France during the German occupation. Kaunas during the occupation, stories of local residents and partisan Aron Vilenchuk
People with weapons in their hands broke into houses and dragged women out by force, took them to the city square and cut their heads. The women were held by the hands so as not to resist. Called to fulfill his patriotic duty, the barber wielded scissors or a clipper. Punishment and humiliation were all the stronger because they were committed publicly, in front of relatives, neighbors and acquaintances. The audience laughed and applauded. After that, the disgraced women were taken through the streets - for show to everyone. Sometimes women were stripped of their clothes. The boys hooted.
From 1943 to 1946, more than 20,000 women in France were accused of collaborating with the occupiers and had their heads cut off. This was the punishment for helping the enemy, showing sympathy for Nazi Germany, or simply sleeping with the Germans, which was called "horizontal collaborationism."
The public punishment of women made it possible for every Frenchman to feel that the occupation was over, that he was finally free! This was the most visible deliverance from the shameful past, which I wanted to quickly forget.
Sometimes, however, there was no politics in this ceremony. Women were cut bald and in towns where German garrisons were not stationed during the war years, there were no collaborators or members of the Resistance. The owners of the town were regaining power over women, or, as feminists say, satisfying their male chauvinism.
There are cases when men were also cut bald - for looting and denunciation. But here's what's interesting - none of the French were cut off for an intimate relationship with a German woman.
"We slept with Germany"
In 1940, France suffered a resounding defeat in the war with Germany and capitulated.
German troops occupied the northern part of the country, three-fifths of French territory. They occupied Paris, so the new French government moved to the resort town of Vichy, located in territory free from the Germans.
Why didn't Hitler immediately occupy the whole country? The French government could evacuate to the colonies, to North Africa, and continue the war, relying on the still powerful navy. Hitler wanted to avoid this.
The defeated country was headed by the aged Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain. In October 1940, Pétain addressed the French over the radio, urging them to cooperate with Germany. Marshal Pétain went to bow to Hitler. Marshal did everything that the Fuhrer demanded of him. On his orders, the French government in every possible way helped the German military vehicle, sent raw materials to Germany and sent young Frenchmen to work in German factories.
Germany was in no hurry to sign a peace treaty, so the French had to pay all the expenses of the occupation administration. They paid for the maintenance of German garrisons on their territory, for the construction of military airfields and submarine bases that operated in the Atlantic. The French paid approximately 20 million Reichsmarks a day - not only the occupying troops were supported by this amount, but also the punitive bodies - the Gestapo and the security police.
With all the dislike for the Germans, many French willingly went to their service. Most of the French were simply conformists who willingly submitted to any authority. But thanks to the Pétain government, vile moods dominated Vichy - anti-communism, anti-Semitism, hatred of the republic and atheists, which was transformed into sympathy for fascism. 20,000 Frenchmen volunteered for the SS division "Charlemagne", some of them for their exploits on eastern front honored iron cross. In Vichy they formed the Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism, which went to the Soviet Union to fight with the Wehrmacht against the Red Army.
Neighbors watched each other closely. Noise, music, laughter during the occupation was almost always perceived as a betrayal. One Frenchman indignantly spoke about his neighbor: the Germans doused her naked with champagne, and then, laughing, licked the droplets from her body. Perhaps this pornographic picture referred to the entire country, which gave itself to the enemy. As one writer put it, "we belong to those French who slept with Germany, and the memory of this act is pleasant."
It was believed that the German soldiers deliberately sought to sleep with as many French women as possible because that was the policy of the occupying authorities. In reality, the Wehrmacht command was concerned about the spread of venereal diseases and tried to limit the intimate life of soldiers to prostitutes who worked under control.
Only in the Paris region, German soldiers served 31 brothels. Another five thousand prostitutes worked on a permanent basis, but individually. And about 100,000 French women traded their bodies from time to time. After the liberation of France, prostitutes were treated differently in different cities. Some were forgiven - they just made a living, others were accused of collaborating with the enemy. Even during the occupation, they were obliged to show patriotism and serve only the French ...
If a French woman slept with a German, then after her release, this was clearly interpreted as a betrayal. By themselves, intimate relationships did not mean betrayal and did not pose any danger to France and the French. But the following point of view was accepted: every woman who went to bed with a German betrayed her homeland in her soul. "Horizontal collaborationism" was the most unbearable sign of defeat and occupation. It was a metaphor complete submission France, which fell under Germany in the literal and figurative sense.
Berets are not allowed
When Marshal Pétain arrived in Marseille, one of the local newspapers published a report under the headline: "With all the breadth of his soul, Marseille is given to Marshal Pétain, symbolizing the renewal of France." But Hitler was not tempted to cooperate with the marshal and generally showed his disdain to the French. He did not consider Pétain a serious partner - the marshal was too old.
The French, - said Hitler in a narrow circle, - seem to be small townsfolk who once, due to many accidents, gained some semblance of greatness. And let no one condemn me for the fact that in relation to France I adhere to the following point of view: what is now mine is mine! I will not give back what I took by right of the strongest.
At a dinner with the Fuhrer, Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler argued that the best way to finally solve the French problem is to identify all persons of German blood among the population of France, take away their children and place them in German boarding schools, where they will be forced to forget that by chance they were considered French, and they will be inspired that Aryan blood flows in them and they belong to the great German people.
Hitler said on this occasion that all attempts to Germanize him are not particularly inspiring, unless they are supported by worldview ...
Alsace and Lorraine, where there was a mixed population, immediately underwent total Germanization.
On the fertile lands from Burgundy to the Mediterranean, Heinrich Himmler intended to place the state of the SS. Of course, in this state there was no place for the French. Hitler liked the idea:
We must not forget, - said the Fuhrer in the imperial office, - that an entire era is connected with the ancient Burgundian kingdom German history and that this is primordially German land, which the French took from us during the period of our impotence.
After November 11, 1942, British troops, together with some French units, began hostilities against the Wehrmacht in North Africa, the German army occupied all of France. The occupation of the north of the country after the defeat in the war was perceived as inevitable, but when the Germans, after more than two years, occupied the previously unoccupied part of the country, the French took it very painfully. Part of the territory was taken by Italy. Benito Mussolini, following Germany, also declared war on France and received his share.
poppies appear
The military economy of the Reich prospered at the expense of slave labor million prisoners of concentration camps and forcibly brought from the occupied territories labor force. Germany released French prisoners in exchange for French workers in the proportion of one to three. Fritz Sauckel, Commissioner General of the Third Reich for labor reserves, who needed 350 workers in 1942, signed an agreement with the French government. On September 4, the government in Vichy instituted compulsory labor service. All Frenchmen of military age had to go to work in Germany.
But the young French did not want to go to the Reich. Those who managed to elude the Germans and their own militia left their homes and hid in the forest. So, in fact, the resistance movement began. Most simply holed up in the woods until the allies arrived. The brave in spirit united in combat detachments and established cooperation with the British. The British Special Operations Directorate did everything to turn scattered groups of French maquis into real partisans. British planes dropped weapons and explosives on them.
The most serious terrorist attacks against the Germans were carried out by groups prepared by the British and parachuted over occupied France. Among those sent to help the French were 39 women. Of these, 15 fell into the hands of the Germans. Only three survived. The German SS units and the French, who faithfully served the occupation regime, acted against the partisans. They successfully introduced informants into partisan detachments.
For the underground, for those who were hiding from being sent to Germany for work, who listened to London radio or were known for anti-fascist views, the collaborators represented a real danger. The French denounced the French and thereby helped the occupying forces. Punishing collaborators, destroying the most dangerous of them, the partisans tried to protect themselves.
The black list of the Resistance included prostitutes who served German soldiers, women who met with the Germans, and those who openly sympathized with Germany.
For the first time, women were cut off by members of the Resistance in June 1943. This was reported by the underground press. It was not only a punishment, but also a warning to other women: dealing with the Germans is dangerous, collaborationism will have to be paid with tears - if not blood. They cut off a woman who once drank coffee with German soldiers, this was also considered evidence of cooperation with the enemy.
"French women who give themselves up to the Germans will be shorn bald," leaflets distributed by the Resistance warned. "We will write on your back -" sold out to the Germans ". sell their bodies to the Gestapo or policemen, they betray the blood and soul of their French compatriots. Future wives and mothers, they are obliged to preserve their purity in the name of love for their country."
