Wartime Detention in France:
Drancy and Les Milles
Tessa Bouwman Thesis supervisor: dr. K.C. Berkhoff
10156011 Second reader: Dr. N. Immler
MA Holocaust and Genocide Studies University of Amsterdam
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Index
Acknowledgments……….……….. …i
Introduction………..ii
Thesis statement and objectives………..………ii
Historiography………..………..iii
I Drancy and Les Milles, 1930s-1944……….………1
Drancy………...………..1
Les Milles………...………….9
II Politics of memory in France………..16
Vichy Syndrome………..16
From Jacques Chirac to Nicolas Sarkozy………21
III Drancy 1944-1987……….…….24
IV Drancy 1988-2012……….…….31
V Les Milles 1944- 2012………..….. 36
VI Drancy and Camp des Milles in traditional and social media since 2012……..42
Conclusion………..……….……47
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Acknowledgements
This master’s thesis would not have been possible without the support of my supervisor dr. Karel Berkhoff, who has given me useful advice and who has encouraged me to challenge myself in finding the information I needed. I would also like to thank the rest of NIOD staff for the often thought-provoking courses and lectures, which have further enriched my knowledge and sparked my interest.
I also need to thank Noémie Tajszeydler, head of the documentation center in the Drancy memorial. When I first visited Drancy, she welcomed me with great enthusiasm and she has been very eager to help me find literature and answer my questions. Due to my difficulties in contacting other French institutions, it was great to have someone helping me and giving me advice. I am also grateful for the people working at the Memorial de la Shoah in Paris, who have helped me obtaining some interesting documents and who have given me advice on the topics of my research.
I also want to thank my classmates for the discussions, serious talks but above all the fun we have had. It is great to be able to talk to people who are indulging themselves in the same material and to be able to speak freely about subjects others rather want to skip. This is why I am also very grateful to my family and to my girlfriend Sarah. Even when my rants about the Holocaust, France then, and France now must have been hard to endure, they gave me their support and distracted me when I needed it.
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Introduction
The role of France in World War II has been much discussed and disputed. While the country ‘collaborated’ with the German oppressor in the Vichy regime, there was also resistance by the famous Charles de Gaulle. This resistance was emphasized in the early postwar years, when De Gaulle became France’s new president and the French perceived themselves as heroes who freed themselves from the German yoke. However, when one looks in detail at the events during the war years, one could conclude that the degree of collaboration with the Germans and the indifference towards the fate of the Jews was more remarkable than most French are willing to admit. Many anti-Semitic measures were taken and often even proposed by the French government. France also housed a large number of camps that were used to incarcerate Jews before their deportation eastwards. The fact that these camps were often under French command with only minor interventions by the Germans, sparked my interest. The French played a big role within their own country in arresting, interning, and deporting Jews and this is most likely a factor that causes difficulties. In this thesis I want to look at this remembrance of the Nazi past in France, by looking at two case studies: Drancy (just outside of Paris) and Les Milles (just outside of Marseille), which both housed internment camps for Jews, and political prisoners. .
Thesis statement and objectives
I want to focus on the history of the two locations, during wartime but most importantly after the war. I will do this by using secondary literature on the history of the camps, but also by using primary sources such as testimonies by Jews that were incarcerated and are therefore able to describe the inner workings of the camps in more detail. The first chapter, which will deal with the wartime history of the camps will be written in a describing fashion: I will not provide a detailed comparison between the two.
In the second chapter I will explore the “Vichy syndrome”, a term coined by the historian Henry Rousso. I also want to examine to what extent we can see the general French
developments in politics of memory at work in Drancy and Les Milles. In chapters three up to five, I will discuss the postwar history of the sites by focusing on the presence or absence of memorialization efforts and I will reflect upon the state of the memorialization process. In the sixth chapter I will elaborate on how the two sites have been featured in the media since 2012, looking both at traditional media and social media. In the conclusion I hope to be able to
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formulate an answer to my most important research question: why has it taken so long at both sites for a memorial center or museum to be established?
Historiography
Various works have been published on the internment of the Jews, starting directly after the war in the late forties. They were mostly autobiographical and written by people who had been incarcerated in one of the camps. Later on, more research was done using these
testimonies and supplementing them with other sources. In this historiographical overview I would like to discuss some of the works that have been published on the war-time history of Drancy and Les Milles and I will briefly discuss available eyewitness accounts and works on memory studies in France that could help to successfully conduct this research.
Drancy during World War II
One of the first works that was published on war-time Drancy was George Wellers’ De
Drancy à Auschwitz. In this book that first appeared in 1946, Wellers describes the camp
throughout the years. The first part is dedicated to the history of the camp and its different commanders (Donnecker, Röthke and Brunner), while the second part contains stories of people who were incarcerated in the camp. Because the book is based upon Wellers’ personal experiences and those of others, the information is presumably very accurate and can help to successfully reconstruct the camp’s functions during the war. The book was edited and republished in the 1970s under the title L’Étoile jaune à l’heure de Vichy: de Drancy à
Auschwitz. It might be useful to compare the two editions to see what was changed.
Another work that was written by a former Drancy internee is Drancy 1941: camp
de represailles. In this book Noël Calef describes his time in the transit camp in the second
half of 1941, when it had just been opened. He was one of the 4223 Jewish men that were arrested in August 1941 and brought to Drancy. After a few months he was released, thanks to the work of Italian diplomats, and went to Italy where soon he was incarcerated again in some Italian camps. He started working on a manuscript about his time in Drancy that was first published in Italian in 1945 and was later edited and translated into French. Although the book is written novel-style, it contains useful information about the first months of the camp and the circumstances the men had to live in.
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The French edition of Calef’s book contains a preface by Serge Klarsfeld. This French-Jewish author, historian and lawyer has spent his live hunting down Nazi criminals together with his wife Beate. He has also been actively involved in keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive and making sure the French state would acknowledge her role in the deportation and murder of the Jews. He published le Mémorial de la déportation des Juifs de France in which he lists the victims of the Holocaust in France. Furthermore he has delivered a detailed four-volume account on the deportations between September 1942 and August 1944 in France. His work is very useful as it contains a lot of factual information such as names and numbers of victims but also documents that illustrate the decision-making processes at work during the war years in France.
Maurice Rajsfus has provided the academic world with another work on the history of Drancy. His book starts with a description of the first months of the Drancy camp. It shows how those first months were characterized by famine and disease and it contains statistics on the illnesses that proliferated in the camp. Furthermore, it contains of a list that shows how many internees of a certain nationality were incarcerated in the camp: it shows that in
December 1941, the biggest group was that of Polish Jews, followed by Turks and Russians. 1 Then the book focuses on the camp’s administration that was in the hands of the French in the first years. It describes the attitude of the gendarmes and their views towards the Jewish question. The next few chapters deal with Drancy as a transit camp describe the circumstances in the camp, the Jewish administration that was set up, and the constitution of the
deportations. The fourth part of the book describes the camp under the command of Alois Brunner and the SS. This part also deals with people who escaped and the final months and the liberation of Drancy.
