82 years ago today (March 27,
1942) the First Convoy left France for the Auschwitz Death Camp in
German-Occupied Poland. 1,112 French Men were on the First Transport in 1942.
Only 22 of them were still alive in 1945 to return to France.
The Germans and their French
Collaborators took Men first so it would be “easier” to later take the Women
and Children instead of whole Families.
At first the Germans only wanted
to deport Men and Women, but not the Children. The French Vichy Collaborators
insisted that the Children also be deported to the Death Camps so they (the Vichy
Government) wouldn’t have to look after them.
Background: The Germans
Occupied part of Metropolitan France - including Paris - from 1940-1942 and then all of Metropolitan
France from 1942-1944.
The Vichy French Collaborators
with Germany governed the Unoccupied part of Metropolitan France as well as
French North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia), French Africa (Ivory Coast,
Benin, Mali, Guinea, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Togo, Chad,
Central African Republic, Gabon, Cameroon, Madagascar, Djibouti, Mayotte,
Reunion, Comoros), French India (Pondicherry, Mahe, Yanaon), French Middle East
(Syria and Lebanon), the French Caribbean Islands (St. Martin, Guadeloupe,
Martinique, Saint Barthelemy), French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia),
French Guinea in South America and French Oceania (French Polynesia, New
Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna) and the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon off
of Canada from 1940-1942.
In 1942 the Vichy French
Territories in North America, South America, Africa, the Middle East and the
Caribbean were taken over by the Allies and the Free French. The French
Territories in Asia were occupied by the Japanese until their defeat in 1945
and the Germans occupied all of Metropolitan France in 1942 until their defeat
in 1944.
Victims: Of the 340,000
French Jews living in Metropolitan France in 1940 - 75,000 of them were deported to the German
Death Camps where 72,500 of them were murdered. 75% of French Jews survived the
Holocaust because of the French Non-Jewish Resistance Groups, the French-Jewish
Resistance Groups, French-Arab Resistance Groups or by escaping to neutral
Andorra, Spain and Switzerland.
There were 400,000 French Jews
living in French-Morocco, French-Algeria and French-Tunisia in 1940 – those
places being considered part of Metropolitan France until the 1960s.
Sultan Mohammed V of French-Morocco
refused to hand over the Jews in his Territory to either the Vichy French or
the Germans so while Moroccan Jews were legally discriminated against they were
not sent to the Death Camps and the vast majority survived the war.
The Jews in French-Algeria and
French-Tunisia were sent to Forced Labor Camps where many survived.
French Jews in Japanese
Captivity were treated as other White People (not because of their
Religion) and sent to Internment and Concentration Camps where many died from
torture and malnutrition.
The Deportations in France were
carried out by every level of French Society (both in the German-Occupied parts
and the Vichy-French parts.) 90% of the Guards rounding-up the French Jews were
French Policeman with only a handful of Germans supervising (as seen in this
picture of the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup in Paris in July 1942.)
France only fully admitted to
their role in the Holocaust in 2017.
After the War, the new French
Government created the épuration légale (French for 'legal purge') to
bring those who had supported the Vichy Collaborators to justice.
From 1944-1949 6,763 people were sentenced
to death (3,910 in absentia) for treason and other offenses. Only 791
executions were carried out.
49,723 people were found guilty
and given a dégradation nationale ('national degradation') – a loss of Citizenship
privileges (Loss of the right to vote, Exclusion from elected office and public
or semi-public positions, Dishonorable discharge from the military and loss of
all decorations, Exclusion from management positions in businesses, banks, the
press, and broadcasting, Exclusion from all positions in trade unions,
professional organisations, the judiciary, education, journalism, and the
Institut de France and the Loss of the right to keep and bear arms.)
This could last anywhere from 5
years to a person’s whole life depending on their crimes.
High Level Cases:
Philippe Pétain (the Head
of the Vichy Government) was sentenced to death for treason, but was later
given a Life Sentence (with people like Britain’s Queen Mary, US President
Truman and Spain’s Franco trying to get him released.) By 1949 he no longer had
his mental faculties and he died in 1951 at 95 years old.
Pierre Laval (the Prime
Minister of the Vichy Government) was sentenced to death for treason. His
sentence was carried out in October 1945.
Louis Darquier de Pellepoix (the Commissioner
General for Jewish Questions of the Vichy Government) was sentenced to death
for his role in the Holocaust, but he fled to Spain where Franco protected him.
He died in Spain in 1980.
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