Now you can dance
The liberation of the country began on June 6, 1944, when American and British troops landed in Normandy. The fighting in France continued for several months. German troops in Paris capitulated on August 25, 1944.
The French were unhappy because they lost the war and even collaborated with the invaders. They yearned for consolation. And General Charles de Gaulle came to their aid. He created the myth that the French people as a whole participated in the Resistance.
Paris has been liberated by French hands,” Charles de Gaulle said solemnly. - With the help of all France, real France, eternal France.
On the occasion of the liberation, a grand celebration was arranged. Marshal Pétain forbade dancing. The French have not danced for four years. And de Gaulle allowed it. Joining the victorious countries allowed the French to regain self-confidence and restore self-respect. It was a sweet deliverance from humiliation and disgrace, a return to a new and pure life. The French had to break decisively and visibly with the past. They wanted to express their feelings in some unusual way. When people saw shaved bald women, they were convinced that justice had prevailed. For many, this was not only revenge and the restoration of justice, but also the purification of the entire society.
Two laws passed by the Consultative Assembly on August 24 and September 26, 1944, established the responsibility of those who "provided assistance to Germany and her allies, threatened the national unity, rights and equality of all French citizens." Created special courts that tried cases accused of collaborationism. Sometimes lynching took place - those who served in the Vichy militia and Gestapo informers were dragged out of prison cells and executed in public. Someone used an opportune moment to settle old scores. But it was impossible to get to the already arrested Gestapo agent - he was behind bars, took out his anger on women who were accused of being German whores, cut their heads and drove them through the streets.
The British and American soldiers were surprised and outraged at what was being done to the women, considered it sadism, and told the crowd:
Let them go, for God's sake! You yourself are all collaborators.
They did not understand the complex tangle of feelings and experiences of the French who had just been liberated from the occupation. For the local authorities, women's haircuts were proof that they had already begun to clean up their territory from enemies of the people. The crowd went on a rampage: no pity for those who gave their body and soul to the bosses! But the courts did not give more than eight days of imprisonment to women accused of having intimate relations with the enemy. Moreover, they were obliged to visit a venereologist twice a week for six months - along with registered prostitutes.
For several years, the authorities called the partisans "bandits" and "terrorists." Now the underground workers and those who lived quietly under the Germans met face to face. One can imagine that the partisans were thinking about those who never joined them while the Germans were here, and now proudly declared their participation in the Resistance.
Cleaning became the common cause that united everyone. A woman with a shaved head was a symbol of liberation and the end of the occupation. Public reprisals against the enemy raised the partisans in the eyes of the crowd, created a heroic halo for them. But it also united everyone - both those who fought with the enemy, and those who watched what was happening from the side. Former members of the Vichy militia, who performed tasks for the Gestapo, now attached themselves to the partisans. Participation in the punishment of women seemed the most obvious way to show their loyalty to the new government. It was the easiest and safest way to fit into the circle of winners - to punish unarmed and defenseless women.
Real partisans were least of all ready to blame women:
A woman gave a few hours of happiness to a German soldier. We are unhappy that it was our compatriot. But in general, this did not affect the course of the war. So what's going on? It turns out that to cut a frivolous woman bald and expose her to reproach - does it mean to enroll yourself in the ranks of the Resistance fighters? People are sure that by doing so they demonstrate their courage and courage. And the crowd enjoys watching the fascinating spectacle.
In some cases, French women managed to justify themselves by presenting a certificate of virginity. This indicated that they could not possibly have intimate relations with the enemy. In some cases, the accused were sent to a gynecologist for examination. Innocence was considered proof of innocence. But the presence of a venereal disease is proof of "horizontal collaborationism."
Wigs have skyrocketed in price. Wigs, hats, scarves, turbans helped to hide the shame, but did not get rid of the humiliation suffered. Some women could not bear the shame and committed suicide. Others ended up in the hospital with serious nervous breakdown. Everything depended on the character and psyche. There were also those who maintained complete composure and filed complaints, proving that they were accused in vain.
Women tired of loneliness
The advancing German troops took 1,600,000 French soldiers prisoner in 1940. Half were married, and one in four had children at home. Most of prisoners of war spent the entire war in captivity and returned home only in April 45th. Here a new disappointment awaited them. It was difficult, and sometimes impossible, to establish a married life. One in ten divorced almost immediately. Almost always there was one reason - adultery. Tired of being alone, wives cheated on their husbands. It was impossible to hide it. The neighbors did not miss the opportunity to open the eyes of her husband who had returned home.
While the husbands were at the front, and then in captivity, women had to take care of the children and the house and be faithful to their men. On the one hand, when women themselves earned and fed children, they were treated with respect. On the other hand, having become independent, they violated the patriarchal traditions and norms of a more than conservative society. They became independent, which the men did not like at all. They were looked at with caution: they allow themselves unthinkable things, including choosing partners themselves! They were considered morally unstable, and even sexually depraved women, who are not difficult to seduce, because they do not refuse any of the men.
The men understood that the defeat in the war and the occupation were the result of their inability to fulfill their duty, to protect the country and save women from the invasion of the enemy. Liberation was an opportunity to restore their masculinity. This was the return of the traditional male role of the warrior. The French wanted to get even with Nazism for everything that was done to them during these years. Personal vendetta and the desire for justice, the desire to punish the enemies of the country and deal with someone you hate, mixed up. The hatred that had been accumulating since the moment of capitulation splashed out on women.
Now the French reproached their wives, sisters, daughters for allowing themselves to have fun with the Germans while their men were kept in prison camps or in labor camps. A shaved head was a visible proof of the guilt of women in front of French men. Like the image of a lily, which in the old days was branded on the shoulders of prostitutes.
But it was no longer possible to stop the process of emancipation of women. In April 1944, the French Consultative Assembly, still sitting in colonial Algeria, granted French women the right to vote. In the spring of 1945, women voted for the first time local authorities authorities. All this happened at a time when French women were shorn baldly all over the country.
The first post-war minister of justice reported to the Consultative Assembly that the courts had sentenced 3,920 collaborators to death, 1,500 to hard labor, and 8,500 to imprisonment. But General Charles de Gaulle was the first to decide that there was no need to stir up the past and divide the country into traitors and heroes. The unity of the nation is much more important. Trials of collaborators completed work in July 1949. President de Gaulle pardoned more than a thousand convicts. But for the rest of the prison sentence was short-lived. In 1953, an amnesty was declared. By law, former collaborators cannot even be reminded of their service to the occupiers. The further the Second World War goes, the more heroic their military past seems to the French.
Kaunas during the occupation
Stories of local residents and partisan Aron Vilenchuk
We are on the streets of Kaunas, which has just been liberated from the Germans.
We are approached by three women, residents of Kaunas. In Russian, with a strong Lithuanian accent, they say:
- We waited a long time for the arrival of the Red Army and waited. Thank you!
[…] Residents of the city talk about robberies and murders. The Germans intended to turn Kaunas into a purely German city - they exterminated the Jews, the Lithuanians were partly forcibly taken to Germany, partly resettled in Belarus and even in Smolensk region. They robbed the property of the murdered Jews and evicted Lithuanians. The Germans took over local enterprises, both state and private ...
The stories of local residents fully confirm the horrors that I happened to hear a few days ago from the lips of a group of Jewish partisans who came out from behind enemy lines. Most of them were residents of Kaunas. And here's what they told me.
The war captured Kaunas in the very first days. About thirty thousand Jews remained in the city when the Germans captured it.
The Jews did not have to wait long for their fate. Pogroms and mass executions began already in the first days. Already at the end of June 1941, on Linkuvos Street, on the wall of a house, passers-by could read the inscription made in blood: “Jews, avenge me” (Idn, nemt nekome far mir). This was written by a woman mortally wounded by a dagger in the chest by a fascist bandit who robbed a Jewish family...
Looting began all over the place. German occupation authorities accepted Active participation in these robberies. An announcement was posted: "Report all observed cases of robbery by such and such a phone number." Those who dared to really resort to this remedy usually paid with their lives. On the phone call German policemen appeared at the address indicated by the victims, the victim was seized and taken away, he did not return again.
