so blithely usurps my nom de plume...?
Ned| 7.13.10 @ 5:56PM
I am the real Ned. However, I have noticed someone using my name. I'm a hick in flyover country Utah. Perhaps I should sign Ned of Utah or Ned the Red. We were at one time the reddest state in the union and my county was the reddest in the state.
ACynic| 7.13.10 @ 12:01PM
A visit to the French military museum in Paris would lead one to believe that France won WWII with mimimal help from the UK and USA, and that there was widespread resistance to the Nazi occupation during WWII - which there was not.
Many in France were sympathetic to the social and economic policies of the Nazis during WWII, but none of them liked being occupied by the Germans. After all, Hitler was in fact a socialist, and his policies were socialist.
As for widespread knowledge within Germany of the death camps, I do not believe this is true, but most likely many Germans "heard things." Recall that the Nazis had total control of the media, and any "subversives" were immediately arrested. If you find this hard to believe, just look at how the media today in the USA will NOT report on anything that is remotely negative about Obama's past or present, or negative about "left-progressive" policies.
It was this intentional and concerted effort by the media to promote Obama, and ridicule or minimize his past, that helped Obama get elected; the media helped CREATE an image and a story that was simply a lie. AND IT WORKED!
And this despite the internet and talk radio.
Most folks never give due credit to the power and effectiveness of propaganda
BH| 7.13.10 @ 3:08PM
Pres. Jacques Chirac's shock at the injury to his country's past & traditions is a hallower only a frenchmen can come up with. Hey Jac, France was the modern birthplace of state terror against it's own people. Remember Robespierre & the Jacobins ? The Nazis & commies did & followed your historical example.
Dasboot| 7.15.10 @ 3:06PM
Exactly. Not only that, France perpetrated the Rwandan holocaust in 1994 with their Hutu Power puppet regime. 800,000 innocents were killed thanks to French funding and military support. It was cruel beyond imagining. So screw France.
Alan Brooks| 7.13.10 @ 3:13PM
When danger reared its ugly head,
he bravely turned his tail and fled.
Brave brave brave brave Sir Robin
Tim*| 7.13.10 @ 4:01PM
Charles Martel , Charlemagne ,William the Conquerer , Henry IV , Turenne , Marechal Luxembourg , Vauban , Lafayette , Michel Ney , Napolean Bonaparte , Ferdinand Foch , Jacques Joffre , Marichal Tassigny .....
Do Your Homework !
Le Cracquere| 7.13.10 @ 6:09PM
If your goal was to throw France's modern-day cowardice and collaborationism into the sharpest possible relief, congrats! Hell, the Greeks had Agamemnon, Alcibiades, and Belisarius. Which is about as relevant to the courage and military readiness of modern Greece as your examples are to the issues at hand.
And rather than neglect my homework, I'll even help you with yours: your list of French military heroes is inexplicably missing Pétain.
Tim*| 7.13.10 @ 7:54PM
Apparently , your lack of of military history has rendered you irrelevant Monsieur Le Cui .
I left off a number od French Military Heroes for expediency sake from Louis Franchet d'Esperey ,to Bazaine ,to Patrice MacMahon ,to Davout ,etc.....
And French Victories from Allia in Gaul ,to Frankish Soissons , to Tours , to Hastings ,to Orleans , to Yorktown with American Forces , to The Napoleanic Victories , to The First Marne ,to ,to Ypres , to Verdun , to Belleau Woods with American Forces ,To Chateau Thierry with greater American Forces , to Koufra .to Operation Dragoon ,to Participation in Normandy .....
I left out numerous French Victories ,again for expediency sake .
Tim*| 7.13.10 @ 8:29PM
Aaaand :
The Gulf War : The second largest European contingent was France, which committed 18,000 troops. Operating on the left flank of the U.S. XVIII Airborne Corps, the main French army force was the 6th Light Armoured Division.
Afghanistan :
France dispatched its first soldier to Afghanistan in December 2001, and currently has roughly 2,800 in country.
After several years of enduring Americans’ scorn for sitting out the Iraq campaign, the French military is going toe-to-toe with the Taliban, shedding blood and proving a worthy partner in Afghanistan, U.S. officers say.
