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Trial to revisit French role in Holocaust
October 7, 1997
Web posted at: 11:33 p.m. EDT (0333 GMT)BORDEAUX, France (CNN) -- Eva Berlinerblau was a young Jewish woman living in France during World War II when she was forced to go into hiding, fearing she would be shipped to Nazi concentration camps -- not by Germans, but by French police.
"When you sense the hangman's noose awaits you, and you find an open door where you are welcomed, given food and a feeling of security ... that has no price," Berlinerblau said as she fondly recalled the French Catholic neighbor who risked hiding her for more than two years despite French law.
But other French Jews weren't so fortunate. About 76,000 -- including 12,000 children -- were deported from France to Nazi death camps in Poland and Germany during World War II; only about 2,500 of those survived.
On Wednesday, France begins to revisit a buried part of its past as Maurice Papon, an 87-year-old former police supervisor in the Bordeaux region, goes on trial on charges of complicity in Nazi crimes against humanity for allegedly signing arrest orders that led to the deportation of 1,690 Jews during World War II. Nearly all were later gassed at Auschwitz.
Papon is the highest-ranking official of the pro-Nazi Vichy regime to stand trial for the persecution and deportation of Jews. And because it is taking place so long after the Nazi crimes, the trial is likely to be the last of its kind.
Access to the Palais de Justice in Bordeaux is being controlled round-the-clock by 300 national guardsmen. Papon, who is expected to attend, will sit in a booth protected by bulletproof glass.
Papon calls trial 'a farce'
In a statement Tuesday, Papon lashed out at French judges and the media for concocting what he called a "prefabricated" trial that falsified history.
"This trial is a farce which is unworthy of a state ruled by law," he said.
Papon has said he did not have direct authority over police and that he was simply obeying orders. He has also said he spared many French Jews' lives by trying to limit arrests.
Papon, whose post-war career culminated in his work as budget minister from 1978-81, surrendered at a prison Tuesday. French law requires persons facing serious charges to be imprisoned for the duration of their court proceedings.
Several dozen inmates jeered and shouted insults from their barred windows when the former Vichy official arrived.
Attorney Jean-Marc Varaut called the trial an unfair act of litigation: "It's the first time we are judging someone 56 years after the fact without a single witness from the era, and the media has already condemned him."
Pen used 'to do more than tortures'
Holocaust survivor Michel Slitinsky, who stumbled on the documents that launched legal action against Papon 16 years ago, said he was ready for the trial to begin.
"Papon's statement gives me a little encouragement because I realize that he's still resentful and he's still appealing to France," said Slitinsky, who at 17 narrowly escaped a Papon-ordered raid.
"He is not an executioner nor a sadist. But with his pen, he was able to do more than tortures," Slitinsky told CNN.
The trial is expected to last three months, with 140 witnesses testifying, including Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, historian Robert Paxton and French Prime Minister Raymond Barre.
It already has led to soul-searching among major French institutions for their role in the deportation of Jews.
Last week, the French Roman Catholic Church issued an unprecedented apology for its silence during the deportations. On Tuesday, the National Union of Uniformed Police apologized for the role police played.
In a lengthy letter of apology, union leader Christophe Gros asked "pardon for those who forgot that before being police, they were men ... pardon for those who said, 'I was obeying orders.'"
Vichy, the seat of government in France after the Germans defeated the French army in 1940, enacted strict anti-Jewish laws. Among other things, the French measures banned Jews from working in professions such as law, medicine, teaching and civil service.
Laws prohibited Jews from owning property, kept their children out of public parks, and later forced them to wear a yellow Star of David, a sign of Judaism.
Correspondent Jim Bittermann and Reuters contributed to this report.
Related stories:
- Almanac - January 23, 1997
- War crimes trial ordered for French Vichy official - September 18, 1996
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