Vichy Against Vichy: History and Memory of the Second World War in the Former Capital of the État Français from 1940 to the Present
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Vichy against Vichy: History and Memory of the Second World War in the Former Capital of the État français from 1940 to the Present Audrey Mallet A Thesis In the Department of History Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (History) at Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne December 2016 © Audrey Mallet, 2016 CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES This is to certify that the thesis prepared By: Audrey Mallet Entitled: Vichy against Vichy: History and Memory of the Second World War in the Former Capital of the État français from 1940 to the Present and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (History) complies with the regulations of the University and meets the accepted standards with respect to originality and quality. Signed by the final examining committee: Chair Dr. G. LeBlanc External Examiner Dr. E. Jennings External to Program Dr. F. Chalk Examiner Dr. D. Peschanski Examiner Dr. C. Claveau Thesis Co-Supervisor Dr. N. Ingram Thesis Co-Supervisor Dr. H. Rousso Approved by: Dr. B. Lorenzkowski, Graduate Program Director December 5, 2016 Dr. A. Roy, Dean, Faculty of Arts & Science Abstract Vichy against Vichy: History and Memory of the Second World War in the Former Capital of the État français from 1940 to the Present Audrey Mallet, Ph.D. Concordia University & Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne, 2016 Following the June 22, 1940 armistice and the subsequent occupation of northern France by the Germans, the French government left Paris and eventually established itself in the city of Vichy. The name ‘Vichy’ soon came to be used to refer to the regime instigated by Pétain and his ministers. The shortcut was maintained and popularized in the postwar period, to the great displeasure of the Vichyssois, who have long been refusing to incorporate the war into the city’s history. Whereas the Vichy regime is considered one of the most defining historical events of France’s recent past, the city of Vichy stands out as a non lieu de mémoire in the national memorial landscape of the Second World War. This dissertation investigates the wartime period in Vichy and explores how the population has dealt with the fraught legacy of the Vichy regime from 1944 to the present. My research examines how the interaction between national mythology, specific local concerns, and broader troubling issues have impacted – and often blocked – the formation of a local war memory. In the immediate postwar years, local resisters strove to establish a strong memory of the resistance. At the same time, a powerful victimhood myth emerged in response to the city’s fears of stigmatization and ostracism. The spa tourism’s recovery in the early 1950s marked a significant change in the city’s memorial politics, leading to the memory of the war being pushed into the background, thereby establishing a tradition of silence in Vichy. This, however, does not mean that the memories of the war never resurfaced. They did, especially during the Algerian War. In the 1950s, Vichy’s economy largely depended on colonial spa tourism. Known as the “Capitale d’été de l’Afrique du Nord,” Vichy was indeed a privileged summer destination for thousands of settlers, especially pieds noirs from Algeria. The fear provoked by the prospect of a grave economic crisis in the event that Algeria would become independent led to a rightward shift of the population. This shift provided the ideal environment for a pro-Pétain memory to gather strength in Vichy, beyond Pétain’s traditional extreme right base. While in the 1950s, Pétain’s myth also enjoyed a revival of popularity in France, it declined rapidly, when, following the end of the Algerian War, the extreme right hit historical lows. In Vichy, on the other hand, this counter memory continued to develop in the 1960s. In the post 1970s period, although the local Petainist memory went underground, no other memory has risen to occupy a central place in the local collective remembering of the war, turning the city into a non lieu de mémoire and making it a counter example of what has been happening in many other places across Europe, where the most shameful aspects of the Second World War have been memorialized. Keywords : Vichy, Second World War, Occupation, Pétain, Resistance, Memory, Lieu de mémoire, Realm of Memory, Algerian War, Decolonization, De Gaulle Acknowledgements My Ph.D. was financially supported by several fellowships, including a Fonds de Recherche du Québec-Société et Culture doctoral Fellowship, graduate fellowships from Concordia University, a joint USC/Yad Vashem scholarship, and a Jean Marielle fellowship from the Comité en l’honneur des 80 parlementaires du 10 