On February 22, 1944, Wilhelm Müller, head of the Avignon SiPo-SD, sent a telling request to his Marseille boss, Rolf Mühler, through the head of the liaison service at the Avignon Kommandantur:
Sicherheitpolizei – SD Avignon outer station
In re: List of agents and informers, who will need a special pass in case of an Americano-British landing.
| 56 861 | Karl Uhl - Avignon, rue Flammarion 16 |
| 72 | Laurent Josef Idlas – Avignon, Av. St. Jean prolongée |
| 83 | Pierre Terrier – Avignon, Bd des Villas 5 |
| 94 | Victoire André – Avignon, Place des 3 Pilats 10 |
| 56 505 | Simone Pillet – Avignon, rue de la République |
| 16 | Titien Feroldi – Avignon, Caserne des Passagers rue des Lices |
| 27 | Jean Poutet - L’Isle s/Sorgue |
| 38 | René Yves Louis Le Flem - Orange |
| 49 | Yves Thesmar – Avignon, 71, rue Josef Vernet |
| 510 | Vahan Sarkissoff – Avignon, avenue Monclar 31 |
| 56 611 | Robert Conrad – Avignon, Impasse Moline |
Signed: Lieutenant – SS and Station Chief
According to the RG of the prefecture, the German original of this letter was found at Liberation in the premises of the “Gestapo,” which, in the language of the time, meant the villa of avenue Monclar. Each individual had an identification number which implied official employment at the SiPo-SD.
The procedural files “Wilhelm Müller’s favorites” includes SiPo-SD employment index cards found on the premises of the German police in Marseille. The charred corners of these cards indicate that they had barely escaped the incineration of compromising documents organized by the fleeing Germans.
The worry about an allied landing was in the air and was not limited to the German police. In June 1944 the national director of the SEC, Paul Besson, wrote a memo1 on this topic to his subordinate of Marseille, Raymond Guilledoux:
… Congratulations on your initiative to requisition a building in the area of Avignon in case you need to evacuate the archives. I do not think that I can obtain a means of transportation. On this matter too, your initiative is key…
Among the members of his herd of collaborators from Avignon, Wilhelm Müller had undoubtedly chosen those who provided him with the best help in discharging the tasks he was responsible for (struggle against the Resistance, dislodging of draft dodgers, repression of the black market, hunting down the Jews, pursuit of Gaullists, propaganda for collaboration, infiltration of collaboration groups, etc.).
When Müller, an accomplished calculator, offered special passes to his closest French collaborators, it was likely killing two birds with one stone. While he assured their protection, he was also sending eventual embarrassing witnesses across the Rhine, in case he would be caught before he had the time to drive off. He may also have received orders from high up to shelter his most important informers in the eventuality of retreat. He may also have needed body guards in case of a rough time on his way to the northeast. In exchange he offered them protection.
Among the eleven persons in the list of “favorites,” two women did not leave any clue: Victoire André and Simone Pillet; informers, spies, or simply “confidents” of Müller the warrior? The nine men were judged in person or in absentia. Among them, five belonged to the PPF, where some had been leaders in the PPF Vaucluse federation and were on the frontline of the hunt for the Jews. Most of them stood out in their ability to network.
In his deposition of May 11, 1945, Ernst Dunker, member of section VI in the SiPo-SD of Marseille, particularly focused on the Resistance, shed some light about the importance of some of the individuals in the list of the “favorites of the Germans.” Among his collaborators in the Vaucluse—Louis Bergeron, René Yves Le Flem, Louis Blaise Fournier, Jean Garbarino, Laurent Idlas, Constant Kobahdkidze, Raymond Le Cam, Karl Uhl, and Roger Alphonse Villard—three individuals, Le Flem, Idlas and Uhl were Müller’s “favorites.”2
Pierre Terrier and Robert Conrad
Two Hoodlums of the Bar Carnot
INVESTIGATION ABOUT A GESTAPO AGENT DESTINED TO THE FREE GROUPS3
GESTAPO SD (secret police) 32 Bd Monclar - French personnel
PIERRE TERRIER
Pierre Terrier, 23-24 years old, born in Monaco where his father serves in the police, has done an internship in the officers school in Uriage for the benefit of the Legion, was then hired as a secretary-interpreter at the SD due to the influence of his cousin Jean Terrier, as he was a low-level employee and lived with his mistress … aka M…, at 5 boulevard des Villas.
DESCRIPTION: 1 m 80, blond, blue eyes, fair complexion, hair combed back, has a quaff starting at the base of the hair on the forehead, looks like a Nordic athlete, friendly face, inspires confidence.
