Paris at War, a Review

This year, Santa Claus brought me a most unusual book, David Drake’s Paris at War, 1939-1944. In 2008, David Drake wandered through what he calls a “controversial exhibition of colour photographs staged in the library devoted to the history of the city” of Paris, the Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris, 22, rue Malher.

The work of André Zucca, who worked for Signal, a magazine produced by the Wehrmacht, the photographs caused a ruckus because people who attended the exhibition insisted that the photographs emphasized only a one-sided view of the city during the German Occupation.

Drake researched this book for about ten years, gathering first-hand accounts from diaries, interviews, letters, underground newspapers, and other sources. Much material came from police records as well because the Prefecture of the Police assigned officers to record the “mood of the city” as they moved among the French population.

There were several reasons for the mood to be anything but cheerful.

The Germans did two things that upended daily life in France – manipulated the exchange rate of Deutschmarks to francs and requisitioned most agricultural production to feed their army – and the French soon began starving. In addition, over one million French soldiers ended up in POW and other camps in Germany and Poland after the defeat on June 14, 1940. Short of manpower, the Germans nonetheless did not release the prisoners, many of whom were farmers, mechanics, and other skilled workers. Drake explores the impact of all these factors on the women left behind in Paris. Long queues for food often resulted in these women returning home empty-handed. And because Marshall Philippe Pétain touted famille, travaille, patrie (family, work, nation) instead of liberté, égalité, fraternité (freedom, equality, liberty), women were not encouraged to work outside the home. This created quite a quandary for them, to the point that many turned to freelancing as prostitutes to get enough money to feed their children.

Paris at War reveals many facts about life in the City of Light when everything went dark.

Included are several photographs of everyday street scenes and of people who played important roles during the war years in Paris. Copious and careful notes, as well as a Bibliography, a Chronology, a list of Dramatis Personae, a Glossary, and a detailed Index, make Paris at War a valued – and different – addition to the vast literature about World War II in France.

Why is the book unique?

Readers “hear” many new voices, thanks to Drake’s persistence in tracking down first-hand accounts, mostly from ordinary French people, not just the famous.

And Drake doesn’t adhere to the mythologies surrounding the idea that all of France participated in the Resistance, a trope encouraged by Charles De Gaulle. Other writers have touched on this topic as well, including Ronald C. Rosbottom’s When Paris Went Dark: The City of Light Under German Occupation, 1940-1944, Gilles Perrault’s Paris Sous L’Occupation, and Robert Paxton’s Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1939-1944.

When I read about this time in history, I have to wonder if I would have had the courage to stand up and resist. Or would I be like most people, as Drake suggests, try hard to not go along, and do small things, but not the ultimate sacrifice?

In other words, just how much did people collaborate with the enemy, the Germans?

Drake’s book attacks the myth that De Gaulle and others perpetuated, implying the Resistance performed a larger role than it actually did. It’s not a popular point of view in France. The French still grapple with the question, “What did you do in the war, Grand-mère, Grand-père?”

To collaborate or not?

Most people, as it turns out, did what needed to be done to survive.