juillet 1940. While funding is absolutely crucial to conduct research abroad and to have ideal working conditions at home, the assistance and help of people, scholars, archivists, interviewees, friends, and family is even more critical for the completion of a successful dissertation. First and foremost, I am sincerely grateful to my supervisors, Professors Norman Ingram and Henry Rousso, for reading many chapter drafts, sitting through many hours of listening to my ideas, answering my numerous questions, and offering guidance and support throughout the various stages of my doctoral studies. I would also like to extend a special thanks to the members of my examining committee, Professors Frank Chalk and Marcie Frank from Concordia University, Professor Cylvie Claveau from the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, Professor Denis Peschanski from Paris 1 Panthéon- Sorbonne, and Professor Eric Jennings from the University of Toronto. I am also indebted to many scholars, including Erica Lehrer, Serge Klarsfled and Marc Ferro, for their suggestions when this project was still in its early stages. I want to particularly thank the staff in the Archives nationales in Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, in the Centre de documentation juive at the Mémorial de la Shoah in Paris, at the USC Shoah Foundation in Los Angeles, in the departmental archives in Moulins and Clermont-Ferrand, and in the municipal archives in Cusset. A special thank you to Aurélie Duchézeau and Valérie Goutaudier at Vichy’s municipal archives, and to Fabienne Gelin and Martine Chausson at the fonds patrimoniaux, for their continuous assistance and support. I am especially thankful to those Vichyssois who agreed to talk with me, either during formal interviews, or during informal conversations. To name just a few: William Bennejean, Joseph Bléthon, Jacques Corrocher, Philippe Gendre, Lucien Guyot, Alexandre Kaczerginski, Christophe Pommeray, Robert Liris, Jean-Yves Bordesoult, Pascal Chambriard, Michel Boulicaut, Fabrice Dubusset, Vivianne Dreyfuss, Mr and Mrs Fiorin, Samuel Méchoulan, and Michel Laval. Thank you also to my sister, Elodie, for taking the time to consult and copy several documents in Parisian libraries and archives, to Sebastian Döderlein for offering a listening and sympathetic ear throughout my graduate studies, to Kris Archibald for editing the final draft, and to Yovanna Chacon for her translation skills. Finally, my appreciation goes to my parents, not only for offering moral support, as well as accommodation and food when I was in Vichy, but also for acting as outstanding and tireless research assistants. My father spent much of his early retirement in local archives and libraries, sorting through archival sources and reading dozens of articles and books for me. Although my mother worked full time, her help was nonetheless precious; she made many photocopies, typed long notes I had drafted on books, and made clear excel tables out of my sometimes unclear findings. This work owes much to them. Table of Contents List of figures ……………………………………………………………………………………ix INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………...1 1. Vichy vs Vichy…………………………………………………………………………..….1 2. Doing micro history…………………………………………………………………………8 3. Sources and methodology……………………………………………………………….…14 4. Outline…………………………………………………………………………….………..19 CHAPTER 1 – Living side by side with the government……………………………………22 1. Vichy enters the war……………………………………………………………………….22 2. The good sides of living close to the government…………………………………………32 3. The drawbacks amid the advantages………………………………………………………44 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………...54 CHAPTER 2 – Collaborationism, Collaboration, Resilience and Resistance……………….56 1. Grassroots collaborationism………………………………………………………………..56 2. The population’s response to the Vichy regime…………………………………………....62 3. Being a resister in Vichy…………………………………………………………………...75 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………86 CHAPTER 3 – Being Jewish in Vichy………………………………………………………...88 1. Expelling the Jews from Vichy, from the summer of 1940 to the summer of 1941……….89 2. Tracking down the last Jews in Vichy, from the summer of 1941 to the war’s end…….....98 3. Local response to the anti-Jewish legislation of the government…………………………106 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………….....116 CHAPTER 4 – The épuration in Vichy: success or failure?………………………………..118 1. The extra judicial épuration ……………………………………………………………....119 2. The internment in Vichy…………………………………………………………………..128 3. Overview of the judicial épuration in the Allier department and in Vichy……………….139 4. The (in)effectiveness of justice in clearing the city from collective suspicion? ………….145 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………….153 CHAPTER 5 – Establishing Vichy as a city of resisters (from