Antisemitism was official Vichy doctrine and policy once the petainiste coup
was consummated. A lot of bastards, both in occupied and unoccupied France, got
away with it and I'm happy the Klarsfelds and others have been tracking them
down. Vichy deportations were done without actual arm-twisting by the Nazis -
in the one-third of the country that was not under direct Nazi rule. The real
scandal was how so many in the French police just followed orders (sound
familiar in the 'War on Terror'?). My mother has an old friend whose dad was
prescient enough to flee Paris for the (Vichy) south in the nick of time. Many
of her relatives were deported and murdered. I grew up among kids whose parents
had seen the inside of a death camp. BTW, the US was doing a great job of
keeping the immigration door shut against most European Jews trying to get the
hell out of Dodge before war broke out, while France took in massive numbers,
as with refugees from Franco, etc. The Air Force and the RAF
also did a great job of allowing those trains to run all the way to death's
door while French railway men and others were risking their lives sabotaging
train shipments or exfiltrating downed Allied airmen. OTOH, if you look at the
figures, there is little comparison between Western Europe and the rest. The
brunt of the horror was borne by groups in central and eastern Europe.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wwii_casualties>
You had things like Catholic prelates leading pogroms in the Balkans, etc. Many
of those criminals ended up within a couple of years in the US, in Latin
America, or working alongside Americans in the name of rolling back the Soviet
Bloc. Ditto with the monsters of Unit 731 in China. What's extremely disturbing
to me is to recognize tactics used by the rabid French extreme right when it
took power after the Germans victory in a time of 'national emergency.' They,
too, immediately started attacking anyone with a specific affiliation. Look no
further than Muslims in the US today: for them, the rule of law and the
Constitution barely apply. - Phil
On 02:10, Larry wrote:
>Its not a myth that there was more enthusiastic participation in
>active antisemitism there than other european countries.
>
>Larry
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