Feeding France's Outcasts: Rationing in Vichy's Internment Camps, 1940
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Feeding France’s Outcasts: Rationing and Hunger in Vichy’s Internment Camps, 1940-1944 by Laurie Drake A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History University of Toronto © Copyright by Laurie Drake November 2020 Feeding France’s Outcasts: Rationing in Vichy’s Internment Camps, 1940-1944 Laurie Drake Doctor of Philosophy Department of History University of Toronto November 2020 Abstract During the Second World War, Vichy interned thousands of individuals in internment camps. Although mortality remained relatively low, morbidity rates soared, and hunger raged throughout. How should we assess Vichy’s role and complicity in the hunger crisis that occurred? Were caloric deficiencies the outcome of a calculated strategy, willful neglect, or an unexpected consequence of administrative detention and wartime penury? In this dissertation, I argue that the hunger endured by the thousands of internees inside Vichy’s camps was not the result of an intentional policy, but rather a reflection of Vichy’s fragility as a newly formed state and government. Unlike the Nazis, French policy-makers never created separate ration categories for their inmates. Ultimately, food shortage resulted from the general paucity of goods arising from wartime occupation, dislocation, and the disruption of traditional food routes. Although these problems affected all of France, the situation was magnified in the camps for two primary reasons. First, the camps were located in small, isolated towns typically ii not associated with large-scale agricultural production. Second, although policy-makers attempted to implement solutions, the government proved unwilling to grapple with the magnitude of the problem it faced and challenge the logic of confinement, which deprived people of their autonomy, including the right to procure their own food. Although Vichy bears full responsibility for the hunger it thrust upon thousands of inmates, the absence of a clear hunger policy created room for the development of schemes, programs, and plans that allowed camp administrators, internees, and aid organizations to implement solutions to stave off the threat of starvation. Administrators developed agricultural projects which yielded grains and vegetables, while internees relied on friends and family for money and provisions. At the same time, Vichy officials urged camp administrators to work closely with aid organizations able to donate foodstuffs. Despite these efforts, nothing could fully alleviate the myriad problems that plagued the camps, and internees remained hungry. Still, these programs, projects, and partnerships helped stave off death in many cases—at least for those who escaped eventual deportation. iii Acknowledgements The research and writing of this dissertation would not have been possible with the financial support from the University of Toronto Department of History, the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies, the School of Graduate Studies, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, as well as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. As I travelled throughout the United States, France and Switzerland, numerous people working in archives have steered me in the right direction and helped me locate material. I would like to acknowledge the staff and archivists at the International Committee of the Red Cross, the departmental archives of Ariège, Lozère, Pyrénées Atlantiques, Pyrénées Orientale, and Haute Garonne, the municipal archives of Mende, the French national archives, the Centre de documentation juive contemporaine, and the Joint Distribution Committee Archives. Both Vincent Slatt and Ron Coleman at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum deserve a special thank you for going above and beyond to help me explore their collection and introduce me to other scholars interested in food history and relief work during the Holocaust. Of course, this project would not have been possible without the support of so many professors who have influenced the direction of my work. Thanks to my supervisor Eric Jennings, whose zeal for French history is unparalleled. From the very beginning of the project, Eric’s rigour and critical eye helped me shape it, and his thoughtful and careful feedback helped me see things in my research that I might have otherwise missed. I am equally grateful for my committee members, Anna Shternshis and Susan Solomon who brought different perspectives to my work and pushed me to ask different types of questions and to bring my dissertation to life with memoirs and oral histories. I’d also like to thank Doris Bergen for re-introducing me to the iv history of the Holocaust, and for being an ally and a friend. Thanks to Edith Klein for all your support, and also for editing my dissertation. Robert Austin’s friendship and mentorship throughout