This book is about the Second World War as it was experi- enced in Paris and France. The country was occupied by the Germans. Marshal Petain had taken power with an implied promise to protect the country by creating a buffer, the État Francais, the French State, known as Vichy because of its placement in that town, between the occupiers and the people. Perhaps in order to become plausible as an intermediary, the buffer state seemed to pretend to espouse the German point of view that a new order in Europe was needed to protect western civilization from the attack of the Bolsheviks. As time went on, however, it became clear that this point of view--and other ideas dear to the occupier--had crystalized into the genuine point of view of the Vichy government, seriously promoted by collaborating government officials. At first the governing force of the occupation was the military, intent on invading England and relatively benign in its treatment of the population. But, when the military wavered as the communists, unleashed by the German betrayal of the Russo-German non-aggression pact, began a campaign of sabotage and assassinations, the Nazis exploited their weakness and took over control of the occupation. Although French anti-Semitism had been ex- pressed from the beginning of the occupation, it did not aim at extermination. But the collaborators began to represent the Nazi obsession with killing all the Jews, the final solution. Promulgating regulations impinging on their ability to exist, the German and French authorities attempted to crush the lives of the Jews. Even as the War continued and the Ger- mans began to fail, the government and its representatives remained faithful to their collaborationist commitment and hostile to the Allies. French police faithfully, and certainly in the case of the Milice, enthusiastically and knowingly, obeyed the orders of their government to round up Jews to be sent off to be killed.
All this occurred more than 70 years ago, and yet mourning for the loss of national self-esteem is hardly essayed. Silence on the defeat, the collaboration, and the knowing participation of the French government in the extermination of 73,000 Jews living in France is deafening in Paris. The author examines this phenomenon and offers some ideas as to its origin and con- tinuation. Although many would like to hide in the thicket of complexity, there is no lack of clarity as to the fact that it was the French who bear the responsibility for bringing shame and dishonor down upon themselves.