While some knock the French for not empowering junior officers more or being aggressive enough in some instances, U.S. servicemembers serving with them northeast of Kabul generally spoke well of their ally.
“When they do get into battles, they fight it out,” observed U.S. Army Capt. Dave Disi, who has been on more than 35 missions with the French military.
Christopher Holland| 7.14.10 @ 2:12AM
The caveat 'when they did get into battles' is noticeable. This definitely looks like a case of damning with faint praise.
ExPat| 7.16.10 @ 2:05AM
Monsieur, you forgot Gen Leclerc, executioner of unarmed German POW's in 1945.
Nate| 7.13.10 @ 4:13PM
Are there any pictures of Obama, Pelosi, and the other Nazis who now control our country in this archive?
If not, what will Beck's explanation be?
blackwatch| 7.14.10 @ 2:15PM
Simple. Obama and Pelosi are not French.
geez for a libtard you sure are dumb.
Clinton nee Publius | 7.13.10 @ 6:29PM
At the core of this rotten apple we find ourselves in the position of having to deal with socialists supporting socialists - each eager to feed the maul of the socialist machine with victims who were viewed as "enemies of world socialism".
The French were in a hopeless position - their political leadership had, more or less, decided to embrace socialism as they willingly ignored the shortcomings and embraced the hype coming from Germany and Russia before the war even started. Socialists thought that other socialists wouldn't attack one another and yet we find that something entirely different was in the offing.
The explanations for the shortcomings have to be carefully contrived and the accountability has to be some other day as accountability and world socialism are not compatible under the best of circumstances and when we look at World War II, we see socialism and the liberal-progressive movement at one of its worst possible states of operation.
And yet we decided to ignore these inconvenient truths in favor of the idea that we can find the "right leader" to make world socialism actually deliver real prosperity instead of the need to find an increasing number of scapegoats to attempt to deflect away accountability for that which cannot be made to work.
Today we stand at the edge of the great abyss into which freedom, liberty and the pursuit of individuality shall be cast into a growing darkness of despair in the name of creating equality for those who have no interest in creating anything other than more leisure time for their own benefit and at our own exclusive risk and expense. Indeed, each new round of "blamonomics" only finds more "enemies of freedom" that must be brought into the sphere of government control where they can be safely eliminated. Just as was the case in the 1920's, 30's, 40's and 50's we find the search for more scapegoats underway to explain away that which cannot be made to work. Currently, we blame George Bush - a progressive who thought he was doing the right thing by doing the wrong thing - for all the shortcomings of the new progressive system. When that fails we will have to blame all Republicans and that will only sustain us for a few years before people demand real accountability. When Germany faced this challenge they turned to an intercontinental war to fight the imagined enemy that was preventing progress. This legacy has been repeated with wars being waged by Cuba, Russia, Angola, Vietnam, North Korea and China. In each case a human and economic disaster followed that could only be quelled by yet more scapegoats.
The real question is not if there will be another great war waged in the name of the goals of the world socialism conspirators, but when it will occur and all the reflection on the crimes of the past will avail us no good at all if we do not come to terms with what is really happening before our very eyes.
Cav Trooper| 7.14.10 @ 8:52AM
Well said
WAKE UP| 7.13.10 @ 10:20PM
Those who didn't live through defeat and occupation (fates that the USA has never suffered) can't quite know what daily life-and-death was actually like, from collaboration, to indifference, to true heroism in the face of the enemy. These archives may help to give a truer picture; and until then, we are speculating somewhat.
Meantime, to give something of the taste of possible defeat-and-occupation: WHAT ARE YOU DOING ABOUT THE MOSQUE AT GROUND ZERO. Collaborating? Indifferent? Resisting?
frances farmer| 7.14.10 @ 12:54AM
What are You doing about THIS......google 200 israeli spies posing as art students infiltrated national security sites around america" go ahead google it.
WAKE UP| 7.14.10 @ 1:47AM
...and they're going to do what ? ( assuming they exist)
-------------------
ps: "frances farmer" ...what an interesting choice of nom-de-plume
Wake up America| 7.14.10 @ 9:40AM
Jewish spies should be hung in the town square as a message to the rest of them who are loyal to israel.
