“I've been an anti-Semite longer than you. I could be your father in these matters. " With these words, the French undersecretary of state responsible for Jewish affairs, Xavier Vallat, was lecturing the less zealous ... SS officer.
On the wave of interest in Jan T. Gross's "Golden Harvest", it is worth returning to the controversial topic of the participation of not only Poles, but also representatives of other nations in the German genocide against Jews. Was the anti-Semitism of the inhabitants of occupied Europe purely a derivative of the Nazi program, or did broad sections of society take the opportunity to vent their own deeply entrenched prejudices and hatred?
When writing about Poland, one can ask about the behavior of the peasants, the social margin, radical social groups, etc. And what was it like in a country that enjoyed considerable internal independence for at least the first half of the war?
Xavier Vallat, Undersecretary of State responsible for Jewish affairs in Francia Vichy - a stoned anti-Semite.
Antisemitism in French
According to popular belief, WWII anti-Semitism was not a problem for the French at all. The Vichy state - that is, southern France, in which the Nazis installed an obedient government - allegedly only subjugated to the German masters, possibly assisting in their deportations and internment actions.
What was it like in reality? The best answer is to look for the classic work by Robert O. Paxton "France Vichy", which has just been published in Poland thanks to the publishing house "Bukowy Las".
First of all, at the beginning of the war, the Germans were not really interested in the situation of Jews in Vichy France . As Paxton writes, there was no place for France in the Greater European Economic Zone (Grosswirtschaftsraum) and it was not believed that it should be "cleansed" of Jews.
Hence, the French government was initially not subjected to any pressure, harassment or demands on the Jewish question - it was given almost a completely free hand. The Nazis even treated France as a kind of Madagascar and it was there that they sent six thousand Jews from western Germany to it in October 1940 .
In October 1940, six thousand Jews were relocated to Vichy France from the territory of the Third Reich. Less than two years later, the transports moved in the opposite direction.
This action outraged the French government of Vichy, which at about this time launched its own independent program of anti-Jewish persecution. Paxton put it briefly: In 1940 native French anti-Semitism was free to release its venom.
A Jew can live. As long as he didn't work and had nothing
The first step towards legally sanctioned anti-Semitism was made on August 27, 1940, lifting the law providing for penalties for anti-Jewish statements in the press. The actual anti-Jewish law was passed on October 3.
According to it, was forbidden Jews hold elected offices, hold positions of responsibility in government, judiciary and the armed forces . The ban also included all professions that could influence cultural life. So no Jew had the right to be a journalist, teacher, film director or radio host.
At this stage, deportations were also undertaken, completely removing the Jews from the Allier department, where the capital of the state, Vichy, was located. Contrary to the claims of various authors, this decision was not made by the Germans, but by the French themselves.
Interestingly, the leader of the collaborative government, Marshal Pétain probably consulted the Vatican on the acceptable (from the point of view of the Catholic Church) anti-Semitic solutions .
The French ambassador to the See of Peter, Léon Bérard, assured him in a letter dated September 2, 1941 that a person authorized to do so in the Vatican stated that the Church would not mind restricting certain citizens from being employed or participating in society.
If you don't know what's going on, it's about money
Already the act of October 3, 1940 was relatively restrictive, but it did not stop there. From the very beginning, the French government tried to "impress" Germany with its anti-Semitism. As usual, it was about money, and also about avoiding the "Germanization" of France.
Registration of citizens of Jewish origin in the Pithiviers camp.
In the occupied part of the country (including Paris), the Nazis took their estates from Jews and sold them for next to nothing. In this way, tens of thousands of enterprises changed hands. The Vichy authorities were ready to intensify the persecution against the Jews, so that the property taken from them would not end up in the hands of the Aryans, but the French .
On June 2, 1941, France Vichy introduced another anti-Semitic law, this time forbidding Jews from working, e.g. in advertising agencies, banks, real estate offices. In other sectors, very restrictive limits on the participation of Jews have been set. Only 2% of all lawyers, doctors, pharmacists and architects could be Jews. On the other hand, high school and college students were bound by the three percent limit.
Two Parisian women with David's whistles pinned (source:Bundesarchiv; lic. CC ASA 3.0).
In the occupational discrimination against Jews, the Vichy government even surpassed the German authorities in the occupied part of France . For example, in 1943, there were still 203 Jewish doctors practicing in Paris, while the restrictive regulations introduced by the French themselves would have allowed only 108 Jews to work. On the wave of the same action, successive French commissioners for Jewish affairs were appointed, each of whom was a staunch anti-Semite and chauvinist.
Eventually, the Germans too - probably in part encouraged by the enthusiasm of the French authorities - decided to include Vichy in their grand, anti-Semitic project. Of course, the French government never aimed to exterminate the Jewish population (let alone the French Jews), but by 1942 it was too late to go off course.
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Trivia is the essence of our website. Short materials devoted to interesting anecdotes, surprising details from the past, strange news from the old press. Reading that will take you no more than 3 minutes, based on single sources. This particular material is based on:
- O. Paxton, Vichy Roberta's France, Bukowy Las 2011 Publishing House.