Another relevant study is Annette Wieviorka’s A l’intérieur du camp de Drancy. This work is divided in four parts which successively deal with Drancy as a camp de
represailles; Drancy as a transit camp; Drancy as a concentration camp; and Drancy after the
liberation of France in 1944. The book does not only provide detailed information, but also contains some interesting photographs that give us a better insight in camp life. The fact that some of the pictures were taken for German propaganda efforts, shows that here the Nazis also tried to cover up a cruel reality.
1Maurice Rajsfus, Drancy: un camp de concentration très ordinaire 1941-1944, Paris: La Cherche midi éditeur
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When looking in detail at wartime photographs of Drancy, one can find both pictures taken illegally and photos within a program of propaganda by the Germans. Most pictures are available in the archives of the CDJC and some can also be found when searching the internet. It is not always clear who took the pictures, but they can help to imagine the circumstances in the camp by visualizing it.
Les Milles during World War II
The history of Camp des Milles is an interesting one, but unfortunately hardly any works have been published yet that thoroughly discuss the camp’s history. André Fontaine has written the most complete work on the history of the camp and the identity of the internees. Fontaine was a French historian who has received acclaim through his work on the Cold War, in which he claims that it already started in 1917. He worked as a journalist and editor for various written sources such as Le Monde and Le Temps Present. He died in March 2013. His book, however a bit unstructured at times, provides some interesting insights and gives an impression of life in the camp. Another work, which discusses the history of the internment camps in the southern zone more generally, also includes an account by Fontaine in which he gives a short overview of the history that focuses more extensively on the cultural life in the camp. These works will provide the basis for my historical research on the camp, accompanied by smaller accounts in books about the internment of Jews in France and the collaboration of French police officials more generally.
Another source that could be useful are the memoires of Simone Veil, French lawyer and politician and former president of the European Parliament. During the war she was incarcerated in both Les Milles and Drancy before being deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen, where she was liberated. Since Veil is such an important persona in French political and social life, she might have felt the need to share her story with as many people as possible to prevent other crimes against humanity from happening.
When searching for wartime photos of Camp des Milles it becomes clear that there are remarkably less pictures available. There are a few snapshots of internees assembled on the court in front of the factory building, but there are hardly any photos that show the insides of the camp. This might be because the French were trying to hide the existence of the camp and propaganda pictures were not taken since the Germans had nothing to do with the camp’s administration.
vi Politics of memory in France
The main work I will use to provide an insight into the French politics of memory after the war is Henry Rousso’s The Vichy Syndrome: History and memory in France since 1944. In this work, Rousso gives an overview of the memorialization of the Holocaust in France after 1944, focusing on political decisions and commemoration ceremonies. He distinguishes four phases in the dealing with the past. In the second chapter, I will elaborate on his theory and further describe the phases he uses in his work. I feel his ideas can be used to contextualize the memorialization processes in Drancy and Les Milles. Another book by Henry Rousso and Eric Conan namely Vichy, un passé qui ne passe pas (1994), will also be used to further clarify some of the statements made in The Vichy syndrome and for more specific information on lieux de mémoire. It will also be helpful in explaining and understanding why research has sometimes not been as extensive and it is sometimes difficult to access archives as an
outsider.
One of the works that will prove to be useful in the reconstruction of the postwar politics of memory is Joan Wolf’s Harnessing the Holocaust, which shows how the Holocaust has continuously been a source for controversy in French politics. Her main argument is that the Holocaust developed from a Jewish trauma into a metaphor for other forms of
discrimination, oppression and victimization. Wolf also seems to suggest that just like other issues concerning Jews, the debate on the Holocaust provided of a prism to discuss the meaning and definition of French citizenship.
Post-war history and memorialization of Drancy
The memorialization of Drancy has received some attention in journals and books on memory studies in general. Wieviorka’s work contains a part dedicated to what she calls ‘Drancy after Drancy’, thus the history of the place after the liberation. This will be helpful to reconstruct some of the phases in the memorialization process. Another work that deals with the
memorialization of Drancy is The Claims of Memory (1999) by Caroline Wiedmer. She discusses German monuments, but also Drancy and the Vélodrome d’Hiver and discusses the development of the memorial in Paris and explains its meaning. I will take further information from documents I have encountered during my research in the CDJC archives and the
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Both the wartime history and the years after the war in Drancy have been discussed in
documentaries and films. The first one is Drancy: A Concentration Camp in Paris 1941-1944, created by Stephen Trombley. This documentary that was released in 1994 informs on the time the Cité de la Muette was used a camp and it also includes footage of interviews held with inhabitants of the Cité de la Muette in the 1980s and 1990s. It was positively received and was reviewed by The Guardian and the Boston Globe. The film is praised for its eye-opening qualities on showing how the French took it upon themselves to help the Germans with the Final Solution. ‘Even in France, the story of Drancy and its crimes is little known, or perhaps, deliberately forgotten’, mentions The Guardian. This film has definitely tried to do something about this ignorance and amnesia, but to what extent remains to be researched.
Another film that focuses on the ‘aftermath’ of the Drancy camp is Drancy Avenir, created by Arnaud des Pallières in 1996. This film is built around a history student
investigating the Cité de la Muette and discovering that the camp is still used as a low-rent housing complex. She then goes on to conjugate the story of the Holocaust in the present. According to reviews in Le Monde, the movie can be seen as emblematic for the third
generation, since it takes place entirely in the present. It is even compared to Resnais’s Nuit et
brouillard and Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah.. This film could be very useful in reconstructing
some of the more recent developments in Drancy and the extent to which the people living in the Cité de la Muette still feel a certain burden of the past in their daily lives.
A third movie that I want to mention here is Cité la Muette by Sabrina Van Tassel. It was released in May 2015 and it is made with the questions in mind that did also encourage me to further research this place: why are there still people living in those buildings and who are they? And why did it take so long for a museum to be established at the site? It is already quite telling that Van Tassel only just heard of the existence of the camp in 2010, when she was doing research for another movie she was producing at the time. Apparently, the camp’s history does not belong to French common knowledge, not even for people belonging to the third generation. Since the movie was praised and it was selected for a few foreign film festivals, I expect it to contain some thought-provoking imagery and discussions.
Post-war history and memorialization of Les Milles
Because Les Milles was ‘forgotten’ for many years and the memorialization process started fairly late, it is difficult to find information on this subject. One book, Mémoire du Camp des
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appeared in 2007 directed by Philippe Mioche, will be useful to construct the post-war years of Les Milles and the reopening of the factory in the late 1940s is De la terre et des hommes. This book discusses the history of the tile factory from its opening in the late 19th century
until its closure in 2006. It traces the factory’s highs and lows and discusses its workers, products and projects. It will be an interesting book to get an insight in the events taking place on the former camp grounds after the war and the way the war years were still visible, being thought about or mentioned when the factory was up and running again. Hopefully these works will provide sufficient information for reconstructing the camp’s post-war history. In 1995, a movie titled Les Milles was released. Featuring well-known American actress Kristin Scott Thomas, the movie was dealing with the month of May 1940, when the invasion of the Germans was near and commandant Perrochon was preparing to evacuate the internees to Bayonne. YouTube futures a short clip of the film and various reviews are available for reading online. Unfortunately, I was not able to find the movie in full, but the fact the movie was produced is in itself an interesting fact.
