Today is the 70th anniversary of the darkest day in contemporary French history. What to say about it that hasn’t already been said? Probably a lot, in fact. One may repeat that the Nazis could have never carried out the operation without the willing collaboration of the French state. If René Bousquet et al had refused the German requisition orders, the deportations would have likely never happened.
The French police and SS, hand in hand.
Drancy.
Beaune-la-Rolande.
Pithiviers.
Deportation.
Auschwitz-Birkenau.
A not bad feature-length film on the Rafle du Vél’ d’Hiv, ‘La Rafle‘, came out two years ago but has inexplicably not opened in the US. The DVD (subtitled) may be obtained via Amazon Canada and UK.
The best books in English on the general subject are by Susan Zuccotti and Michael Marrus & Robert Paxton.
Arun, not trying to minimize the horror of that day, but shouldn’t you mention that the French had promised to arrest 23,000 foreign Jews, but only around 13,000 were caught in the “rafle”. The Germans were furious. Why do you think so many escaped?
If I were forced to offer a guess for this outcome, I would say it was because « travail, famille, patrie » has never appealed to more than about 20 percent of the French. A powerful, well-connected and highly vocal minority but always a distinct minority.
Pétain had the support of far more than 20% of the French, and particularly in Vichy’s first two years.
I’m not sure about the Germans being furious. I’ll have to look this one up. It was indeed the case that some of the Paris policemen showed a lack of zeal in carrying out the roundup – and that this may explain the shortfall, as it were –, but that fact remains that the French state carried out the operation (and insisted on including children, which the Germans initially did not want).
The fact remains indeed.
[…] UPDATE: For some book and film recommendations and further views on the event read this blog post […]
[…] (the English translation of Hollande’s speech is here; my blog post on the anniversary is here). And this past Wednesday, on the 51st anniversary of the sinister events of the evening of October […]
Indeed, the wife of my cousin were warned by a French police office whose sister and parents were friends, She and their son and daughter were sheltered along with a few similar Jewish families in a farm village. My cousin, however was arrested by French police, held in Belgium and dispatched to and at Auschwitz.
At war’s end, the two children joined reltives in the States. The mother, however was refused entry for five years before being admitted to the U.S.
The son, now in his mid 80’s, survives.