FRANCE: FORMER FRENCH RESISTANCE MEMBERS RECOLLECT THE PURGES OF COLLABORATORS WITH THE NAZI REGIME
Record ID:
588572
FRANCE: FORMER FRENCH RESISTANCE MEMBERS RECOLLECT THE PURGES OF COLLABORATORS WITH THE NAZI REGIME
- Title: FRANCE: FORMER FRENCH RESISTANCE MEMBERS RECOLLECT THE PURGES OF COLLABORATORS WITH THE NAZI REGIME
- Date: 7th May 2005
- Summary: (EU) PARIS, FRANCE (RECENT) (REUTERS) 1. MV /SCU HISTORIAN MARC FERRO READING ONE OF HIS BOOKS IN HIS OFFICE 0.11 2. (SOUNDBITE) (French) HISTORIAN MARC FERRO, SAYING: "The real problem is that there were two positions: the communists, who thought one had to be intransigent with all those who had collaborated, and De Gaulle and his entourage who believed the purges should not be too hard in order to keep within the administration and the army those who were competent." 3. (SOUNDBITE) (French) HISTORIAN MARC FERRO, SAYING: "Between 9,500 and 10,000 were executed. There were 160,000 court cases, out of which 126,000 resulted in imprisonment and of those slightly more than half were released before the end of the trial. So the purge, and can say this today while it was impossible to say it at the time, was somewhat "soft", if you compare it with what we saw in neighbouring countries like Belgium, Holland, Poland or Czechoslovakia." 4. (SOUNDBITE) (French) HISTORIAN MARC FERRO, SAYING: "What was a scandal was the fact that De Gaulle's new regime, in order to keep institutions working, was forced to allow some of those who had worked for Vichy or even collaborated, to continue their activities. Then you had the judges who had tried the resistance, later trying the collaborators, and those were not very credible as judges. That fact exploded during Petain's trial, but then that trial was so big and important that it overshadowed the fact that such had been the case everywhere." 5. (SOUNDBITE) (French) HISTORIAN MARC FERRO, SAYING: "What we call forest's corner justice was the early one, which happened before the liberation. I do not defend executions at all, but I see that when one has been in the forest, and is hunted and afraid to he denounced, one doesn't think about justice but about one's own safety and that of one's group. Then people can execute others in the most horrible fashion, on order to survive. I do not necessarily defend that, but one must think about that side of things. The armchair justice that followed later had nothing to do with that. One has to be in the action to understand what being violent means." 2.43 (EU) PARIS, FRANCE (FILE - 1944) (REUTERS) 6. SLV FILE PICTURES OF FIGHTING, ARRESTS AND DEAD AROUND PARIS DURING THE LAST DAYS OF THE WAR (18 SHOTS) 3.41 (EU) PARIS, FRANCE (RECENT) (REUTERS) 7. (SOUNDBITE) (French) FORMER RESISTANCE CHIEF GILBERT LASFARGUES, SAYING: "There were two simultaneous wars: a patriotic war, and a civil war. During a patriotic war, one can somehow submit to more elaborate game rules -although in the case of the Nazis that would have been really hard-, but during a civil war there are no rules: one must win." 3.58 (EU) PARIS, FRANCE (FILE - 1944) (REUTERS) 8. MV WOMEN ACCUSED OF HAVING COLLABORATED WITH THE GERMANS HAVING THEIR HAIR SHAVEN (2 SHOTS) 4.01 (EU) PARIS, FRANCE (RECENT) (REUTERS) 9. (SOUNDBITE) (French) FORMER RESISTANCE CHIEF GILBERT LASFARGUES, SAYING: "We started by issuing threats, like sending people little coffins that they'd receive in the morning as reminders of their duties; then we moved on to a dialectics of assassination. In the Grenoble university, there were teachers close to the collaborators as well as resistant teachers who were killed." 10. (SOUNDBITE) (French) FORMER RESISTANCE CHIEF GILBERT LASFARGUES, SAYING: "Sometimes there were sacrificial ceremonies. Once we had a chief of police who was good and did his job, who told us we had to hold a sacrificial ceremony so we picked six militiamen, six poor guys, and had them shot in public in order to restore some balance in the situation. In hindsight, I still approve of what we did, otherwise the situation would have overdeveloped." 11. (SOUNDBITE) (French) FORMER RESISTANCE CHIEF GILBERT LASFARGUES, SAYING: "(Killing) did not face us with a moral problem. But soon we realised that justice was being exerted more on the small than on the big guys, and that intellectuals were being punished harder than the profiteers. And that started playing a role on our fundamental attitude." 4.31 (EU) PARIS, FRANCE (FILE - 1944) (REUTERS) 12. SCU WOMEN ACCUSED OF HAVING COLLABORATED WITH THE GERMANS HAVING THEIR HAIR SHAVEN (3 SHOTS) 4.37 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 22nd May 2005 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: PARIS, FRANCE
- Country: France
- Reuters ID: LVA3JXAHQBDXDP9Y1E9WM61W9TIQ
- Story Text: Former French resistance members recollect the
purges of collaborators with the Nazi regime.
Sixty years after the end of World War II, two
former French resistance members have recollections of the
past and not much regret about the purges of collaborators
with the Nazi regime that happened before and after the end
of the war.
According to historian Marc Ferro, who was himself a
17-year-old resistant soldier during the war, some 10,000
executions of alleged collaborators took place in France
during the occupation and before an established court
system was established by the new regime after the end of
the war.
"Between 9,500 and 10,000 were executed. There were
160,000 court cases, out of which 126,000 resulted in
imprisonment, and of those slightly more than half were
released before the end of the trial. So the purge and can
say this today while it was impossible to say it at the
time, was somewhat "soft", if you compare it with what we
saw in neighbouring countries like Belgium, Holland, Poland
or Czechoslovakia," he said
Ferro added: "What was a scandal was the fact that De
Gaulle's new regime, in order to keep institutions working,
was forced to allow some of those who had worked for Vichy
or even collaborated, to continue their activities. Then
you had the judges who had tried the resistance, later
trying the collaborators, and those were not very credible
as judges."
After the war ended, opinions about how to deal with
collaborators were divided, he explained, between the
communists demanding unbending punishment, and De Gaulle's
government confronted with the task of making sure the
institutions of the country could continue working, even if
that meant leaving some of the suspects or even some of the
guilty go unpunished.
Gilbert Lasfargues, who was chief of the resistance in
Grenoble, explained that during World War II, there was in
France a savage civil war, whose game rules demanded from
those who resisted to either win or to die.
"We started by issuing threats, like sending people
little coffins that they'd receive in the morning as
reminders of their duties; then we moved on to a dialectics
of assassination. In the Grenoble university, there were
teachers close to the collaborators as well as resistant
teachers who were killed", he said.
Lasfargues said killing, at the time, did not face the
resistance with a moral problem.
"But soon we realised that justice was being exerted
more on the small than on the big guys, and that
intellectuals were being punished harder than the
profiteers. And that started playing a role on our
fundamental attitude", he said.
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