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I Drancy and Les Milles, 1930s – 1944
Drancy and Les Milles are both smaller communities situated near a big city: Drancy in les
banlieues of Paris and Les Milles in the region around Marseille. During the war, the two
places would have something else in common, namely their important role in the detention and deportation of Jews. In this chapter I will allude on the camps’ war-time history and their function in the Holocaust.
Drancy
In the 1920s the municipality of Drancy, just outside Paris, was a small city with about 25.000 inhabitants. Due to World War I, there was a housing crisis and Paris was trying to find a solution for this problem that was becoming increasingly urgent. In 1928, a law was adopted that had to regulate the creation of housing that would be affordable for everyone (HBM, habitations à bon marché). The HBM committee planned the creation of twelve housing blocks spread throughout the Parisian banlieues. The Cité de La Muette was one of them and is now considered to be the first ‘grand ensemble’ (mass housing development) in France. The cité was designed by Eugène Beaudouin and Marcel Lods who were famous modernist
architects, often using technically bold and socially progressive schemes in their work. 2 In the initial plans, the Cité de la Muette would consist of five sixteen-story towers with ten smaller buildings around them, one being the U-shaped grande cour which would later house the internment camp. These buildings would together comprise 1250 apartment units. The fact that the French city projects were planned in the banlieues is no coincidence. Its creators believed that a living environment could influence and shape people’s behavior, instill certain values and produce a new kind of working class. This was exactly what they were hoping for when creating their cite-jardins. 3
The housing project was obstructed by an economic crisis and workers’ strikes in 1934 and it became clear that the social utopia might not be reachable after all. People
considered the apartments to be too small and they felt like they were trapped in some kind of enclave, since the buildings were not easily accessible by public transport. Furthermore, the
2 Pieter Uyttenhove, ‘From ‘grand ensemble’ to architectural heritage, from concentration camp to memorial: the
mass housing project of the Cité de la Muette in Drancy’, in: Architektúra & Urbanizmus (2012) vol. 2-4 pp. 160-179 p. 163
3 Alise Hansen, ‘A Lieu d’Histoire, a Lieu de Mémoire, and a Lieu de Vie: The Multidirectional Potential of the
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committee had not thought about creating new schooling opportunities for the children of the new families. These problems caused delay in the utilization of the complex as housing. They did however create a place where people could be imprisoned and that is what the Cité de la Muette was assigned to as of 1939. 4
In October 1939, the Cité de la Muette was transformed into a camp that housed communist militants that were suspected of being agents of the Fifth Column. At that time, the French managed the premises up until the moment when the Germans took over the camp and turned it into Frontstalag III. Up until the autumn of 1940, the camp was used for the imprisonment of French POWs and civil British internees. The latter were seen by the
German authorities as actors of the enemy’s power. The camp worked in close proximity with the nearby fort at Romainville aux Lilas, which had the same administration, and another
Frontstalag in Saint-Denis that also housed British internees. 5 In the spring of 1941, the Nazis were thinking about turning Drancy into a camp where Jews from within the occupied zone would be assembled before being deported to the East. This wish was quickly turned into reality when Drancy was given its new function by the Gestapo: Abwanderungslager, meaning transit camp. 6 The U-shaped building or horseshoe was seen as a very practical location for the camp, since for its closure one only needed to put up a fence at the open side of the U. So it happened. Furthermore, four watchtowers were built in the corners and double barbed wire was erected around the building.7 The young SS officer Theodor Dannecker was entrusted with the running of the camp, but it remained to be guarded by the French police.
Internment of Jewish men and women, August 1941 – June 1942
The 20th of August 1941 is an important date in the history of the camp. On that day, a big round-up was started in Paris which lasted for several days. It was decided upon by the German authorities as a means of prevention for communist revolts that could happen caused by the invasion of the Soviet Union. The Germans issued a decree to the prefectural police of the 11th arrondissement to close off every road leading to that specific part of the city and to arrest 5784 Jewish men from 15 to 50 years old. 8 This would have to be executed by the
4 Annette Wieviorka, A l’intérieur du camp de Drancy, Paris: Perrin 2012 pp. 12-17
5 Thomas Fontaine, Benoit Pouvreau, ‘La camp de la cité de la Muette à Drancy, 1941-1944’, in: Lieux
d’histoire et de mémoire de la déportation en Seine-Saint-Denis (2004) no. 37 pp. 1-11 pp. 2-3
6 Maurice Rajsfus, Drancy: un camp de concentration très ordinaire 1941-1944, Paris: Le Cherche Midi 2012
pp. 33-34
7 Uyttenhove, ‘From ‘grand ensemble’ to architectural heritage, from concentration camp to memorial’ p. 170 8 Annette Wieviorka, A l’intérieur du camp de Drancy, p. 21
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Parisian police, assisted by Feldgendarmes. In total, a sum of 2400 men were cooperating in the arrests. Since the prefectural police had established precise data on the whereabouts of Jewish citizens, the policemen were given a list of names and addresses and knocked on the doors. They made men on the street identify themselves as well and when their identity card stated they were Jews, they would be arrested too. The men were assembled at the police stations with a few items they had been allowed to pack. 9 Afterwards, they were taken to Drancy.
In the late afternoon of the 20th, it became clear that the Nazis were not content with the amount of Jews arrested on this first occasion. In the following days, more Jews were assembled in other Parisian quarters. This time, men from 14 to 72 years old were targeted and the round-up would take place all over Paris. The fact that French Jews as well as veterans were arrested, can be seen in the light of the development of the war. In June,
Germany had invaded Russia and since then communist groups had been spreading pamphlets and planning manifestations. The assassination of German Marine Corps Moser by Pierre Georges (who would become Colonel Fabien) showed the strategy that the communist (youth) groups were planning to follow from then on: armed resistance. The shooting of this marine official and fear for upheaval caused the Nazis to arrest this great amount of Jewish men as a reprisal on the one hand, and a presumable deterrent on the other. Since Jews were seen as being part of a ‘Judeobolshevist’ complot, they were the first group to be targeted. Between the 20th and the 25th of August, 4200 men were arrested and deported to Drancy in buses
provided by the public transport organization STCRP and cars owned by individuals. 10
In his account on the round-up of August 1941, Serge Klarsfeld includes some interesting comments on the reactions of the Parisian population on the events. It becomes clear that while many people were indifferent, people were mainly opposing the fact that Jews who were First World War veterans or Jews with the French nationality were also arrested. The deportation of foreign Jews was less worrisome to them. This shows how the French were perhaps not as much anti-Semitist as they were xenophobic and nationalistic. 11 The internees were immediately informed on the fact that the camp would be under military commandment and therefore they would have to act accordingly. Every attempt at escaping or
9 Annette Wieviorka, A l’intérieur du camp de Drancy, p. 21 10 Ibidem, pp. 23-26
11 Serge Klarsfeld, ‘La Rafle du 20 Aout 1941 et la création du camp de Drancy’ (extract from Vichy-Auschwitz
(1942) no. 1 published in 1983) Read in: Noel Calef, Drancy 1941: Camp de represailles, Drancy la faim, Paris: FFDJF 1991 pp. XV-XIX
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any other act would be punished severely. It was forbidden for the internees to communicate with people outside the camp walls and they would have to obey the camp personnel. The first attempt of the internees to organize themselves was already taken in the first weeks. The camp was divided in five blocks, consisting altogether of twenty-two staircases. Every staircase would pick its own leader and among these leaders, five block leaders would be picked. 12 This immediately caused a hierarchy and organization, even though the Nazis and the French authorities were still mostly improvising.