Three weeks after the capture of Kaunas, the first advertisement about Jews appeared on the walls of houses, signed famous executioner, who has vast experience in the mass extermination of the Lodz Jews, Brigadeführer Kramer. The resolution had fifteen points. Jews were forbidden to: walk on sidewalks, drive cars, buses and bicycles, trade in shops and bazaars, talk with the local population, enter and leave the city, visit restaurants, theaters, cinemas, visit schools and universities.
A Jew who appeared on the street without a yellow "mogen-dovid" on his chest and back was to be shot.
Finally, it was announced that before August 15 all Jews were obliged to move to Slobodka, on the outskirts of the city, behind the Neman.
On August 16, 1941, the gates of the ghetto were closed. From that moment on, not a single Jew had the right to appear on the streets of the city. Moving into the ghetto was accompanied by mass robbery. People were not allowed to take even underwear with them, they were forced to go to the ghetto in what they were, and often they took off their clothes from the unfortunate if the robbers - German soldiers and officers liked it. These days, on the streets of Kaunas, one could observe disgusting pictures of fights between German bandits who did not divide among themselves the goods stolen from the Jews.
On August 16, 1941, the first "action" took place over the doomed Jews. It started with the intelligentsia. The assistant to the Gebietskommissariat for Jewish affairs, the executioner Jordan, announced that the Gebietskommissariat needed five hundred Jewish intellectuals, well-dressed and knowledgeable in foreign languages, supposedly to work in the archives. The ghetto allocated five hundred people. None of them returned. Soon, traces of executions of this first group of Jewish victims were found on the Kaunas forts.
There was silence for two weeks after that. The Jews were not touched. On the instructions of the Lithuanian envoy to Berlin, who was under the bourgeois government of Lithuania, the Kaunas doctor Elkes was appointed headman of the ghetto. The Germans called him to resolve any organizational issues, or rather, in order to extort valuables from the Jews imprisoned in the ghetto each time.
In mid-September, German police troops surrounded part of the ghetto. By order of the executioner-officer who commanded this next "action", all the Jews were expelled to the square. Here, according to pre-compiled lists, they separated all those able-bodied or who had some kind of profession. The rest - two thousand people - were sent to the forts and shot here. Two weeks later, another three thousand people were taken to execution in the same way.
The next big "action" took place on October 27, 1941. On the eve it was announced: "Everyone gather by six o'clock in the morning on the Democrats' Square."
There were autumn frosts. Trembling with cold and fear, innocent people sentenced to death began to gather in the square. There were children, sick people, old people… It was ordered to come to the square without things. As soon as people left their places, where the last remnants of their property were located, robberies began. This unbridled police bastard was rummaging around the corners in search of something to profit from.
The sorting of people began. Large families were assigned to one side, singles - separately. About ten thousand people were selected for the next massacre. As before, executions were carried out in the area of the forts.
Following this, the headman of the ghetto, Dr. Elkes, was summoned to the office of the gebitskommissar. He was assured that there would be no more executions in the ghetto. “Now,” they told him, “the ghetto has been cleared of unseemly elements, “you can calm everyone down to mind their own business, we won’t touch you again.” At the same time, they demanded from Dr. Elkes that the Jews contribute money "for the maintenance of the apparatus for Jewish affairs."
The famous Kovno rabbi Shapiro lived in the ghetto. One day they came for him. But Rabbi Shapiro was not alive, he died, unable to withstand the severity of the ghetto regime. Then they began looking for his relatives. Rabbi Shapiro's son, a professor of Jewish literature, was taken away and never returned.
In September 1942, it became known that Sturmbannführer Gecke, known for his brutal reprisals against Jews in Riga and Warsaw, had been appointed Commissioner for Jewish Affairs. They didn’t talk about him otherwise, as soon as the “Riga and Warsaw executioner.” This paramount hangman arrived in Kaunas with new powers from Berlin. He was not subordinate to the local military authorities, but only to Berlin.
His first event was a new mass "action". He demanded that two thousand people be sent from the ghetto, allegedly for peat extraction. On October 24, Dr. Elkes went to the executioner in order to make sure that all the required people would indeed be sent to work. The executioner Geke received the Jewish elder and reassured him, assuring him that not a single person would be shot. However, two days later, the police again began to surround the ghetto. Fifty cars pulled up to the gate. In a few hours, 1,700 people were loaded into cars. The required number of healthy able-bodied men for peat extraction in the ghetto was not enough. Then two companies of police began to grab in a row everyone who came to hand. Another 1,900 people were captured in this way. All these people were sent to the airfield and loaded into echelons here. At the same time, all their belongings were taken from them. The whole group was taken away towards the border. The women and children who remained at the airfield were immediately destroyed.
This continued until April 1944. The ghetto thinned and thinned. One of the last big "actions" was carried out in April 1944, when 1200 women with children were taken to the forts and brutally shot here.
I spoke with one Jewish partisan, a young student, Aron Vilenchuk. He was mobilized in the ghetto among other Jews to excavate the corpses of the executed. To hide their crimes, the executioners decided to dig up all the corpses and burn them. It is easy to imagine what it was like for the survivors to dig up the corpses of their loved ones, relatives and friends and take part in their burning. “Many,” says Vilenchuk, “could not stand this shame and immediately committed suicide.” Vilenchuk himself, with several other comrades, fled from the forts during work and joined the partisan detachment.
After the Red Army liberated Vilna, the Nazis decided to liquidate the Kovno ghetto. Seven thousand Jews who remained in the ghetto were loaded into trains and sent to the German border. Of course, they all suffered a common fate. Only those who managed to escape survived.
No matter how hard the conditions of the executioner regime were, two underground organizations always existed in the ghetto: the Union of Activists and the self-defense group. Unfortunately, they were almost unarmed. Their activities were limited to organizing escapes from the ghetto and mutual assistance. From time to time, underground organizations contacted the partisans and, with great precautions, transported small groups of Jews from the ghetto to the partisan detachments.
Once such a group of sixty people left the ghetto in order to go to the partisan detachments operating in the Augustow forests. The group was supplied with weapons, which were gradually, over time, collected by an underground organization. On the way to Augustow, the group was almost completely exterminated by the German punitive detachment. Another group of one hundred and thirty people safely reached Rudnitskaya Pushcha, was accepted into partisan detachment"Death to the invaders" and successfully acted as part of this detachment until the arrival of the Red Army troops.
Recorded by Major Z. G. Ostrovsky
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The period of occupation in France is preferred to be remembered as a heroic time. Charles de Gaulle, the Resistance… However, the impartial footage of the photo chronicle shows that everything was not quite the way the veterans tell and write in the history books. These photographs were taken by a correspondent for the German magazine Signal in Paris 1942-44. Color film, sunny days, smiles of the French, welcoming the occupiers. 63 years after the war, the selection became the exhibition "Parisians under the Occupation". She caused a huge scandal. city hall French capital banned its showing in Paris. As a result, permission was achieved, but France saw these shots only once. Second - public opinion could no longer afford. The contrast between the heroic legend and the truth turned out to be too striking.
photo by Andre Zucca from the exhibition in 2008
2. Orchestra on Republic Square. 1943 or 1944
3. Changing of the guard. 1941
5. The public in the cafe.
6. Beach near the Carruzel Bridge. Summer 1943.
8. Parisian rickshaw.
Regarding the photographs "Parisians during the Occupation". What hypocrisy on the part of the city authorities to condemn this exhibition for the "lack of historical context"! Just the photographs of the journalist-collaborator remarkably complement other photographs on the same topic, telling mainly about the daily life of wartime Paris. At the cost of collaborationism, this city avoided the fate of London, or Dresden, or Leningrad. Carefree Parisians sitting in a cafe or in a park, rollerblading boys and fishermen on the Seine are the same realities of wartime France as the underground activities of the Resistance. For what it was possible to condemn the organizers of the exhibition, it is not clear. And there is no need for the city authorities to become like the ideological commission under the Central Committee of the CPSU.
