The statute of individuals and economic “Aryanization” were the two main strategic functions of the CGQJ, which was created on March 29, 1941, under German pressure. On one hand, it was necessary to ensure that every Jew be registered in the census, forced to be located at a fixed residence, and reduced to a second class citizen, and on the other hand, the Jews were also to be eliminated from the economy and dispossessed of all means. Their assets were to be transferred to non-Jews, the “aryans” according to the CGQJ terminology.
Of course, there is some irony in this choice of words, especially in Provence, where large segments of the non Jewish population hardly fit the “Aryan” profile.
The CGQJ started as a bureaucracy to implement the measures taken against the Jews, and in response to German pressure, it was progressively radicalized. The Germans at first pressed for a more aggressive leader. Then they tried to take control of the local and regional operations of the agency. In the end, they brought its most relentless agents into their sphere of influence. This trend became the norm in the Vaucluse as well.
Xavier Vallat, the first CGQJ commissioner, was given the mission of consolidating the anti-Jewish legislation and setting up the administrative framework required for its application. Even if some aspects of the Vichy legislation (for instance, the definition of who is a Jew)* were more severe than in the equivalent German legislation,† its objective remained confined to social and economic exclusion. If it contributed in any way to the extermination that was brewing, it was mainly by enhancing the status of the Jews as pariahs.
Shortly after the creation of the CGQJ, Henri de Camaret, a pillar of the Avignon establishment, became its delegate for the Vaucluse, a position he held until the elimination of the position on March 31, 1943.
During most of this period, he worked hand-in-hand with Antoine d’Ornano from Nîmes. D’Ornano served, for both the Gard and the Vaucluse, as inspector of the “Police” for Jewish Affairs (PQJ), which, in spite of its name and its incorporation in the national police, was not operating as a true “police force,” because it did not have any executive power; therefore, it had no power to apply the Statute and no right to carry firearms. Should the need arise, d’Ornano had to rely on the regular police.
D’Ornano was in charge of investigations on behalf of Henri de Camaret, with whom he eventually exchanged information. His role as anti-Jewish policeman seemed to have gone to his head. Like a novice who has just been propelled into a position of responsibility well beyond his capabilities, he showed off his power wherever he went, to the point that he poached on other people’s territory, even when vacationing in his native Corsica. Following the creation of the SEC, which replaced the PQJ, its regional director in Nice, responsible for Corsica amongst others, wrote to his colleague, the regional director of the SEC of Marseille on September 25, 1942.
I was very surprised to learn through a letter I received from Corsica that, after having alerted the Jewish population by spreading the rumor that he was charged with the immediate application of the law of June 2, 1941, an investigator of your service, passing in Ajaccio, had requested an office to be put at his disposal in the building of the Prefecture of Corsica, where he had summoned the Jews for the purpose of questioning.
… I think that we have here a strictly personal initiative, coming form an investigator whose zeal has gone beyond the framework of his attributions.
…the Jews, whose apprehensions we have tried very hard to calm until now… will now have all the time they need to prepare self-defense measures by liquidating or camouflaging their merchandise.1
D’Ornano did make a mess of things. His zeal in economic Aryanization drew a remark from the director of food supply in the Gard: “He is showing intense pleasure in the activity in which he excels… He is having a wonderful time.”2
In May 1942, Henri de Camaret witnessed a change of management at the top of his hierarchy; Xavier Vallat was replaced by Louis Darquier de Pellepoix.3 Although executed by Laval, the designation of Darquier had been instigated by Theodor Dannecker, at the time the Paris head of the Judenreferat* (Jewish Unit) of the SD, Sicherheit Dienst or Security Services, and sometimes referred to by the French as Police de Sûreté, who saw in Darquier someone who could free the CGQJ from the shackles of Vichy, personified by Vallat, and put it at the service of the final solution. Darquier did not disappoint his German supporters, at least with fine words. At the meeting of July 4, 1942, with Bousquet, general secretary of the Police since April, Dannecker picked up on the suggestions made by Darquier and asked Bousquet to prove that the national police were capable of pursuing the Jews, given their recent shortcomings and lack of zeal.
Under German pressure and with Bousquet’s report regarding the meeting of the day before, the Vichy government provided Dannecker with a decisive victory. By a decree of July 5, 1942, Laval separated the PQJ from the national Police, making it an autonomous organization. But above all, the “stateless” foreign Jews were to be “evacuated” while other repressive measures were also in the making. A radiant Darquier even declared “I can hope that the turn of the French [Jews] will come!” Fearing that such a task would be unappetizing, Bousquet tried to eliminate it and proposed the creation of an executive committee under the leadership of the CGQJ. Faced with the large scale of the mission, Darquier hesitated, prompting Dannecker to state that he did not have the makings of a policeman.
After long negotiations, Laval finally decided on August 13, 1942, to do away with the PQJ, and replace it with the SEC, directly under the CGQJ, in spite—and maybe because—of Dannecker’s reservations. Moreover, Laval subsequently put spokes in the wheel of the anti-Jewish legislative zeal of Darquier, who struggled to no avail against the craftiness of his boss. Disappointed and frustrated by the “centrist” line of Xavier Vallat, the Germans didn’t appear to obtain a better deal from his successor, whom they had imposed on their “counterparts.”