Those first months can be characterized as overall misery. The internees were confined to their rooms. The only time were they would get out, was when they had to stand outside for the hour-long appeals or when they had to use the bathroom. Because electricity had not been installed yet in the rooms or anywhere else, people were mostly living in the dark. Natural light was blocked by the blinding of the windows. Another poignant matter was that of food rations. The internees had not been receiving sufficient food from the start, but the situation started to be alarming by the end of the month. It has been stated that the famine that was obviously developing, was an attempt by the Nazis and French collaborators to exterminate the Jews. According to Wieviorka, we cannot judge this without being biased by hindsight. While she thinks that the decision to kill the Jews (if it is even possible to pinpoint this moment in time) was presumably taken in 1942, this was probably not an attempt at killing, but more an inability or unwillingness to take care of 5000 people with little means. 13
As of November 1941, Drancy was used as a place where the authorities would take hostages who they would execute or deport as forms of reprisal answering to the attacks and other actions of the resistance. Since the Jews and communists were perceived to be the masterminds behind the resistance, they were to be held responsible. The first deportations were planned in December 1941, when the first convoy consisting of 1000 men would be deported from Drancy. Unfortunately for the French planning these deportations, there were no means for transportation available, since these were all being used for the deportation of German Jews into the East.14 The first deportation of Jews ‘only’ happened in March 1942 and was prepared in the camp without the internees knowing. It consisted of 1112 French Jews taken from Drancy and the Compiègne-Royallieu camp who were perceived to be fit to work and it was not a part of the Final Solution. It was a measure of reprisal against the
12 Rajsfus, Drancy: un camp de concentration très ordinaire 1941-1944 p. 44 13 Annette Wieviorka, A l’intérieur du camp de Drancy pp. 34-37
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attacks perpetrated by the (communist) resistance. From that moment on, the internees knew that they could be selected for deportation any time.15
Transit camp, July 1942 – July 1943
The Vél d’Hiv round-up that took place on the 16th and 17th of July 1942 marked a new phase
in the existence of the Drancy camp. Early in the morning of Thursday the 16th of July, police officers, assisted by young Frenchmen part of the Parti populaire français, arrived in different Parisian quarters with police cars and accompanied by autobuses. They started violently knocking on Jewish families’ doors, ordering them to pack some of their belongings and follow them. Some people did not open the door, which led the policemen to forcibly opening them. A few others committed suicide before the police could arrest them, often by jumping out of their house’s windows. 16
From that moment on, Drancy would be used as a transit camp and it would house females and children as well. 17 In this phase, the camp’s keys were in the hands of the Nazis, but the camp’s administration was entirely French.18 Weeks before the planned round-up,
preparations began to make the camp suitable as a transit camp and to make sure the round-up and the deportations afterwards would happen rapidly and in an orderly fashion. 19 During the
round-up, men and women that were alone or couples without children would be interned in Drancy; the families would be housed in the Vélodrome, from where they would be deported to camps in the Loiret. There the children would be separated from their parents: the French wanted to deport them as well, but there was no green light from Berlin yet to do this. The children were thus left behind waiting for the unknown. On the 30th of July, they were
deported from the Loiret camps to Drancy after their parents had already left on convoys to the East. Many of them were suffering from diseases such as dysentery due to the bad hygienic circumstances. The doctors incarcerated in the camp tried to take care of these fragile beings, but this proved to be very difficult. 20 On the 14th of August 1941, the first convoy consisting of children departed from Drancy. About 80 children between the ages of 4
15 Annette Wieviorka, A l’intérieur du camp de Drancy,, pp. 116-118
16 Claude Levy, Paul Tillard eds., La grande rafle du Vel d’Hiv, Paris: Robert Laffont 1967 pp. 37-39 17 Annette Wieviorka, A l’intérieur du camp de Drancy, p. 131
18 Ibidem, p. 147 19 Ibidem, p. 141 20 Ibidem, pp. 160-165
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and 15 were deported together with adults from the free zone that had also been transferred to Drancy in the weeks before.