9. Rue Rivoli.
10. Showcase with a photograph of Collaborator Marshal Pétain.
11. Kiosk on Avenue Gabriel.
12. Metro Marbeuf-Champs Elysees (now - Franklin Roosevelt). 1943
13. Shoes made of fiber with a wooden block. 1940s.
14. Poster for the exhibition at the corner of rue Tilsit and the Champs Elysees. 1942
15. View of the Seine from the St. Bernard embankment, 1942.
16. Famous milliners Rosa Valois, Madame le Monnier and Madame Agnes during Longchamp, August 1943.
17. Weighing jockeys at the racetrack Longshan. August 1943.
18. At the tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe, 1942
19. In Luxembourg garden, May 1942.
20. Nazi propaganda on the Champs Elysees. The text on the poster in the center: "THEY GIVE THEIR BLOOD, GIVE YOUR WORK to save Europe from Bolshevism."
21. Another Nazi propaganda poster, issued after the bombing of Rouen by British aircraft in April 1944. In Rouen, as you know, the French national heroine Joan of Arc was executed by the British. The inscription on the poster: "KILLERS ALWAYS RETURN.. ..TO THE CRIME SCENE."
22. The caption to the picture says that the fuel for this bus was "city gas".
23. Two more automonsters from the time of the Occupation. Both pictures were taken in April 1942. The top picture shows a car fueled by charcoal. The bottom picture shows a car running on compressed gas.
24. In the garden of the Palais Royal.
25. The central market of Paris (Les Halles) in July 1942. The picture clearly shows one of the metal structures (because the pavilions of Baltar) of the era of Napoleon III, which were demolished in 1969.
26. One of the few black and white photographs of Zukka. On it is the national funeral of Philip Enriot, Secretary of State for Information and Propaganda, who advocated full cooperation with the occupiers. On June 28, 1944, Enrio was shot dead by members of the Resistance.
27. Playing cards in the Luxembourg Gardens, May 1942
28. The public in the Luxembourg Gardens, May 1942
29. In the Parisian Central Market (Les Halles, the very "womb of Paris") they were called "meat dressers".
30. Central market, 1942
32. Central Market, 1942
33. Central market, 1942
34. Rue Rivoli, 1942
35. Rue Rosier in the Jewish quarter of the Marais (Jews had to wear a yellow star on their chest). 1942
36. in the Nation quarter. 1941
37. Fair in the Nation quarter. Pay attention to the funny carousel device.
Despite the order of the command to hold the city at any cost, September 19, 1941 Nazi troops entered Kyiv. Most of the enterprises and organizations were evacuated, but hundreds of thousands of Kyivans remained virtually hostages in the city. The occupation lasted 778 days However, it was in September-October 1941 that the city and its inhabitants suffered the greatest losses.
By the time the Nazi troops entered Kyiv, about four hundred thousand citizens remained in the city, the rest either went to the front or were evacuated. The evacuation was carried out at five stations, however, although there were quite a lot of people who wanted to leave, they could not take everyone away. The railway stations were completely cordoned off, special checkpoints functioned at them, only those who had a reservation were let through the fence. With the outbreak of war, 200 thousand Kyivans went to the front, 325 thousand were evacuated. But 400,000 abandoned residents remained in the city.
With the beginning of the evacuation, first the houses were empty, and behind them - the whole districts of Kyiv. For example, on Lipki, where mostly members of the NKVD lived, there was no one left. After the retreat of the Soviet troops, the population in a panic began to rob shops. It began on the seventeenth of September, and ended on the nineteenth: it was on that day that German troops entered the city. September 19, 1941, by 13 o'clock in the afternoon, from Podil, on the street. Kirov, advanced German units began to enter the city. A crowd of anti-Soviet people, up to 300 people, on Kalinin Square met the incoming German units with flowers and the ringing of the bells of the Pechersk Lavra. The "ceremonial" meeting of the German troops was disrupted by the explosion of the bell tower of the Pechersk Lavra, which killed up to 40 Germans.
People tried to take everything, starting with needles and ending with weighty cabinets. What was taken later was supposed to be exchanged for food, since all products were taken out of the city. The same that they could not take out for some reason was drowned in the Dnieper. Witnesses say that the Germans came to the city without shooting, robbery and violence: quietly, peacefully, as if to themselves. Many people just watched how the streets gradually become more people dressed in gray overcoats. On Khreshchatyk and Prorizna Street, where there used to be a store, the Germans set up a drop-off point for things like radios. This was done for quite understandable reasons: to deprive the population of information from the Soviet Information Bureau. Since this all started. In total, about 200 thousand Kyivans died during the occupation.
In the lens - the first days of Kyiv under the Germans, also subsequent hard days until release. The places familiar to us in 1941 looked like this.
Defensive and anti-tank structures near a grocery store at the intersection of Brest-Litovsky Prospekt (now Pobedy Avenue) and 2nd Dachny Lane (now Industrialnaya Street), 1941. Now this place is the metro station Shulyavskaya.
Defensive structures on Lenin Street (now Bohdan Khmelnitsky) near the intersection with Lysenko Street, 1941. To the right of this place is now the Zoological Museum. 
Defensive structures on Khreshchatyk street, 1941. The photo was taken from the side of Bessarabskaya Square. In the center of the photo, on the left side of the street you can see high building TSUM. 
Defensive structures at the intersection of Shevchenko Boulevard with Saksagansky and Dmitrievskaya streets, that is, in the area of \u200b\u200bmodern Victory Square, 1941.
Burning factory Bolshevik, the result of German bombing, June 23, 1941. 
Construction of earthen fortifications across Lutheranskaya street near Khreshchatyk, 1941. 
German armored personnel carrier SdKfz-231, captured by soldiers of the 1st division of the 4th battalion special purpose NKVD. 
T-26 on the Chain Bridge, then the bridge was called it. E. Bosch, 1941 The chain bridge was blown up in September 1941 by retreating Red Army soldiers and has never been rebuilt. This is where the Metro Bridge now stands. 
Captured German self-propelled artillery installation StuG-III at the entrance to the opera house, 1941. 
Looted by marauders, the Soda Water store on Khreshchatyk, September 19, 1941. On this day, German troops entered the city 
The destroyed "Red Corner" in the Pavlovsk Garden at the intersection of Novo-Pavlovskaya and Gogolevskaya streets, September 19, 1941. 
German aerial photography of Kyiv, June 1941. The numbers indicate: 3 - the building of the old Arsenal, 5 - the Podolsky railway bridge, 6 - the E. Bosch bridge and its continuation - the Rusanovsky bridge, 7 - the still unfinished wooden Navodnitsky bridge, now in its place is the bridge named after. Patona, 8 - Darnitsky railway bridge. 
The first German cars on Khreshchatyk, September 1941. The picture was taken in the area of the Bessarabian market. In '41, this place was a grocery store, and now there are several sporting goods stores.
It is interesting that the German drives the car while sitting on the door, thus improving his visibility. In the hands of some Kiev residents, packages of groceries, the last thing they managed to pick up from the smashed shops. 
The Audi car stands in front of the house number 47 on Khreshchatyk Street, at that time the National Hotel was located there, September 1941. The picture shows that the woman is wearing slippers woven from reeds. 
A German motorcyclist on Khreshchatyk, the people of Kiev look at him with interest, September 1941. On the right - the building of the Central Department Store, in front - Bessarabka. This is a photo from the American magazine "Life" for November 3, 1941. 
An old man watches the marching Germans, September 19, 1941. 
Reconnaissance unit of the Wehrmacht, September 19, 1941. On the left is the building of the old Arsenal, on the right is the Ivan Kushkin tower with an embrasure made in it, in the depth you can see the Holy Trinity Gates of the Lavra. On the sidewalk - the rails of the tram number 20, now in this place - the route of the trolley bus number 20. Photo from Life magazine. 
German soldiers on the fourth tier of the bell tower in the Pechersk Lavra. In the background, the still unfinished wooden Navodnitsky Bridge is on fire, now in its place is the Paton Bridge. Photo from Life magazine. 
The photo was taken from the Lavra bell tower. Below - the garden and the defensive walls of the Lavra with the tower of Ivan Kushkin, on the right - the old Arsenal (now there is the Ukrainian Historical Center), in the center of the picture - the Church of St. Theodosius of the Caves, a little higher you can see the building of the shoe factory No. .