my time at the University of Toronto has also left its mark on this work. He once told me that, “Good writing should communicate ideas simply, but not simplify the content.” I hope that my dissertation lives up to this. Thanks to all my friends and colleagues who have provided both direct and indirect support to this project. To Zachary Alapi, Yoonhee Lee, and Sandy Carpenter, who edited chapters and gave me invaluable feedback on my writing. To Emily Springgay for believing in me and for letting me bounce ideas off of her. A special thanks to my Mom and Dad and to my colleagues at MASS LBP who have been cheering me along. My final thanks is for Mark Lyons, for always listening to me when I wanted to talk through this difficult topic, and for reading (and re-reading) every chapter carefully. v Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS IV TABLE OF CONTENTS VI CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 2 MISERY AND HUNGER: A SHORT HISTORY OF VICHY’S CAMPS 33 CHAPTER 3 THE BEST LAID PLANS GO AWRY: RATIONING IN VICHY’S CAMPS 64 CHAPTER 4 BUREAUCRATIC BLINDNESS: INEFFECTIVE POLICY-MAKING FOR VICHY’S CAMPS 96 CHAPTER 5 GARDENING FOR RATIONS: FOOD SOLUTIONS AND ABUSES IN VICHY’S CAMPS 121 CHAPTER 6 FEEDING THEMSELVES: INTERNEE-LED FOOD SOLUTIONS IN VICHY’S CAMPS 150 CHAPTER 7 FOOD FROM ABROAD: RELIEF WORK IN VICHY’S CAMPS 187 CHAPTER 8 CONCLUSION 219 BIBLIOGRAPHY 237 vi 1 Chapter 1 Introduction On November 12, 1941, Friedel Bohny-Reiter, a young nurse trained in Zurich and working for the Secours suisse, stepped out of a vehicle and, for the first time, set eyes on the camp of Rivesaltes, where she was to spend the next year as an aid worker. Located in the mountainous Pyrénées-Orientales region of southwestern France, Rivesaltes, like so many other French internment sites, confined several thousand people whom Vichy officials sought to isolate from the rest of society. Although Bohny-Reiter understood that her role was to alleviate the suffering of those interned, no one had prepared her for what she would witness at the camp. In her diary for that day, she recorded her initial, palpable shock: The wind blows violently between the barracks as it passes without pity over a village that consists of nothing but barrack after barrack, like an endless monotony of stone. Here, in this desolation, under the most primitive conditions, people live for weeks and months […] Whether my eyes are open or shut, I see nothing but the wide-eyed faces of hungry children marked by suffering and bitterness. I know that I have only been here for a day, yet it feels like a week has passed.1 Over time, Bohny-Reiter adjusted to life inside the camp. Day in and day out, she and her peers worked to improve the material quality of life for internees, and they strove to educate the children who lived there. Every day, among her many activities, she filled a cart with rice donated by her employer and pushed it around the camp, serving it to those most in need of 1 Friedel Bohny-Reiter, Journal de Rivesaltes, 1941-1942 (Carouge-Genève: Ed. Zoé, 1993), 31; my translation. 2 additional substance—usually the young and the infirm. The lingering images of direct encounters with hunger and desperation haunted her forever. For instance, on February 12, 1942, a full three months after arriving, she eloquently, and harrowingly, described in her diary the existential impact of hunger: If there is one thing that I wish for, it is to one day see these people who vegetate here live a new life as human beings, so that dignity, which is the thing that distinguishes us from animals, can be renewed in them. Every morning, when my colleagues and I distribute rice in the barracks for the sick, I ask myself, “Are these even humans? Were they ever humans? Have they ever desired anything other than something to eat or drink?”[…] Yesterday night, [I met a weakened man with little strength] who was thrown to the ground by the wind. He lay there, unable to lift himself, for several hours without anyone noticing. His wife stood next to him, uncomplaining, but when she saw me, she explained, with her eyes fixated on my rice cart, that she was horribly hungry […] I try to understand—they [internees] wrap themselves in dirty blankets, they have fleas, they wear the same shirts for months, the tin cans they use as plates are never washed. All of this is a testimony to how permanent hunger causes total indifference.2 In this entry, Bohny-Reiter described through her shock and apprehensive disgust the crippling effects of persistent undernourishment. Men and women no longer had the fortitude to care for their hygiene, let alone for a husband toppled over by the wind. Relationships between individuals dissolved as food became the constant and sole preoccupation. She and 2 Bohny-Reiter, Journal de Rivesaltes, 73-4, my translation. 3 many other witnesses to hunger have noted its power to erase thoughts, erode traditional moral codes, and make enemies of people.