After these chaotic weeks and months, it seemed like the camp became calmer. Georges Wellers, internee and author of De Drancy à Auschwitz, an interesting account on his years in Drancy, has called it ‘délassement géneral’ which can be translated as relaxation. Internees would talk about their post-war lives and fantasize about what they would do. Something that was also new was the organization of recreational activities such as
conferences and musical and comedic performances. People were hoping that deportations would not happen anymore and they adjusted to life in the camp.21 Their hope for survival was increased due to the transfer and release of internees organized by the UGIF (Union
générale des israélites de France). These releases were not completely random. It were often
people with a certain status or profession that was perceived as useful and important to the French. As of July 1942 for example, some artists and their families were released. Other groups that were released or at least transferred were old people and children. They would often be housed in the Rothschild hospital and some of its extensions.22
The situation seemed to be rather safe for people in the winter of 1942 and hope for the end of the war and no more deportations was rather strong. Unfortunately, the internees had been deceived. In February 1943, a second cycle of deportations was started. At the end of January, the German ministry of Transportation gave its permission to arrest all
‘deportable’ Jews and transport them to Drancy. On the 9th of February a convoy consisting of
mainly foreign women and children was deported to Auschwitz, where most people were killed upon arrival. 23 At this time, the deportations did happen in the context of the Final Solution and they were encouraged by the Nazis, while before the French organized them themselves. In this second cycle, it was much more difficult to evade deportation or to get liberated. One of the only ways to save yourself was to pay Georges Montandon, doctor and ethnologist, to examine you and to let him decide whether you really had the ‘typical’ Jewish features or whether you were ‘accidentally’ arrested. While not many people had the financial means to consult Montandon, this option was only available to the wealthier amongst the internees. 24
21 Annette Wieviorka, A l’intérieur du camp de Drancy,, p. 183 22 Ibidem, pp. 195-203
23 Ibidem, p. 209 24 Ibidem, pp. 212-213
7 Concentration camp, July 1943 – August 1944
On the 9th of May 1943, Alois Brunner was installed by Eichmann to accelerate the
deportation of the French Jews to the East and he can therefore be seen as the one responsible for the solution to the ‘Jewish question’ in France. 25 In his efforts to accelerate the
deportation, Drancy was an essential factor and thus he wanted to reorganize the camp. Firstly, he made some changes to the administration. The representatives of the prefectural French police were from that moment on exclusively responsible for the guarding of the outside. The SS would take up the tasks inside the camp. The group of guards was minimized to 150, led by three officers. Secondly, Brunner took some measures that concerned the camp space. He made some changes to the square and the buildings. 26 Thirdly, Brunner did not speak about deportations, but about evacuations: this made it sound less mortal and would lead people to take their belongings and depart in a calm and orderly fashion. He also
abolished the searching of people’s luggage and from July onwards people would be deported from the Bobigny train station instead of the Bourget station. Fontaine and Pouvreau attribute this to the fact this station was more functional and above all more discrete.27 The main reason however must have been the fact that the Bourget train station had been damaged by allied bombings. 28
The changes by Brunner were accompanied by a new regime of terror. When the internees would see a German official, they would have to stand still. Even the smallest misstep was severely punished. Brunner also came up with a categorization of internees. They would be divided into groups with a letter from A to F, with category C further being divided into C1 to C5.29 The organization of the camp was however around three important
categories: the youpins, the Jews and the Israelites. The first group was concentrated in the right wing of the camp: they were the foreign Jews categorized as deportable. They were closest to the entrance of the camp, which made their deportation easier. The left wing of the camp was meant for the Jews, meaning people who were still waiting to be identified as Jews or people that were protected in some way. The third group, the Israelites, was housed in the central part of the camp. These people had assimilated in French society and had not seen
25 Annette Wieviorka, A l’intérieur du camp de, p. 217 26 Ibidem, p. 219
27 Fontaine, Pouvreau, ‘La camp de la cité de la Muette à Drancy, 1941-1944’ p. 8
28 Martin Winstone, De Holocaustmonumenten van Europa, Amersfoort: BBNC 2014 p. 42 29 Annette Wieviorka, Dans l’intérieur du camp de Drancy, p. 219
8
themselves as Jews until Vichy categorized them as such.30 Before someone’s status was
rather fixed, but under Brunner someone could become ‘deportable’ within the blink of an eye.31 It was thus possible for people to move between different parts of the camp.
Although the camp’s command became rather strict and even terror-like, internees still tried to escape. The most well-known and interesting example in the case of Drancy is that of the tunnel. On the 15th of September a group of internees started digging a tunnel, beginning with a cave right under the office of lieutenant-colonel Blum who knew about the efforts. About 70 people participated in the digging, but there was a core group of fourteen men. 32 They would work in teams of three men and during the night, helped by camp functionaries who had the keys to the catacombs of the camp buildings. They were planning on digging a tunnel with a height of about 1.20 meters and a width of about 70 centimeters and two kilometers in length. It is not entirely clear whether the people who started the attempt at evasion were planning to only save themselves or bigger groups of internees. 33 Unfortunately for them, the entrance of the tunnel was discovered by the Germans.
Liberation
As of the 11th of August 1944, tension arose in the camp. The allies were approaching and
some of the other Parisian camps had been emptied already. Brunner wanted to constitute a last convoy and planned it but due to the sabotage of railways he could not execute his
wishes. Feeling trapped and not being able to deport the Jews, the camp’s administration files were burned and Brunner fled, accompanied by the SS men present in the camp and 51 hostages, of whom 40 were political delinquents.34 Although some people believe the camp
was liberated by Jewish armed resistance, as is mentioned by Rajsfus, the true story is thus not as heroic. In fact, Alois Brunner and his SS men left by themselves. They ordered the French to take over the commandment of the camp, which they would take up again after they would return. They never did. 35
After the departure of Brunner, the internees in the Drancy camp and people that were incarcerated in prisons and hospitals around Paris fell under the responsibility of Raoul
30 Annette Wieviorka, Dans l’intérieur du camp de Drancy, pp. 275-276
31 Fontaine, Pouvreau, ‘La camp de la cité de la Muette à Drancy, 1941-1944’ p. 9 32 Rajsfus, Drancy: un camp de concentration très ordinaire 1941-1944 p. 324 33 Annette Wieviorka, Dans l’intérieur du camp de Drancy p. 284
34 Ibidem, pp. 303-304
9
Nordling, the general consul of Sweden. As he first visited the camp, the internees could not believe they had been liberated. The Red Cross and the UGIF worked together to house the internees, often at locations that had been used for the assembling of Jews and Jewish orphans. Upon departure from Drancy, every internee be in the possession of luggage, some money, a new alimentation card and a certificate signed by the Red Cross and representatives of the prefectural police, which proved they had been liberated from the camp. The last internees left the camp in the 20th of August 1944.
After the liberation of Paris, a great amount of people was arrested on suspicion of acts of collaboration. They were housed in places where the Jews had used to be incarcerated. Drancy was also used as a place where collaborators would be held captive. The prefectural police again became responsible for the commanding and guarding of the camp. Quickly after the camp became the Drancy des collabos, protest arose since these ‘traitors’ were living in far better circumstances than had the internees under the Vichy regime. The Drancy
municipality issued their complaints on the 21st of October of 1944. They proposed to have all the guards removed and only hire guards who had been former internees of prisons and camps of Vichy. They aimed to adjust treatment of collaborators which was not nearly as inhumane as had been the treatment of the Jewish internees during the war. 36
Les Milles
In the 1930s Les Milles was a typical small French village in the Provence. It was situated near Marseille and a part of the Aix-en-Provence municipality. If one would have asked the inhabitants whether their community would be able to house an internment camp during the war, they most likely could not have imagined this. But this village indeed turned out to be the place where Jewish internees were housed for the length of three years, often in miserable conditions. One of the reasons for choosing this village could be the fact that it is situated near Marseille and it is also not too far away from the Italian border, from which people would flee into France being anti-fascist, seeking refuge and wanting to emigrate.
The camp was situated in an old brick and tile factory called La tuilerie des Milles (tile factory of Les Milles) covering about three hectares of land. The factory had been established in 1882 by Édouard Rastoin and was led by his son Albert. Later on the leadership of the factory was transferred to Albert’s godson. After a fire in 1911 the factory was renovated and
10
in the late twenties it was enlarged. Its estimated production in the interbellum was about 30.000 tons of material every year. The walls were made out of brick and kept together by a ‘skeleton’ of concrete and the building had a vast amount of windows. The ground floor housed three ovens and a room with machinery. On the first floor, one could find the boilers that provided the warmth for the ovens and place was reserved for the selection of the tiles. On the second and third floors one could find the drying machines. Electricity was used economically. 37
According to the literature, the factory closed due to technical difficulties (the mold that was used to produce the tiles broke and another one was nowhere to be found in France) and the war that was at hand. The latter might not be the main reason since the factory closed its doors in 1938 and the first German invasions of European countries only happened in 1939. This proved to be disastrous for the village that thrived because of the industrial activities. 38 The fact that the village was chosen as a location for an internment camp was therefore probably not even perceived that negatively, since it would probably change the economic situation again. This is however purely speculative.