German sentry at the Lavra bell tower, Navodnitsky bridge on the Dnieper, September 20, 1941. Photo from the magazine "Volkischer Beobachter".
German signalman on the territory of the Lavra, September 1941. The bell tower smokes, it was set on fire by the underground or the retreating Red Army soldiers. On the left you can see the cross on the grave of Stolypin.
The Germans in the courtyard of the Upper Lavra near the Trinity Church, September 1941.
Stalin Square (now European), September 1941. German columns are moving up Grushevsky Street. Left - Public library(now - Parliamentary), in the depths - the Museum of Ukrainian Art, a little higher - the building of the Council of People's Commissars (now - the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine).
German columns go to Pechersk, up Grushevsky Street. The building of the Church can be seen in the background, September 1941.
German Pak-35 firing from the Mariinsky Park at the Red Army units retreating to Darnitsa, September 20, 1941.
Germans on Lipki, September 20, 1941. To the right is Mariinsky Park, to the left is the House of the Red Army (now the House of Officers), and in the depths is the church of the palace ensemble (now the Kyiv Hotel is in its place). Photo from the magazine "Volkischer Beobachter".
The Germans inspect the fortifications at the intersection of Zhilyanskaya and Kuznechnaya streets, September 20, 1941.
German patrol on Franco street. Anti-tank hedgehogs and barrels of water to extinguish possible fires are visible, September 1941.
The Nazis deploy an anti-aircraft battery on the observation deck in Pioneer Park (formerly Merchant Park), September 1941. Now on this place is the famous arch of "Friendship of Peoples" and the same observation deck. 
German troops continue to enter the city, the column moves along Saksaganskogo street, this is the quarter between Pankovskaya and Leo Tolstoy streets, September 1941. To the left of the photographer is the house-museum of Lesya Ukrainka.
Shevchenko Boulevard, in front of the Bessarabsky market, September 1941. 
Corner of Shevchenko Boulevard and Volodymyrska Street, Shevchenko Park behind the photographer. The piles of earth on the sidewalks are obviously the remnants of the barricades.
The retreating Red Army soldiers completely destroyed the water supply and sewerage. In the photograph, German soldiers get water - for themselves and for the people of Kiev - at the site of the former Mikhailovsky Golden-domed (now restored). In the background is the building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Ukraine (now the building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs). 
Refugees in the park at the Golden Gate near the well-known cast-iron fountain. 
The first order of the German authorities is for all Kievans to register and start working. Those who do not register are declared saboteurs and shot. This shoe cleaner started working from the first day, on the plate it says: "Artel "Cleaner", tray No. 158."
The railway station, the picture was taken in the first days of the occupation. The station was partially destroyed by German air raids and finally by the retreating Red Army soldiers.
Anti-tank ditch and gun embrasures on Degtyarevskaya street
Analysis of the barricades on Lenin Street (now - Bogdan Khmelnitsky). On the right you can see the theater building. Lesya Ukrainka.
The Kievans, in the presence of the German Felgendarme, are clearing the rubble on Institutska Street, not far from Khreshchatyk. On the left - German staff buses (the German occupation headquarters was located in the building of the October Palace), on the right - the people of Kiev are reading occupation leaflets and newspapers, September 21-23, 1941. 
The building of the headquarters of the Kyiv military district is occupied by the Germans. Now this building houses the Secretariat of the President of Ukraine.
Germans in front of the Opera House 
Children in occupied Kyiv, September 1941. 
Kievans on Khreshchatyk listen to a German radio broadcast transmitted from radio machines, autumn 1941. On the left - houses No. 6-12, on the right - No. 5-7.
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Beginning of Shevchenko Boulevard, September 1941. On the left - the Palace Hotel (now - "Ukraine"). A Soviet poster "Beat the bastard" and a pre-war announcement "Recruitment for accounting and accounting courses" still hang on the transformer booth. Over time, the Germans erected a gallows here, on which the "enemies of the Reich" were executed, and only in 1946 a monument to Lenin was erected on this site.
Poster "Hitler the Liberator" on the facade of the opera house, September 1941. The poster was pasted directly on pre-war theater posters for the opera "Zaporozhets beyond the Danube", "Natalka-Poltavka", etc.
Distribution of the newspaper "Ukrainian Word" on the streets of Kyiv, October 4, 1941. 
At the entrance to the city. 
A German officer poses against the backdrop of St. Andrew's Church, autumn 1941. 
Belfry of the Church of the Intercession on Podil and St. Andrew's Church, autumn 1941.
Courtyard of the building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Ukraine (now - the building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), autumn 1941. 
The same yard, children of war.
The lobby of the building of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR, autumn 1941. 
Conference room of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR, autumn 1941. Like the lobby, the hall has not changed much. They removed only a full-length sculpture of Stalin, bas-reliefs of the classics of communism and the coats of arms of the USSR and the Ukrainian SSR. 
House on the hem, autumn 1941. 
The remains of the barricades at the intersection of Zhilyanskaya and Komintern streets, further - Vokzalnaya Square and the station. Busts of Lenin and Stalin hung humiliatingly, probably taken from the neighboring plant "Lenin's Forge". Below is the sign "Feldgend. Zug Doebert" - "Feldgendarmerie. Dobert's Platoon". 
Dynamo Stadium. 
Museum of V. I. Lenin. 
Near Askold's grave. 
German cemetery, in the distance - Askold's grave. 
Red building of Shevchenko University. 
Philharmonic building on Stalin Square, 1941. 
A gramophone record dealer is talking to a German soldier. 
Kalinin Square (now - Maidan Nezalezhnosti - Independence Square), burned by the NKVD, late September or early October 1941. 
Soviet prisoners of war walk along Mikhailovskaya Square, now the building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, September 1941. 
Corner of Khreshchatyk and Prorizna streets, September 24 - 25, 1941. This is what the center of Kyiv looked like. 
This and the next photo - German firefighters put out a burning city center. 
Bridge them. E. Bosch, blown up by retreating Red Army soldiers, late September 1941. 
Rusanovsky bridge, also blown up by the Red Army. 
View of Khreshchatyk from Bessarabska Square, one of the first explosions and fires, September 24, 1941. 
The burning center of Kyiv. 
The building of the former National Hotel is on fire. 
The destroyed house of Ginzburg. The twelve-story house was built in 1912 and for almost 30 years was the tallest building in Kyiv. In the early days of the occupation of Kyiv by the Germans, the house was the underground headquarters of the NKVD officer Ivan Kudri, who led the September bombings of central Kyiv. Ginzburg's house was among those blown up. 
Assumption Cathedral of the Kiev-Pechersk Assumption Lavra, November 1941. 
Prospekt Nauki near Lysogorskaya Street, autumn 1941. The building at the back of the picture still stands on the corner of these streets. 
Corner of Melnikov and Pugachev streets, autumn 1941. 
Bankova Street, autumn 1941 or spring 1942. In the distance, several guards at the headquarters of the Kyiv military district occupied by the Germans, now the Secretariat of the President of Ukraine is located there. 
The building of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR, late 1941 or early 1942. 
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Corner of Krasnoarmeiskaya (now Bolshaya Vasilkovskaya) and Zhilyanskaya, autumn 1941. 
Corner of Shevchenko Boulevard and the current Mikhail Kotsyubinsky Street, presumably 1942. During the German occupation, Shevchenko Boulevard was called Rovnovershtrasse. 
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Down Shevchenko Boulevard .jpg)
Comintern Street (now Simon Petliura), exact date unknown. The picture was taken just below the fork at the monument to Shchors, in front - Train Station. 
Yevbaz (Jewish Bazaar) is a place between Shevchenko Boulevard and Brest-Litovsky Avenue (now Pobedy Avenue), now there is a circus on the site of the bazaar, the house in the background on the right has been preserved, now it houses international ticket offices. 
Another shot of Evbaz. 
German postcard from the times of the occupation, the blown-up bridge to them. Eugene Bosch. 
Stalin Square (now European Square), presumably 1942. On the right in the photo - the Philharmonic, on the site of the house on the left is now the former Lenin Museum. 
Three photos below are fascist announcements during the occupation 
Temporary crossings built by the Germans, 1942. Now the Dnieper embankment passes here. 
Navodnitsky bridge, 1942. 
