Once the Jews were required to wear a yellow star on their clothing, most of the French had the decency to look away. Probably not too many noticed the elderly gentleman with his carefully trimmed moustache and old-fashioned cane who wore his Legion d'Honneur and other medals just above his star of David. Those were hard times for everyone, after all, and if you lived in the apartment buildings with a clear view of the concentration camp of Drancy, just outside Paris, one of the many such collection points for Jews, you could pull the shades down. Then you might not notice that there were very few Germans around. It was French cops who knocked on the doors of the Jewish families and pulled young and old out and loaded them onto the buses, driven by regular French bus drivers, and delivered them to the camps, administered by French men and women who relieved them of whatever valuables they had brought with them and eventually put them on the buses again and got them to the train station where they were loaded -- by Frenchmen -- onto the cars that would take them, well, wherever they were going. It was no business of the decent Frenchmen whose job it was to get them onto the trains, or those railroad employees who ran them, to wonder where they would end up.

Not a pretty story, and certainly not the one we all believed at war's end. As a matter of fact it took years, about thirty to be more or less exact, before the truth of the French role in World War II began to come out. An American historian, Robert Paxton, was the first to write about Vichy France and its role in the extermination of European Jewry. Then other historians began to look into the matter, both in the U.S. and in France, where anger and resistance (real this time) met the early attempts to shed light on the sordid facts. Eventually, as the memoirs of living witnesses and the available documents began to pile up, France's shameful record was exposed. But only piece by piece.

We read in the New York Times of March 20 that the French National Railroad is being sued (not for money, for an apology) for its role in the deportation of some 76,000 Jews from France between 1942 and 1944. Of course we are shocked, shocked.

The French are known for their sensitivity, their subtlety. Here are two small facts to add a soupcon of nuance to the story of wartime France. Pierre Laval insisted on putting the Jewish children, as young as two or three, who had been torn from their screaming mothers, on special convoys transporting them eastward. The Germans were surprised; they hadn't asked for the children. Laval reasoned that those children might grow up to make trouble for France. He underestimated the power of the myth, the indifference of the world. One of those children who survived would tell anyone who was interested the curious fact that when the neighborhood gendarme loaded her family on the buses he went back to make sure their little dog would be left with the concierge so nothing would happen to it. She was only seven at the time but she was left with the distinct impression that the policeman, a family man of the neighborhood, cared more about the dog's fate than about hers.

Yes, there were those among the French who resisted and those who protected and saved Jews. Whether there were as many as there should have been is a moot point. What should be clear though is that the French have not suddenly descended into villainy from nobility as they maintain a foreign policy that protects and encourages brutal dictatorships. They're only looking out for themselves. After all, c'est la vie.  

Rita Kramer has written for Commentary, The Public Interest, The Wall Street Journal, Newsday, The International Herald Tribune, among other publications. Her most recent book is Flames in the Field: The Story of Four SOE Agents in Occupied France (Penguin).

A Little Advice on Peace
and War from an Israeli

Naomi Ragen

For all those of you who think that only war poses risks for innocent people, I would like to tell you of our experiences here in Israel.

Nine years ago, we in Israel, encouraged by our own Peace-Nowers, signed a Peace Accord with a known terrorist, pulled our army out, handed him land and then sat around singing songs and painting doves because we were tired of fighting. And this is what happened: he brought in thousands of weapons, taught children to kill and be killed, set up bomb factories, and encouraged religious leaders to preach suicide bombing as a way to reach paradise. And we looked on and said: He doesn't mean it. It's just talk. And anyone who said out loud: 'There is no peace, just preparation for war from one side,' was drowned out and vilified, called a war-monger and a traitor, told they had killed Yitzchak Rabin and told to shut up and let the party continue.

And then our buses started blowing up, and our discos, and our wedding halls, and our Seder nights, and our Bar Mitzvahs and restaurants. Babies were blown up or shot in their carriages along with their grandmothers. Our country dug hundreds of graves. Thousands wound up injured, crippled for life, sitting in wheelchairs, and burn units, brain damaged on life-support; their lives

Outpost               - 8 -               April 2003