The first months, September 1939 – June 1940
On the sixth of September 1939 the 4th Battalion of the 156th regional Regiment arrived at the train station of Aix-en-Provence. The train cars would lead the men to Les Milles. 39 They
had been ordered to come there by the French authorities. The German and Austrian emigrates that had not appeared voluntarily, were discovered and arrested by the French police and led to the camp. They were assembled in buildings in and around Marseille, such as the Château des Fleurs. This location would be used as a place from where people would be transferred to Les Milles as of October 1939. The men and women and children were separated immediately. While the men were taken to Les Milles, the women and children were brought to Aubagne, a camp in a small village with the same name. This was another camp close to Marseille, housed in a factory and guarded by French police officers. This camp was used until February 1940. From that moment, women were transferred and interned in Hôtel Le Terminus du Port, Hôtel Bompard and Hôtel du Levant.40 The first internees were
37 André Fontaine, Le camp d’étrangers des Milles 1939-1943, Aix-en-Provence: Édisud 1989, pp. 14-15 38 Ibidem, p. 14
39 Ibidem, p. 18
40 Author unknown, ‘Camp d’Aubagne durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale’, online encyclopedia Anonymes,
Justes et Persécutés durant la période Nazie dans les communes de France, accessible online: http://www.ajpn.org/internement-Hotel-Le-Terminus-du-Port-91.html
11
citizens of countries at war with France and thus ‘enemy subjects’ and this group consisted of a lot of German and Eastern-European intelligentsia. They were intellectuals, writers,
politicians, musicians and artists41, all assembled together in this factory building: interesting,
as they most likely never had visited such a place before due to their status.
The days in Les Milles were organized in a strict and monotone fashion. In a letter written by Heinz Lunau on the 8th of November 1939, we can find a description of a day in the camp within a group of 24 men. They had to wake up around 6:30 and would have breakfast. Around 8 am the internees had to appear for a roll call where they would stay in lines of three and they would be assigned certain tasks. Until 10 am they would have to perform these and afterwards they would have an hour of free time. Then they would have to assemble again for a second roll call and they would wait for their afternoon meal. Then they would have free time again until 2 pm, followed by another roll call where the internees would hear news about the life in the camp. After that, they would have free time again. In other accounts we can read that the internees were woken every morning by a claxon that would imitate animal cries.
Undoubtedly partly due to the concentration of creative minds such as Lion Feuchtwanger and Max Ernst, artistic and intellectual activities were organized to keep up the spirit. The internees held literary and philosophical discussions and they would invest in painting and musical activities. The catacombs, which were in fact the old pipes of the ovens were transformed into a cabaret where the internees would perform remakes of famous plays such as Nibelungen and Faust. 42 The place where they would gather to watch the shows was
named Die Katakombe, after a famous cabaret in Berlin. With some old wooden material the internees had created a bar, tables and chairs. A patron would take care of the desired
beverages such as beer, wine and champagne. He would try to sneak those in by arranging something with guards or people who were allowed to leave the camp now and then. 43
Camp des Milles had some annexes where internees were put to work. Already in the first month of the camp’s existence, a group of 200 men were sent out to work in the mines of
La Grande Combe. Other camps were that of Forcalquier, Les Mées, Manosque, Volx,
Carpiagne , Garrigues and Loriol. In some cases, the internees would have relative freedom.
41 Jacques Fredj ed., L’internement des Juifs sous Vichy, Paris: CDJC 1996 p. 30
42 Robert Mencherini, Angelika Gaussman, Olivier Lalieu eds., Memoire du Camp des Milles 1939-1942,
Marseille: Métamorphoses/Le Bec en l’air 2013 p. 20
43 André Fontaine, ‘Internement au Camp des Milles et dans ses annexes. Septembre 1939 – Mars 1943’, in: Les
12
In Forcalquier for example, they befriended the village’s inhabitants and some prominent internees were even invited over for Christmas dinner.44 Emigration was also still a possibility
for people from countries not within the Mediterranean. For that, they would need a list of documents of which the affidavit was the most important one. This was a document which was set up by a notary and which would state that the costs of the person’s emigration were taken care of. At that moment, most people tried to arrange emigration to the US. If their requests were accepted, they would be taken to Marseille from which they would have to start their journey throughout France to eventually embark the ship that would take them to the ‘land of freedom’. 45
As mentioned, the catacombs under the factory became a place where the internees could relax, as far as this was possible in their situation. Cultural activities began to flourish and some internees even came up with the idea of a special newspaper. Unfortunately, this pleasure was only shortly enjoyed. In April 1940, the internees were transferred to other camps in the region. On the 18th of April, Camp des Milles was closed due to a decision by the French military authorities and the 400 remaining internees were transferred to the city of Lambesc, 27 kilometers away, where they would be staying in a canning-factory. Although the internees were negative at first, this transfer proved to be better than expected. Not only was the food much better, but the hygienic circumstances were also acceptable. 46
Camp for undesirables, June 1940 – July 1942
After the German invasion of the north of France, the situation changed again. On the 14th of
May 1940, the press announced that all emigrated Germans (ressortissants du Reich) between the age of 18 and 55 had to go back to the camps. On the 19th of May, Les Milles was
reopened and a day later the first internees arrived. It became clear immediately that the camp had changed. The soldiers in charge of the guarding were more strict and militaristic. The quality of the food however had not been increased and the portions were even smaller than before. In the morning the internees would receive a bit of coffee and 250 grams of bread. During the afternoon and at night they would receive some carrot soup and they would get a piece of meat of about 20 grams. Without smuggling and the black market, it would have
44 Fontaine, Le camp d’étrangers des Milles 1939-1943, pp. 71-74 45 Ibidem, p. 75
13
been impossible to survive. The latter was flourishing: the internees that still had the financial means would buy bouillon and extra food that would be shared. 47
In the beginning, the internees just tried to make the most of it, but later on it became harder to stay strong. This feeling was enforced by the fact that many of the male internees did not know whether their family was (still) safe. Because they were not allowed to send postcards or letters, they were simply hoping their wives and children were still okay. 48 The situation was chaotic, while war was at hand and the French troops were fighting against the Nazis. The internees became more and more anxious and were pressuring the French
authorities to let them leave Les Milles. Captain Goruchon decided to plan their transportation to the Atlantic coast from where they would be able to flee aboard of ships. Early in the morning of the 22nd of June, hundreds of volunteering internees got on the train that was waiting at the train station of Les Milles and that would take them further south. They travelled for two days and the journey was horrible. When they heard that France and Germany signed an Armistice on that very day they left the camp, some decided to flee: various clauses in the armistice defined the ‘right’ that the Vichy regime would have to deliver German emigrants to the Nazis. Some of them succeed, amongst them Max Ernst and Lion Feuchtwanger. Other internees accept their fate and choose to return to the Reich voluntarily. 49 The armistice does not only describe the fate of German emigrants, but it also makes Les Milles enter its second phase, namely that of a camp for indésirables: foreigners from other camps in the southeast, veterans who fought in the Spanish Civil War and Jews that had been expelled from some German regions close to the border with France.