German pointers. 
Several orders German command from the newspaper "Ukrainske Slovo" for October 1941. 
Grocery store only for fascists, Bolshaya Zhitomirskaya street, 40. 
The labor exchange on Smirnova-Lastochkina street, house 20, is the building of the National Art Academy. 
Labor exchange, queue for registration.
Germany Shipping Announcement 
The queue to the collection point before being sent to Germany. 
Sending Kyivans to work in Germany, late 1941 or early 1942. 
Khreshchatyk, the building of the Central Department Store, 1942. 
Gonchar Street, 57, where the German headquarters was located, 1942.
Restaurant "Teatralny", corner of Fundukleevskaya and Vladimirskaya. The inscription at the entrance: "Only for the Germans." 
Two more announcements. 
Dmitrievskaya Street, the Germans are buying something in a spontaneous market. 
Park them. Shevchenko, May 1, 1942. 
Newspaper "New Ukrainian word" for May 1, 1942, Kyiv. Original 
The fence around the Syrets concentration camp. 
Syretsky camp parade ground and barracks. 
Barrack window. 
Prisoners of war in the Syrets camp. 
Destroyed bridge. E. Bosch, winter 1942. 
German map of Kyiv, 1943. 
Celebrating the second anniversary of the liberation of Kyiv from the Bolsheviks, a German official distributes flags, September 19, 1943. 
Bank Street. 
Sofiyivska Square, 1942 or 1943. 
Vorovskogo Street (now - Bulvarno-Kudryavskaya), the photographer looks down towards Yevbaz. These are already German defensive barricades. In October 1943, before the Soviet offensive that led to the liberation of Kyiv, the areas adjacent to the Dnieper were declared a "combat zone", fenced off and evacuated. This picture was taken by Acme Radiophoto and transmitted by phototelegraph from Stockholm to New York. 
German positions on the banks of the Dnieper, 1943. 
This photo and the next one - the Red Army soldiers cross the Dnieper near the village of Zarubintsy, Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky district, October 1943. 
Pontoon bridge.
Presumably Svyatoshino, early November 1943. Battle for Kyiv. 
Area of Stalin Square (now - European), beginning of November 1943. The Nazis leave the city. 
Tankers of the Red Army on "Valentines" are moving along Khreshchatyk, the people of Kiev welcome the liberators, November 1943. 
Temporary crossing in the area of the bridge E. Bosch built Soviet troops, November 1943. 
Soviet soldiers walk along the streets of Kyiv, November 6, 1943. There are mountains of stolen things on the sidewalk, the Germans did not manage to take them out 
The surviving people of Kiev are returning to the city. 
Not yet restored Navodnitsky bridge, 1944. 
Zhukov, Vatutin and Khrushchev. 
The destroyed building of the factory. Bozhenko.
Khreshchatyk. On the right, temporary tram rails are visible, installed for the transport of building materials and garbage disposal, 1944. 
City restoration work. 
Construction of a new collector on Khreshchatyk. 
St. Vladimirskaya (then - Korolenko) 
Volodymyrska Street, this is how trams traveled in liberated Kyiv, early 1944. 
Sofiyivska Square, late 1943 or early 1944. 
Captured Germans are led along the central streets of the city, 1943 or 1944. 
Khreshchatyk, the first post-war parade in Kyiv, 1945. 
Occupation and liberation of Kyiv. (Video)
The entrance of German troops to Kyiv on September 19, 1941. (Video)
Liberation of Kyiv. Soyuzkniozhurnal No. 70-71. (Video)
Bright memory heroes of the Great Patriotic War!
My favorite war song is "Cranes" performed by Mark Bernes (verses by Rasul Gamzatov, music by Jan Frenkel).
As Jan Frenkel recalled, Mark Bernes foresaw his death and wanted to put an end to his life with this particular song. Recording for Bernes was incredibly difficult, but he courageously endured everything and recorded "Cranes". The song was released only after the death of M. Bernes. Mark Bernes died in 1969. from lung cancer.
Rasul Gamzatov wrote the lyrics to this song after visiting a monument in Hiroshima to a Japanese girl named Sadako Sasaki, who suffered from leukemia after an atomic explosion. The girl hoped that she would be cured if she made a thousand paper "cranes" using the art of origami. In Asia, there is a belief that a person’s wish will come true if he folds a thousand origami cranes out of colored paper.
A few years after the appearance of the song "Cranes" in the USSR, in the battlefields of 1941-1945, steles and monuments began to be erected, the central image of which was flying cranes.
Not so long ago, a documentary film “Sleeping with the Enemy” was shown on TV screens - about French women who cohabited with the occupiers. We will return to them at the end of the article, but before that we will flip through the pages of a recent French history.
The destruction of the French gene pool began with the Great Revolution of 1789, continued during the years of the empire, reached its climax in the massacre of 1914-1918 and, as a result, led to a steady trend of continuous national degradation. Neither the genius of Napoleon nor the victory in the First World War could stop the stratification of society, corruption, the thirst for enrichment at any cost, the growth of chauvinism and blindness in the face of the growing German threat. What happened to France in 1940 is not just military defeat, but the national collapse, the complete loss of morality. The army did not resist. Under Napoleon and for many years after him, the concept honour perceived French soldier otherwise. Stendhal (himself a participant in the Napoleonic wars) recalls in his diaries: wounded soldiers, having learned that they would not be able to take part in the next campaign, were thrown out of the windows of hospitals - life without an army lost its meaning for them. What happened to the great nation that so recently - just two centuries ago - made Europe tremble?
The French fascists (there were many of them in the army elite) saw and waited for the Germans as deliverers from the "Reds". Much can be said about the French generals. Among them were frank monarchists who did not forgive the hated Republic for the lost cause of Dreyfus. The aged, incapable of thinking generals, in whose brains the ossified doctrine of the First World War froze, did not learn a lesson from the just ended "blitzkrieg" in Poland. After the first German attacks, the army under their command turned into a demoralized mass.
The Communists, following the order of their leadership (the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact also applied to them), passively waited, no different from the shopkeepers and the bourgeois, whose thoughts were constantly occupied by rent and inheritance.
Little Finland had the courage to fight steadfastly against Russia. Not for the first time, doomed Poland fought without a chance of victory. France capitulated a year before the start of the war - in Munich.
The defeat in June 1940 is only the result, the result. And it all started much earlier.
Goebbels' propaganda machine worked with maximum efficiency, using every opportunity to morally corrupt the future enemy.
The German unions of World War I veterans invited the French to visit Germany. In France, there were many such unions, both right-wing and left-wing political orientations: the disabled, the blind, just participants in the war. In Germany, they were greeted friendly, sparing no expense. Nazi bosses and the Fuhrer himself assured the French guests that there were no more reasons for enmity. The effect of the campaign exceeded all expectations - French veterans with surprising ease believed in the sincerity of German propaganda. Former enemies(regardless of political beliefs) became comrades in arms, members of the international "trench brotherhood".
The German ambassador, Otto Abetz, gave lavish receptions. The Parisian elite were fascinated by tact, taste, erudition and personal charm. the German ambassador, its impeccable French, dazzled by the brilliance of revues and concerts, intoxicated with exquisite menus.
So it was before the First World War, when the major Parisian newspapers were openly financed by the government of Tsarist Russia. But in those years, Russia, at least, was an ally of France. In the mid-1930s, the secret services of Italy and Germany became sources of funding for the "free" press. Millions of francs in cash were paid to the leading journalists of such newspapers as Le Figaro, Le Temps and many lesser ranks for pro-German publications. And publications were met quite in the Goebbels style, at the level of "Volkischer Beobachter" and "Der Sturmer". The cynicism of corrupt newspapers is striking: they, among other things, write about the “Jewish origin of Roosevelt”, who “wants to start a war in order to restore the power of the Jews and give the world to the power of the Bolsheviks.” And this is on the eve of the war!
Fear was skillfully pumped up: better Hitler than the “Reds”, than “that Jew Leon Blum” – the main motive of the townsfolk of all ranks frightened by the “popular front”. During the period of the "People's Front", a popular song appeared "All is well, beautiful marquise!" (in the USSR it was performed by Leonid Utyosov). It ridiculed the pro-naphthalene aristocracy, who did not understand what was happening around. If only the aristocracy didn't understand! Harmless at first glance, the song turned out to be a satirical mirror of French history between the two wars.