Frog In Uniform| 7.14.10 @ 12:32PM
Quote:"...the Jewish Community Protection Service reporting 832 anti-Semitic incidents in France in 2009, as compared with 474 such incidents in 2008..."
You can bet your last dollar that this large increase in anti-Semitic incidents in France emanates almost entirely from the entrenched Muslim population that lives within their borders...
...Bet on it. "
Right On, Doc! I'm glad you're more in touch with french history than with the catholic religion.
There is no more antisemitism in France, because for a starter, Jews are nowhere to be seen. Less than 300.000 are currently living in my country and while they are visible in arts, science and politics, you would hardly meet one in person.
Quote:"Actually a french poll found that 79 percent of the french think jews are disloyal to france. My sister has been living in the north for 13 years and says Jews are almost universally despised among the under 30 crowd.The french see War with Iran as Jewish manipulation of their government on behalf of Israel. Its getting bad in france for Jews and the muslim population has nothing to do with it"
That's plain horsecrap. where was that poll taken? In Marseille, where the muslims jam traffic 5 times a day when they pray? Or in the North ,where your sister live, that is overcrowded with muslims?
Catholics don't burn synagogues, harass jews or insult them in rap songs laced with arabic slang, if your sister can't tell the difference between a french and an arab, she's ready to move to the USA where the people couldn't tell the difference between a muslim liberal born in Kenya and an African-American gentleman.
Quote: "The caveat 'when they did get into battles' is noticeable. This definitely looks like a case of damning with faint praise."
No faint praise, as I previously wrote on another post, we are good fighters but we have a real problem with politicians and high ranking officers. They are the ones who tell us when to fight or not. Believe me, let loose our special forces and airborne regiments in Afghanistan, give us full air support and with our experience of the algerian war, which we won and DeGaulle lost, Afghanistan would speak french in less than one year (just kidding, french takes more time to learn.)
Quote:"French gun for sale , never use, dropped once. "
or
'Gun fired towards the West, to frighten civilians away from the line of retreat."
That's also mean b.s., the beaches in Dunkirk were covered with british rifles and equipment when they left France in a hurry in June 1940 and as many french soldiers died between May and June 1940 than in any of the worst months of WW I...
I happen to like you guys, as much as I love your country. We may be arrogant at times, but you're waaay over confident. If you really believe the shit we're experiencing in France will never happen in your country, I have a big steel pylon for sale, just in the center of Paris. Very cheap. Only cash. No checks, please.
God Bless America.
Frog In Uniform| 7.14.10 @ 1:44PM
Can TAS arrange to get a wider Leave A Comment window? This one is so narrow and tiny, it wouldn't even fit Le Car ;+)
bernardo| 7.14.10 @ 6:00PM
It is not much of surprise that the French are anti-Semitic today. France has long been anti-Semitic. In the first years of the 20th Century before World War I, it was France, not Germany, that was the European country (except for Russia) that was most known for its anti-Semitism including the Dreyfus affair.
Neither is it a surprise that the French dishonestly pervert history and boorishly insult the memory of their actual British, Canadian, and American liberators by distorting the facts of 1944-1945. They are, after all, a nation of people capable of claiming with a straight face that Bonaparte was no tyrant but rather a sadly misunderstood fellow who was only trying to bring liberty, equality, and fraternity to a benighted Europe.
For our own good and the good of the world and of civilization itself, we had to save the French in 1944, because doing so was the only way to defeat the Nazis. However, if at some remote future date, (non-Nazi) Germans try to take France over again, there will be a strong temptation to say let ‘em.
Dasboot| 7.15.10 @ 3:09PM
We definitely need to leave the French to defend themselves next time.
Frog In Uniform| 7.16.10 @ 7:34AM
I just can't speak for the whole french people, but most agree that, despite being a military genious and a real politician, Bonaparte also was a tyrant, a dictator with tactics more suited to the former revolution army officer he was and a real nuisance to the whole Europe. Spain and Italy still blame us for the havoc he wrought there...
I do no believe we're rewriting History regarding WWII, the left is, just as it does in any country where there's a left, so what else is new. In a way, you're right: although I'm a patriot, I definitely think France needs a good war, it will either wake Her up or teach her a good lesson. For the time being, I would be satisfied with a good civil war, Bosnia style, as we sure have to right some wrongs and settle some accounts.