In the autumn of 1940, all internment camps were placed under the authority of the Ministry of the Interior and the Vichy regime decided to use Les Milles as a place to assemble foreign nationals who were planning on emigrating. The fact the regime assigned this function to the camp can be explained by two important factors. First, most of the consulates and foreign offices was located in Marseille and second, Marseille was the only port from which it was still possible to embark on ships to other continents. 50 Helping organizations were also present on the camp’s premises. These organizations were not only French, but included among others the YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association) and the HICEM (Hebrew Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration). They provided materials for the
47 Fontaine, ‘Internement au Camp des Milles et dans ses annexes. Septembre 1939 – Mars 1943’, p. 126 48 Fontaine, Le camp d’étrangers des Milles 1939-1943, pp. 83-85
49 Mencherini, Gaussman, Lalieu eds., Memoire du Camp des Milles 1939-1942, pp. 22-23 50 Ibidem, p. 26
14
activities of the internees, they would perform medical check-ups and they would assist the internees that were getting ready for emigration. To further facilitate their work an official emigration service was set up in the camp, consisting of a post office from where the internees could communicate with their contacts. 51
Transit camp, August and September 1942
In the beginning of July 1942, the French government accepted that the measures already in place in the occupied zone should also be applied to the free zone in the south. This model of the big round-up in July in Paris was reproduced in the Midi a month later. Secret letters and telegrams addressed to the police prefects explain in detail which groups would be targeted: “Jews of German, Austrian, Polish, Tsjechoslovakian, Estonian, Lithuanian, Latvian and Russian descent, and Jews from Dantzig and the Saar region, and Jews without a motherland, aged between 15 and 65 (55 for women), who have entered French territory after the 1st of January […]”52
Although the government was trying to keep their intentions in the dark by making sure the correspondence would happen as secretly as possible, the plans could not be sealed off
sufficiently. Already on the 20th of July, the rabbi Hirschler let Marseille know that the Vichy ministers were planning the deportation of foreign Jews from the free zone to Germany. The detainees heard about the preparations of the deportations through a radio broadcasting by the English radio. In the following days, the deportation of the Jews was announced officially and as of the 3rd of August, Les Milles was guarded by extra men from the GMR (groups mobiles
de reserves53), a reserve police battalion accompanied by police dogs. This enforcement of security was mainly to prevent detainees from escaping. Male internees from other camps in the south-east were transported to Les Milles and the women and children detained in the ‘hotels surveillées’ are also transferred to the camp. Awaiting their still unknown fate, they would have to stay in the overcrowded camp. 54
In those days of uncertainty and chaos, the organizations already mentioned were arriving at the camp grounds again to provide the internees with material and spiritual
51 Mencherini, Gaussman, Lalieu eds., Memoire du Camp des Milles 1939-1942, p. 27
52 Ibidem, p. 29 Original text: “les juifs allemands, autrichiens, polonaise, tchécoslovaques, estoniens, lituaniens,
lettons, dantzigois, sarrois, russes ou apatrides, âgés de 16 à 65 ans (55 pour les femmes), entrés sur le territoire français après le 1er janvier 1936 […]”
53 Ibidem, p.31
15
support. On the 7th of August, the rabbi of Marseille, Israël Salzer, organized a spiritual
session and two days later pastor Manen did the same. The organizations also pressured the authorities to let them take the internees under 18. They succeeded in their efforts: about 70 children were saved from deportation. 55On the 10th of August though, the police authorized the deportation of the children, which had to be separated from their parents. This is perceived to be one of the saddest moments in the existence of the camp. While the younger children did not know what was happening and simply held onto their parents’ clothing, the older ones understood that this was a final goodbye and they were fighting their emotions. 56 In August and September 1942, close to 1500 people are transferred directly from Les Milles to Drancy in terrible circumstances. Others were sent to Rivesaltes before being deported to the north. About 2000 men, women and were deported and their majority was exterminated in
Auschwitz. Only a few people could escape due to the actions of some individuals such as guards. 57
The German occupation of the free zone: the end of Les Milles
On the 11th of November 1942, the Nazis invaded the “free zone” and occupied the remaining part of France. As of the 13th of November, the Gestapo orders the searching and arrest of resistance members and people that had evaded the camps. The police of Marseille was assisting in these matters. On the 10th of December, the 170 last internees still held in Les Milles were sent to La Ciotat and other camps in the Marseille region. From mid-December 1942 to March 1943, the camp was liquidated under the command of Albert Robini. Around the 15th of March 1943 the Wehrmacht arrived at the premises and sent the remaining guards
away. From that moment on, the factory was used as a depot for munition. 58 When one
wants to estimate how many people were deported from Les Milles to Drancy and further east within its short existence, one could use the official number of 1928 people. This is however not entirely accurate, since it does not take into account the people who evaded or were removed from the convoys. 59
55 Mencherini, Gaussman, Lalieu eds., Memoire du Camp des Milles 1939-1942, p. 31 56 Ibidem, pp. 141-143
57 Ibidem, p. 33
58 Fontaine, Le camp d’étrangers des Milles 1939-1943, p. 164
16
II Politics of memory in France
Looking at the history of the two camps, we can see that the French government and the French police have played a major role in the development and implementation of the Final Solution in France. It is not very surprising then, that one can encounter postwar difficulties with coming to terms with the grim past in France. When looking more closely at the research done into the French politics of memory, Henry Rousso’s work The Vichy Syndrome is one of the most important and interesting contributions to the field. His discussion of the French ways to deal with the past is in-depth and clear. In this chapter I would like to use his work to construct an overview of the post-war dealing with the past in France. Where necessary, other research on politics of memory will be used to clarify or further explain the phases of the French variant of Vergangenheitsbewältigung.