War has been declared, but almost no shots are heard on the Western Front: strange war”, or, as the Germans themselves began to call it until May 10, 1940 - “sitzkrieg”. Along the front line from the German side there are posters: "Don't shoot - and we won't shoot!". Concerts are broadcast through powerful amplifiers. The Germans arrange a magnificent funeral for the deceased French lieutenant, the orchestra performs the Marseillaise, film reporters wind up spectacular shots.
On May 10, the Wehrmacht breaks into Holland, Denmark, Luxembourg and then, bypassing the “impregnable” Maginot Line through Belgium, into France. The steadfast (everyone would have it!) defense of Lille allowed the British to evacuate from Dunkirk a significant part of the divisions pressed to the sea. The Germans do not miss the opportunity to get a propaganda effect and arrange a parade of the brave defenders of the city, allowing them to pass for the last time with fixed bayonets before capitulation. In front of the correspondents' cameras, German officers salute the marching prisoners of the French. Then they will show: look - we are waging war like knights.
In those tragic June days, the first attempts at resistance also appeared: in rare cases, when the French army nevertheless intended to protect small towns or villages, the townsfolk violently protested to save their own skins and even tried to provide armed resistance ... to their own army!
On June 14, the Germans entered Paris, declared an "open city".
It took them only five weeks to do so. Newsreel footage that is hard to watch without shuddering. Wehrmacht columns pass by Arc de Triomphe. touched German general, almost falling off the horse from an excess of feelings, greets his soldiers. The Parisians silently look at their shame. Without wiping his tears like a child, an elderly man is crying, and next to him is an elegant lady - a wide-brimmed hat and gloves to her elbows - shamelessly applauding the marching winners.
Another plot: not a soul on the streets - the city seems to have died out
The cortege of open cars is slowly advancing along the deserted streets of the defeated capital. In the first, the winner is the Fuhrer (on the day of the capture of Paris, he received a congratulatory telegram from Moscow!). Before eiffel tower Hitler and his retinue stop and, arrogantly tossing his head, contemplates his prey. On Place de la Concorde, the car slows down slightly, two policemen - “azhans” (what kind of faces! - you involuntarily take your eyes off the screen - it’s a shame to look at them!), bowing obsequiously, salute the winner, but, except for the camera lens, no one is looking at them . But the German cameraman did not miss the moment and tried to save these faces for history - he gave them in full screen - let them see!
In battles (or rather, in a disorderly flight in the summer of 1940), the French army lost 92,000 people and by the end of the war another 58,000 (in 1914-1918, almost 10 times more).
France is not Poland. Fulfilling specially designed instructions, the “boches” behaved with the defeated in the highest degree correctly. And in the very first days of the occupation, Parisian girls began to flirt with the winners who turned out to be so polite and not at all terrible. And in five years, cohabitation with the Germans took on a massive character. The command of the Wehrmacht encouraged this: cohabitation with a Frenchwoman was not considered "desecration of the race." There were also children with Aryan blood in their veins.
Cultural life did not stop even after the fall of Paris. Scattering their feathers, the girls danced in the revue. As if nothing had happened, Maurice Chevalier, Sacha Guitry and others shamelessly clowned around in front of the invaders in the music halls. The winners gathered for the concerts of Edith Piaf, which she gave in a rented brothel. Louis de Funes entertained the invaders by playing the piano, and during intermissions he convinced German officers of his Aryan origin. Those whose names are difficult for me to mention in this article were not left without work: Yves Montand and Charles Aznavour. But, the famous guitarist Django Reinhard refused to play in front of the occupiers. But there were few like him.
Artists exhibited their paintings in salons and galleries. Among them are Derain, Vlaminck, Braque and even Picasso, the author of Guernica. Others made a living by painting portraits of the new masters of the capital in Montmartre.
In the evenings the curtains were raised in the theatres.
Gerard Philip played his first role - Angel in the play "Sodom and Gomorrah" in the Jean Vilar Theater in 1942. In 1943, director Marc Allegre shot 20-year-old Gerard in the film "Babies from the Embankment of Flowers." The father of the young actor Marcel Philip after the war was sentenced to death for collaborating with the invaders, but with the help of his son he managed to escape to Spain.
A native of Kyiv, the star of the "Russian Seasons" in Paris, the director of the "Grand Opera" Sergei Lifar was also sentenced to death penalty, but managed to sit out in Switzerland.
In occupied Europe, it was forbidden not only to perform jazz, but even to pronounce the word itself. A special circular listed the most popular American tunes that were not allowed to be played - the imperial propaganda ministry had something to do. But resistance fighters in Parisian cafes quickly found a way out: banned plays were given new (and surprisingly vulgar) titles. He crushed, crushed the German boot of the French - how could he not resist!
Films were being made in film studios in full swing. The favorite of the public Jean Marais was already popular then. His unconventional sexual orientation did not bother anyone (even the Germans). At the personal invitation of Goebbels, such famous French artists as Daniel Darier, Fernandel and many others made creative trips to Germany to get acquainted with the work of the UFA film concern. During the years of the occupation, more films were made in France than in all of Europe. The film "Children of Paradise", for example, was released in 1942. In this film abundance, the New Wave was born, which had yet to conquer the world.
Leader groups French writers on trips around the cities of Germany, they got acquainted with the cultural life of the winners, visiting universities, theaters, museums. In the city of Liege, a young employee of the local newspaper published a series of nineteen articles, in the spirit of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, under common name"Jewish Threat". His name is Georges Simenon. The well-known Catholic writer, playwright and poet Paul Claudel spoke in the same tone. Without any restrictions on the part of the invaders, many books were published - more than before the war - books.
No one interfered with research sea depths, which Jacques Yves Cousteau was just starting. At the same time, he experimented with the creation of scuba gear and equipment for underwater filming.
Here it is impossible to list (the author did not set such a task for himself) all who lived normal life, doing what he loved, not noticing the red flags with a swastika over his head, not listening to the volleys coming from the fort of Mont Valérien, where the hostages were shot. The guillotine tapped: in a paroxysm of loyal servility, the French Themis sent even unfaithful wives to the guillotine.
“Workers can afford to strike or sabotage,” this public justified itself rather aggressively after liberation. “We, people of art, must continue to create, otherwise we cannot exist.” They just could exist, and the workers had to carry out full economic integration with the Third Reich with their own hands.
True, the working class also did not particularly suffer - there was enough work and the Germans paid well: the Atlantic Wall was built by the hands of the French.
70 thousand Jews were sent to Auschwitz
And what happened behind the scenes of this idyll? 70 thousand Jews were sent to Auschwitz. Here's how it happened. Fulfilling the order of the Gestapo, the French police carefully prepared and on June 17, 1942 carried out an operation code-named "Spring Wind". 6,000 Parisian policemen participated in the action - the Germans decided not to get their hands dirty and gave the French high confidence . The bus drivers union eagerly responded to the offer of additional income, and capacious Parisian buses stopped at the intersections of the Saint-Paul quarter, waiting for "passengers". Not a single driver refused this dirty work. With rifles over their shoulders, police patrols went around the apartments, checking the presence of tenants according to the lists, and gave them two hours to pack. The Jews were then taken to the buses and sent to the winter velodrome, where they spent three days without food or water, waiting to be sent to the Auschwitz gas chambers. During this action, the Germans did not appear on the streets of the quarter. But the neighbors responded to the action. They burst into empty apartments and carried away everything that came to hand, not forgetting to fill their mouths with the remains of the deportees' last meal, which had not yet cooled down. Three days later, it was the turn of the French railway workers (we saw their heroic struggle with the "boches" in Rene Clement's film "Battle on the Rails"). They locked up Jews in cattle cars and drove trains to the German border. The Germans were not present at the time of dispatch and did not guard the echelons along the way - the railway workers justified their trust and closed the doors securely.