Following the deployment of the SEC, Jean Lebon replaced d’Ornano. Recently arrived in Marseille from Calavados, Lebon settled in Avignon, where he served as inspector of the SEC for the départements of Gard and Vaucluse, and occasionally for a few municipalities from the département of the Bouches du Rhône that was neighboring Avignon. It would indeed be more convenient to ask Lebon to conduct an investigation in Châteaurenard or Arles rather than sending in an inspector from Marseille.
As to d’Ornano, he joined the regional offices of the CGQJ in Marseille after attempting to organize an “Aryan” group in Nîmes,4 the “Union Française pour la Défense de la Race.”* Later, he was wise enough to switch to a different administration. He returned to Nîmes as assistant to the director of manpower, and in the STO, he moved skillfully by trying to prevent departures to Germany in spite of the pressures of the OPA.† He even put himself at the service of the Resistance in August 1944, thus trading the wrath of the Court of Justice for the more measured severity of the Civic Chamber, which in such cases often limited its sentences to the loss of national degradation (less or more loss of civil rights).
Lebon’s bosses followed one another as regional delegates of the SEC in Marseille. Starting in November 1942, Edmond Favier became the master of the SEC until the appointment of Emile Madelin, his new boss and the regional delegate of the CGQJ, with whom significant tensions came to light. In August 1943, Madelin finally succeeded in getting rid of Favier, following complaints against him about apartment and paintings theft. Briefly, Armand Malye replaced Favier, and when he resigned, Raymond Guilledoux, the last regional head of the SEC, who took on the “disorder left behind by his predecessors.” He introduced stronger and more bureaucratic discipline in launching and conducting investigations, and in the administration of the files.5 This change of management style affected Lebon, without toning down his anti-Semitic enthusiasm.
The creation of the SEC, set up for the application of the Statute of the Jews, a process which made it possible to diminish the role of Henri de Camaret on April 1, 1943. He became a simple provisional administrator of Jewish assets after having been the head of provisional administrators. It would appear that financial difficulties led the leaders of the CGQJ towards this solution which, at least on the surface, provided savings while increasing the number of assets moved into non Jewish hands. However, the lack of buyers of Jewish assets foiled this plan once the return of those dispossessed was anticipated. This flaw however did not reduce the destructive effect of the CGQJ on the Jews, since they were hunted down, despoiled and eliminated from the professions forbidden by the statute.
While de Camaret had administered the Statute of individuals as well as the economic Aryanization until April 1943, Jean Lebon served as a catalyst for the executive responsibility to move from Avignon to Marseille. Lebon flushed out the Jews from the Vaucluse and the Gard, and pinpointed their assets on behalf of the Marseille CGQJ. With the help of Lebon, Marseille then completely took over the designation and the management of the provisional administrators to accelerate the sale of Jewish assets. However, a significant number of obstacles stood in the way, and it wasn’t easy for Marseille to ensure the success of the process from a distance. Jean Lebon was not satisfied with investigating the Jews and their assets. Eventually, he evaluated the loyalty of the provisional administrators, because he suspected that some of them were unreliable and at times of playing a double game.
Henri de Camaret and Jean Lebon, were two visceral anti-Semites with fundamentally different personalities as we shall discover. It is probably no accident that Lebon, a relentless and violent go-getter, replaced, after the German occupation, de Camaret, a bureaucrat of the reactionary Vichy establishment. Was this to change the activity of the CGQJ from a bureaucratic anti-Jewish persecution to criminal fury, as it took place in other regions of France?
The attributions of the CGQJ overlapped in large parts on those of Division 1 Bureau 2 of the Prefecture. It will then be essential to determine how the encounter between two Vichy institutions in charge of the resolution of the “Jewish problem” took place.
The answers to these questions can be found in the procedural files of the Court of Justice of Vaucluse. The archives of the CGQJ often bring in an additional point of view which had surprisingly been absent during the conduct of the purge trials in Vaucluse. This gives a unique view of the relations between the CGQJ and the prefectural authorities.
The progressive hardening of some elements in the CGQJ shall also become apparent.
Finally, it must be noted that during the period when the largest part of Vaucluse was controlled by the Italian troops, there was no mention of the Italian presence. Although based in the German zone, de Camaret and Lebon operated as if the Italians did not exist.
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* Article 1 of the Vichy law defines a Jew as “a descendant of three grandparents of Jewish race, or two grandsparents of the same [Jewish] race, if the spouse is also Jewish.”
† The German ordinance of September 27, 1940, states: “Are recognized as Jews the people who belong or belonged to the Jewish religion, or have more than two Jewish grandparents (grandfathers and grandmothers). Are considered as Jews the grandparents who belong or belonged to the Jewish religion.”
* Dannecker will serve in this capacity until July 1942, before he was transferred to Bulgaria as the top man in charge of the Jewish Question.
* The French Union for the Defense of the Race.
† The OPA was in charge of securing a French work force for German endeavors.