Phase I: Unfinished mourning 1944-1954
The first phase, which lasted from 1944 until 1954, he calls le deuil inachevé. In this phase we see the importance of the Gaullian myth that proclaimed that France had liberated itself from the yoke of the Germans. Another concept that was part of the Gaullian myth was that of the thirty years’ war. This meant that people would combine the First and the Second World War into one big conflict which made it possible to neglect the Second World War’s unique elements such as the importance of anti-Semitic ideology and the genocide. Another interesting element in this first phase of France dealing with the past is the emphasizing of the role of the resistance. Adding up to the myth of the French liberating themselves from the Germans, one also believed in the fact that a great part of the French population had taken part in resistance activities. Interestingly enough, the post-war French citizen clung to the myth that the French had been a people in resistance, but their desire for normalization hindered the real consecration of the Resistance. 60 This meant that even though they wanted to believe in the goodness of the French people and the role of the resistance, they were not willing to let the former resistance members be the new political elite. In the first two years after the war, there were many celebrations of the Liberation, which according to Rousso is proof that France had difficulties with creating a unified national memory. Another remarkable event is the amnesty law that was passed in 1952. According to Rousso, this was undeniably an act of clemency and an attempt to calm political
60 Henry Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome: history and memory in France since 1944, Cambridge: Harvard
17
passions and salve old wounds. The problems of the purge had prolonged the conflict within the country.
Phase II: Repression 1954-1971
The second phase, which is characterized by repression or refoulements, lasted from 1954 to 1971. According to Rousso, the year 1954 marked a turning point. The defeat of the French forces in Vietnam undermined the reconstruction of the French army that had begun in 1941. The inglorious ending of the war in Indochina and the war in Algeria undermined the French politics of ‘grandeur’. The year also marked the high point in the career of Pierre Mendès and it was the year of one of the last great postwar trials, namely that of Karl Oberg and Helmut Knochen. Oberg had been the commander of the SS in France from 1942 to 1944 and
Knochen was his adjutant. Together they were responsible for the implementation of the Final Solution in France and the fight against the Resistance. 61
Again and still, we see the influence of De Gaulle on the way the country was dealing with the wartime memories. His influence can be seen in five stages. By the time of the liberation, he lay down the principles of ‘Gaullian exorcism’. Firstly, the collaboration of the French regime within Vichy should be obliterated and secondly, the Resistance had to be redefined as an abstraction, an achievement not of the resisting people alone but of the nation as a whole. This has already been discussed while focusing on the first phase of the Vichy syndrome. From 1946 to 1950 he was trying to win the sympathy of Pétain supporters, most likely as a political strategy. After Pétain died this strategy lost most of its symbolism and from that moment on, De Gaulle continued on his anti-Vichy quest. Between 1954 and 1958 he returned to his former ideas of exorcism and tried to remove the year 1940 from people’s minds. In 1958 he cut the retirement benefits of veterans, a measure that affected many former resistance members. This seems a rather contradictory measure since De Gaulle was trying to keep up the ‘resistancialism’ myth, but it becomes clear that it was simply a symbolic gesture that would disable people to share in his own heroic legacy. Another insult on the part of De Gaulle which marks the last phase is the issue of an order that would change the date of the celebration of victory in Europe from the 8th of May to the second Sunday of the month, to fight the ‘proliferation of non-working holidays’ that would hurt the economy. In that year specifically, Sunday the 9th of May was not just dedicated to the Allied victory but also to Jeanne d’Arc, whose feast day also happened to fall on this date. It seems likely that De
18
Gaulle had planned this ‘coincidence’ all along so the ceremony surrounding Jeanne D’Arc would get more attention that the celebration of Liberation. 62
In addition to this interesting playing with dates by De Gaulle, Rousso remarks that the French just love anniversaries in general. Therefore, the year 1964 was an important one for them. ‘It was time for French society to leave the troubled past behind and to establish its legitimacy on a sublimated version of history’, according to Rousso. The exorcism that happened under De Gaulle was no longer used. Now the challenge was to invent a new kind of honor and grandeur and bestow it onto the French citizens. The problem was therefore not just to bury the memories of the war and of different groups within France with various opinions on how to integrate the resistance in the government, but to orient on a future memory and to create a new and official version of the past appropriate to the country’s newfound grandeur. From that moment on, France would be cast as a nation that forever and ever resists the invader, whatever uniform he might wear. Since 1964, every year an award has been given out in schools for the best essay on the Resistance and deportation. The Resistance also became an important theme in novels, movies and plays, while Vichy and the collaboration were rarely or never mentioned:
“Again we come back to this constant of Gaullist thinking: the Resistance was above all a military action, a continuation of combat after the 1940 defeat and in the tradition of Verdun. Accordingly, Moulin was honored with parade after parade in the two-day ceremony marking the transfer of his ashes.”63
Twenty years after the Liberation, it was slowly becoming clear that a new generation had arrived at the scene and would soon take over power. The wartime generation, which up until then had held most of the reins of power, had rewritten history for the consumption of a new generation that had not known the worst of its parents’ suffering. But now, cracks began to show and the new generation was beginning to ask questions. Twenty years was also the time required for the statute of limitations to take effect for crimes committed in 1944. In June 1964 a bill was filed in the National Assembly suspending the statute of limitations for crimes against humanity as defined by the Nuremberg trials and the United Nations Charter. The bill was a response to an announcement by the West German government that the statute of
62 Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome: history and memory in France since 1944, pp. 71-72 63 Ibidem, p. 91
19
limitations would take effect for all war crimes, including crimes against humanity as of 8 May 1965. 64
Despite the repression of wartime memories in the 1960s, memories of the Resistance were widely discussed, but largely within the framework established by the Gaullist version of the past. Yet this vision, that was focusing on the epical character of the resistance did not gain much ground until rather late in the day and it was never able completely unify the French citizenry and create a collective memory. Not even De Gaulle himself was entirely exempt from vengeful impulses. But as early as the mid-1950s, many French people clearly wished to put the controversy and fights about the past to rest, and the invented honor and grandeur provided by the Gaullist myth seemed like an appropriate way to do that. Because of these sentiments of normalization in French society, De Gaulle was able to build a consensus around his vision of ‘resistancialism’, a concept broad enough to make room for other partisan views. This one generation embraced the Gaullist myth, ignoring any critical groups.
The year 1968 marked another turning point in thinking about the Occupation. The truth of this observation is confirmed by a glance at the new interpretations of Vichy that would blossom a few years later. The new images of the past, the work of a handful of writers and filmmakers, marked a fundamental break with what had gone before. This new generation wanted to break traditions and wanted their parents and grandparents to be more open about what had happened in the war. This is a trend that is not only visible in France, but certainly in Germany too where youngsters were forcing their ancestors to be honest about the past and about their role. 65
Phase III: The broken mirror 1971-1974
The third phase is that of le miroir brisé. (1971-1974). By 1971 la douce France had begun to feel severe aftershocks of the 1940s. But now these blows were felt in literature, film and scholarship. The first symptom was The Sorrow and The Pity, which showed some inaccuracy and ignorance in the portrayal of victims and the selection of witnesses. But most importantly, the film revealed French anti-Semitism. We see manifestations of anti-Semitism among the French in the southern zone, which was not initiated by the Nazis. This is a factor that would change the way the French viewed themselves. Instead of believing the Gaullist myth and feeling like French society had stood up to the German occupier collectively, they were
64 Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome: history and memory in France since 1944, pp. 96-97 65 Ibidem, pp. 99-100
