told Danielle; Betty, with her stylish ways, did not need telling. In a booklet he issued to members of the Resistance, Dallidet counselled ceaseless vigilance and the need, always, to anticipate. Change your pseudonym from time to time. If someone misses a rendezvous, he urged, don’t go home. And, he added, never, ever be late for an appointment.
It was not, however, only the communists and the different bands of resisters who were in growing danger. There was another group of people whose lives were about to be destroyed.
In the summer of 1940, observing the rapid advance of the German army, Langeron, the Paris police Prefect, had decided to evacuate the files held by the Service des Étrangers, the bureau that looked after foreigners, along with cabinet papers and political documents. Barges were brought to the quai des Orfèvres and several tons of paper passed from hand to hand along a chain of men, working in shifts for forty-eight hours. The barge with the political documents got through to the south before the Germans reached Paris, but the one with the dossiers on foreigners was blocked in the Seine when a boat carrying munitions exploded. In spite of feverish attempts by Langeron’s civil servants to retrieve and hide them, most of the files were discovered by the Germans and carted back to the police Prefecture. And when, in October, a Bureau for Foreigners and Jewish Affairs was set up, the retrieved files, and particularly the ‘fichiers Juifs’, were very useful when the round-ups of ‘undesirables’ began.
The first anti-Semitic laws of the autumn of 1940 had excluded Jews from most forms of public office. Vichy, its definition of Jewishness rather more all-embracing than that of the Nazis, defined as Jewish anyone with three Jewish grandparents, or two Jewish grandparents and married to a Jew. Until that moment, some French Jewish families, who had for many generations been French citizens, and who remained secular, genuinely did not define themselves as Jewish. Both France Bloch and Marie-Elisa Nordmann, who had grown up without religion, saw themselves as essentially French rather than Jewish.
Even before any request was made by Vichy, the first anti-Jewish decrees had been floated. When required to do so, most of France’s Jews—and especially the foreign Jews, anxious to demonstrate their allegiance to France—registered with the authorities, both because they feared the consequences of disobedience and because few realised what lay ahead. In any case, many who had decided not to declare themselves were soon denounced. Lawyers, doctors, bankers, shopkeepers, all hastened to denounce Juifs camouflés , camouflaged Jews, Jews living in ‘luxury villas’, Jewish women of ‘loose morals’, and Jews grown ‘rich and greedy’ at the expense of good Catholic families. With rationing and food shortages, the idea of Jews ‘gorging’ incensed these informers.
Arrests of Jews in Paris had begun in May 1941, not long after the setting up of a General Commissariat for Jewish Questions, under a right-wing member of parliament called Xavier Vallat. Vallat had lost an eye and a leg in the First World War, and was best known for the savagery of his attacks on Léon Blum in 1936. And it was in the summer of 1941 that the chasse aux Juifs , the hunt for Jews, began in earnest, so zealously pursued by the French collaborators that it was said that even the Nazis were impressed. Foreign Jews were to be interned; Jewish firms to be ‘Aryanised’. ‘To make our houses really clean,’ read one poster for an exhibition, ‘we must sweep up the Jews.’
The earlier arrests had been relatively restricted—of adult men who did not have French citizenship—but on 18 August, French policemen sealed off the 11th arrondissement of Paris. The initiative came from the Germans, while those carrying it out were, as usual, from Vichy. Checking papers at métro stations and in the streets, raiding flats, shops and
It was not, however, only the communists and the different bands of resisters who were in growing danger. There was another group of people whose lives were about to be destroyed.
In the summer of 1940, observing the rapid advance of the German army, Langeron, the Paris police Prefect, had decided to evacuate the files held by the Service des Étrangers, the bureau that looked after foreigners, along with cabinet papers and political documents. Barges were brought to the quai des Orfèvres and several tons of paper passed from hand to hand along a chain of men, working in shifts for forty-eight hours. The barge with the political documents got through to the south before the Germans reached Paris, but the one with the dossiers on foreigners was blocked in the Seine when a boat carrying munitions exploded. In spite of feverish attempts by Langeron’s civil servants to retrieve and hide them, most of the files were discovered by the Germans and carted back to the police Prefecture. And when, in October, a Bureau for Foreigners and Jewish Affairs was set up, the retrieved files, and particularly the ‘fichiers Juifs’, were very useful when the round-ups of ‘undesirables’ began.
The first anti-Semitic laws of the autumn of 1940 had excluded Jews from most forms of public office. Vichy, its definition of Jewishness rather more all-embracing than that of the Nazis, defined as Jewish anyone with three Jewish grandparents, or two Jewish grandparents and married to a Jew. Until that moment, some French Jewish families, who had for many generations been French citizens, and who remained secular, genuinely did not define themselves as Jewish. Both France Bloch and Marie-Elisa Nordmann, who had grown up without religion, saw themselves as essentially French rather than Jewish.
Even before any request was made by Vichy, the first anti-Jewish decrees had been floated. When required to do so, most of France’s Jews—and especially the foreign Jews, anxious to demonstrate their allegiance to France—registered with the authorities, both because they feared the consequences of disobedience and because few realised what lay ahead. In any case, many who had decided not to declare themselves were soon denounced. Lawyers, doctors, bankers, shopkeepers, all hastened to denounce Juifs camouflés , camouflaged Jews, Jews living in ‘luxury villas’, Jewish women of ‘loose morals’, and Jews grown ‘rich and greedy’ at the expense of good Catholic families. With rationing and food shortages, the idea of Jews ‘gorging’ incensed these informers.
Arrests of Jews in Paris had begun in May 1941, not long after the setting up of a General Commissariat for Jewish Questions, under a right-wing member of parliament called Xavier Vallat. Vallat had lost an eye and a leg in the First World War, and was best known for the savagery of his attacks on Léon Blum in 1936. And it was in the summer of 1941 that the chasse aux Juifs , the hunt for Jews, began in earnest, so zealously pursued by the French collaborators that it was said that even the Nazis were impressed. Foreign Jews were to be interned; Jewish firms to be ‘Aryanised’. ‘To make our houses really clean,’ read one poster for an exhibition, ‘we must sweep up the Jews.’
The earlier arrests had been relatively restricted—of adult men who did not have French citizenship—but on 18 August, French policemen sealed off the 11th arrondissement of Paris. The initiative came from the Germans, while those carrying it out were, as usual, from Vichy. Checking papers at métro stations and in the streets, raiding flats, shops and
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