Maki - that's who tried to wash away the shame of defeat. The losses of the Resistance - 20,000 killed in battle and 30,000 executed by the Nazis - speak for themselves and are commensurate with the losses of the two millionth French army. But can this resistance be called French? The majority in the Maki detachments were descendants of Russian emigrants, Soviet prisoners of war who had escaped from concentration camps, Poles living in France, Spanish Republicans, Armenians who had escaped from the genocide unleashed by the Turks, and other refugees from countries occupied by the Nazis. An interesting detail: by 1940, Jews made up 1% of the population of France, but their participation in the Resistance is disproportionately high - from 15 to 20%. There were both purely Jewish (including Zionist) detachments and organizations, as well as mixed ones - of various political spectrums and directions.
But even in the Resistance, not everything was so simple.
The communists not only spent the first year of the occupation in hibernation, but even offered their services to the Germans. The Germans, however, refused them. But after June 22, 1941, the communists hurried to take over the overall leadership of the Resistance. Where they succeeded, they hampered the actions of insufficiently leftist and national groups in every possible way, entrusting them with the most dangerous tasks and at the same time restricting the supply of weapons, communications, ammunition, as well as the freedom to choose the most secure deployment. In other words, the Communists did everything possible to make such groups fail. As a result, many underground fighters and partisans died.
The Gallic rooster started up as the allies approached Paris. Tricolor flags fluttered over the capital. Armed with anything, the Parisians went to the barricades, just like they once did in 1830, 1848, 1871. The brave Parisian police officers instantly got their bearings and, leaving the hunt for Jews, joined the rebels in unison. The demoralized remnants of the Wehrmacht did not actually resist and sought to leave the city as quickly as possible. Of course, there were victims, and considerable ones, but mostly among the civilian population: crowds of jubilant Parisians came under fire from snipers who had taken refuge in the attic and on the roofs. Those 400 Wehrmacht soldiers and officers who did not manage to escape, together with the commander (General von Choltitz), surrendered to the Parisians.
There was a diplomatic incident: Moscow, which had been waiting for the opening of a second front for years, did not miss the opportunity to taunt and reported that on August 23, 1944, the Resistance forces liberated Paris on their own, without waiting for the allies (so it, in fact, was). However, after the protest of the allies, a refutation had to be published, in which “according to updated data” it was reported that Paris was nevertheless liberated by the combined forces of the coalition, and not on the 23rd, but on the 25th of August. In fact, everything was much simpler: long before the barricades, long before the arrival of the allies, the Germans themselves liberated the French capital from their presence.
And so, in 1944, the Boches left, leaving their French lovers in the claws of the angry Gallic rooster. Only then did it become clear how many true patriots there are in France. Prefer not to disturb big fish, they boldly dealt with those who slept with the enemy.
Cohabitation with the occupiers causes nothing but disgust. But what is it compared to the mass betrayal of the generals, the corrupt press, the right-wing party leaders, who saw Hitler as a deliverer, and the left, for whom (until 1941) Hitler was an ally of Moscow? What is it compared to the servile Vichy regime, which supplied Hitler with volunteers? What is it compared to denunciation, direct cooperation with the Gestapo and in the Gestapo, the hunt for Jews and partisans? Even President Mitterrand is a personality of this level! - was a diligent official in the Vichy government and received the highest award from the hands of Pétain himself. How did this affect his career?
From the French volunteers, the Waffen SS division "Charlemagne" (Charlemagne) was formed. By the end of April 1945, all that was left of the division - the SS battalion of French volunteers, desperately bravely (so it would be with the Germans in 40!) Fought with the Red Army on the streets of Berlin. The few survivors were shot on the orders of the French General Leclerc.
What happened after the war? The scale of the betrayal turned out to be so grandiose that the French Themis (who also had a stigma in fluff) could only helplessly shrug. Prisons would not accommodate the guilty (something similar happened in defeated Germany, where punishment for the Nazis was replaced by the formal procedure of “denazification” - repented and free). But in little Belgium, for example, where the level of betrayal was incomparably lower, they argued differently and condemned three times more collaborators than in France.
However, immediately after the release, thousands of collaborators were still shot. But soon after the end of the war, the leader of the "Fighting France" - the unbending General Charles de Gaulle decided to cross out the shameful pages of the recent past, saying: "France needs all her children." In principle, one can understand de Gaulle: even the Gestapo would not have been able to shoot such a number of traitors, and there is nothing to say about the guillotine. Thus, the former collaborators not only went unpunished, but rather quickly integrated into industry, business, and even government structures.
5,000 active members of the Resistance initially joined the "restored" French army, but regular officers - those who are guilty of the defeat - restored after a few months military hierarchy and returned to their places, sending most of the former partisans to the reserve. It is characteristic that the theme of the Resistance in French films is covered quite widely and, perhaps, even in too much detail, but you will not see what happened in 1940 at the front in any of them. In the French Millenium collection, the following is literally said about the defeat of 1940: “ After the fall of France, resistance was strong in Brittany, in the zone controlled by the Vichy government, and in the Italian-occupied southeast.". (Italy occupied three narrow strips several kilometers deep along common border with France - where, and against whom it was to turn around guerrilla war?). It's hard to believe, but more - not a word! What follows is an explanation of the four photographs of the Maki fighters.
Of course, there were collaborators in all the occupied countries of Europe, but in none of them did this unfortunate phenomenon reach such proportions. It is characteristic that after the war in France there were almost no publications about cooperation with Germany. The documents were kept, but they became inaccessible to historians and journalists. Even the most popular in the entire Western world reference book "Who is who" was not published - the list of collaborators would have turned out too immense.
The bloodthirsty common people were allowed to recoup those from whom there was nothing to ask, for whom there was no one to intercede. Yes, he, most likely, did not need serious victims: after all, it is much easier to pull a defenseless woman out into the street than a staff officer, a newspaper editor or an official - “the children of France”, whom de Gaulle took under his wing. The daughters of France who slept with the enemy were not among them. The newsreel left us evidence of these massacres. On the streets of small towns and villages, scenes took place that resembled a medieval witch hunt or the “September massacres” of 1792 - the massacre of prisoners in Parisian prisons. But even in this level it was lower, without bonfires or, at worst, a guillotine, although in some places there were still some victims.
Through a raging crowd of patriots, the offenders (some carried children in their arms) were led to the square, where the village hairdresser cut them bald under the typewriter. Then, on the forehead, and sometimes on the bare chest, a swastika was drawn with black paint. Against the backdrop of the screaming masses, these women behaved surprisingly dignified - without a shadow of remorse, they calmly walked through spitting, calmly stood during the execution ...
Here is another impressive story: the execution is over and a truck with a group of girls in the back makes its way through the cheering crowd. A resistance fighter with a rifle in his hand laughs out loud and with his free hand pats the shaved head of the delinquent girl. Where was this brave man in 1940? Why does he need a rifle now?
But who is around? What, for example, did the same brave hairdresser do for four years in a row? What did you do just a week ago? Didn't Monsieur the commandant shave and cut his hair, put German marks into his pocket, kindly escort him to the exit and, bowing his head, opened the door for him? What about the elegant gentleman who, holding his hands far away, diligently draws a swastika on the girl's forehead? He also carefully polished glasses and wiped the tables in front of the German guests - since the autumn of 1940, his restaurant at the crossroads has not been empty. The swastika itself asks for his sparkling bald head. Or the fat man on the right - he is shouting something, waving his arms angrily. How many cases of wine did the invaders buy in his store? On the side, the girls grin maliciously. But if the "bosh" is prettier, they could also be in the place of the accused. But let's not delve into this raging crowd. Neither one nor the other causes sympathy - only disgust. Willingly or involuntarily, but the majority of those who gathered on the square served and supported the occupiers for four years. They fed them, watered them, sheathed them, washed them, entertained them, provided many other services, made deals with them and often made good money. But this is only the most harmless - "everyday" collaborationism! Why are German cohabitants worse? Wasn't the whole country sleeping with the enemy? Is there really no one else to show in documentaries?
The army - the color and health of the nation - failed to protect its women, left wives, sisters and daughters to be desecrated by the invaders. And now the French men are taking revenge on them for their cowardice. Such reprisals cannot restore the honor of beautiful France, but they cannot trample deeper into the mud - 60 years have already been at the very bottom.
In general, as the French say: if there is no solution to the problem, if there is no answer to an exciting question, then “look for a woman!” - "Cherchet la femme!"
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