Subject Pages
- Armenian Genocide
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- Contemporary Antisemitism
- 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda
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France
The French collection is one of the largest in the Visual History Archive. Interviewees talk about France in over 7,600 testimonies, including 4,618 during the World War II period. Their interviews were conducted in various languages - including 1,949 interviews in French - and in several different locations - 1,675 in France. Close to 1,400 interviewees were born in France.
There was a large Jewish community in France before the war, and a number of testimonies describe specific communities in locations around France. The French testimonies describe how, after Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, refugees began arriving in France in ever greater numbers, especially after war broke out.
After the French capitulation to the Germans in June 1940, many fled to the unoccupied zone in the centre and south of the country. Interviews give details of the numerous internment camps established around France, as well as in French territories such as Algeria. Near Paris, the Drancy camp became the main transit point for Jews being deported east to Auschwitz. The actions of the French police and the Milice are discussed.
A large number of testimonies have descriptions of hiding and assuming a false identity. Interviewees talk about how they were helped by, or were involved in, organizations such as the OSE (Oeuvre de Secours Aux Enfants) which were able to place children in convents, monasteries, and orphanages in rural locations (such as the Château-de-Chabannes and others), and subsequently to assist people fleeing across the border to Switzerland. Many discuss the role of the UGIF (Union générale Israélites de France), the official body for all Jewish affairs in France established by the Vichy government in 1941, and that of the Éclaireurs Israélites de France (Jewish scouting movement).
Those who fled to the zone under Italian control in the south of France generally report much safer conditions, although this changed drastically once the Germans occupied the area after September 1943.
A major topic of the French testimonies is the Maquis (the resistance movement). Many survivors were actively involved in groups such as the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans, French Forces of the Interior, and others.
The testimonies give information on figures such as Léon Blum, the prime minister of France from 1936 to 1937; Varian Fry, the American rescue worker European director of the Emergency Rescue Committee; Robert Gamzon, founder of the Eclaireurs Israélites de France and of the resistance group known as La Sixième (The Sixth); Marshal Philippe Pétain; Klaus Barbie (the Gestapo chief known as the "Butcher of Lyon"); Maurice Papon, civil servant in the Vichy administration in southern France; Paul Touvier, head of the local branch of the Milice in Lyon and later found guilty of "crimes against humanity"; among many others.
A number of testimonies talk about Serge Klarsfeld, survivor and anti-Nazi activist. In addition, the archive contains the testimony of Klarsfeld, as well as that of his wife and son.
Selected Indexing Terms
Abadi, Moussa
Abbé Pierre
Armée Juive
Armée secrete
Barbie Trial (France)
Barbie, Klaus
Bénédite, Daniel
Benoît, Marie
Bernard, Paul
Bloch, Gilbert
Blum, Léon
Carmagnole-Liberté Battalion
Ceux de la Libération-Vengeance
Ceux de la Résistance
Château-de-Chabannes (France : Children's Home)
Commission Inter-Mouvements auprès des Evacués
Corps Francs (generic)
Corps Francs de la Montagne Noire
Croix de Feu
Drancy (France : Concentration Camp)
Éclaireurs Israélites de France
Entraide temporaire
Faucons Rouges
Forces Unies de la Jeunesse Patriotique
Francs-Tireurs et Partisans
French Forces of the Interior
Fry, Varian
Gamzon, Robert
Giono, Jean
Glasberg, Alexandre
Grotte de la Luire Massacre (July 27, 1944)
Groupements de travailleurs étrangers
Haguenau, Marc
Klarsfeld, Serge
Komitee "Freies Deutschland" für den Westen
La Sixième
Main Forte
Milice Française
Milice patriotique juive
Mouvement de Jeunesse Sioniste
Mouvement de Libération Nationale
Mouvement National contre le Racisme
Mouvements Unis de Résistance
Oeuvre de Protection des Enfants Juifs
Oeuvre de Secours Aux Enfants
Papon, Maurice Arthur Jean
Pétain, Marshal Philippe
Rousselle, Jeanne
Septfonds (France : Internment Camp)
Solidarité-Union des Juifs pour la Résistance et l'Entraide
Touvier, Paul
Union de la jeunesse juive
Union générale Israélites de France
Selected Bibliography
Cointet, Michèle; Contet, Jean-Paul. Dictionnaire historique de la France sous l'Occupation, Paris: Tallandier, 2000.
Klarsfeld, Serge. Vichy-Auschwitz, 2 volumes, Paris: Fayard, 1983-1985.
Marrus, Michael; Paxton, Robert. Vichy France and the Jews, New York: Basic Books, 1981.
Poznanski, Renée. Jews in France during World War II, [Waltham, Mass.:] Brandeis University Press, 2001.
Weisberg, Richard. Vichy Law and the Holocaust in France, New York: New York University Press, 1996.
Wieviorka, Annette. Déportation et genocide: Entre la mémoire et l'oubli, Paris: Plon, 1992.
Zuccotti, Susan. The Holocaust, the French, and the Jews, New York: Basic Books, 1993.