He has been involved in sugar trafficking, was in a French prison, was the only one to get out thanks to the intervention of the German authorities, then enlisted in the 8th Waffen SS company in Pont St. Esprit (civil section) where he did a one month internship; following that he is again employed by the SD and adopts a working technique: he pretends to be a draft dodger or to have been parachuted in; he has in his possession a card from the IS* in the name of Pierre Tessier asking for assistance from all our services, he gets himself invited by one of the groups, studies it for some time, reports to his bosses of the SD and sets up an operation against [them].
His known operations are [Fontaine de] Vaucluse, Gordes, Petit Palais, L’Isle sur Sorgue.
In addition to these operations, he participates in questioning both as an interpreter and as an inquisitor [sic]. The torture inflicted is terrifying according to a listener.
At the moment, he lives in St. Ruf† with his current mistress. He wants to break with… and he is courting the daughter of the owner of Bar Carnot; he now only goes to this café which is visited only by the Gestapo.
His schedule: Arrives at the prison around 8:30-9:00 a.m. after he stops at Bar Carnot, leaves around 12:00-12:45, returns to Bar Carnot, comes back [to the prison] around 2:30 p.m. after his stop at the bar, and exits around 6:00-6:30 p.m. and he stays then at the bar until around 7:20 p.m. Times and habits pretty regular during a 15 day check.
This Resistance document is a tailing report probably aimed at preparing Pierre Terrier’s summary execution or at least his trial after Liberation.
The summary execution did not take place. The court of justice sentenced him to death in absentia on June 14, 1945. He was found “guilty of having, after June 1940, undermined the external security of the state and maintained intelligence with the enemy, as an agent of the German police SD in Avignon and an informer of the Gestapo, and as a participant in numerous arrests, house searches and lootings.”
The last person who could give information about his presence in Germany after Liberation, was again Palmieri in his deposition of March 15, 1945: “I also know that Pierre Terrier, agent of the Avignon SD, and another individual, whose first name is Ernest, a former volunteer of the LVF, were also in Germany, at the Radio-Stuttgart school.”4 Terrier was an old acquaintance of Palmieri who had put him in touch with Feroldi several times at the SD of boulevard Monclar.
Terrier’s file confirmed the essential information in the investigation of the Resistance.
From November 5, 1941, to June 20, 1942, Pierre Terrier did an internship in the youth camp of Poyol in the Drôme. Then, after an internship in the Milice officers’ school of Uriage, he emerged with an equivalent rank of second lieutenant, a nice position for his age. Born on November 18, 1921, in Monaco, he was barely 20.
On December 10, 1943, he was arrested by the Avignon police for theft, complicity and possession of stolen property. The file of Jean-Daniel Michon contains more information about the event.5 An entire gang stole sugar in Apt: Michon, Terrier, Roger Giraud, Jean Tichit, Robert Rieu, and last but not least, Avakinian who lived in Apt and had prepared the heist.
The closeness between Michon and Terrier may have caused confusion in the mind of Resistance witnesses. On December 1, 1943, Michon returned to Avignon on leave from the STO in Germany because of his mother’s illness. He immediately engaged in criminal activity and was indicted a few days later, approximately at the same time as Pierre Terrier, receiving a six-month suspended prison term. When he was freed, he had already done two months prior to his sentence. He was taken to the de Salles barracks (probably to be sent back to the STO), and from there to the offices of the OPA, where he met Beaufrère and Pierre Kuhling, two of its employees. Both had been kicked out of the Milice before being hired by the OPA. In order to evade the STO, Michon accepted their proposal to enlist in the 8th company of the Waffen SS in Pont St. Esprit, the same unit as Terrier.
However, contrary to the Resistance’s investigation, Terrier’s court file did not mention his enlistment into the Waffen SS in Pont St. Esprit:
He had already been working since early October 1943 for the SD whose headquarters were at 32, avenue Monclar. Following his arrest and upon the request of Müller, he was released to Müller who had reserved the right to refer him to German justice. But two hours later, Terrier was walking around free in Avignon.
Did the Resistance report confuse Terrier with Michon? Anyway, Müller had once again picked up an ex-convict.
Terrier’s case file also mentioned a crime that was not picked up by either French or German occupation court systems. Terrier was involved in the theft of furniture and fabrics at the home of Elias,* a Jew sought by the Gestapo, and the resale of the merchandise to a certain Rinck through an intermediary, Camille Evangelista.
After Liberation, the description of Terrier was broadcast. “1 m 80, blond, blue eyes, has the body of an athlete, a very pleasant demeanor, easily earns people’s trust. A very daring mindset, he hides ferocious brutality under his airs of almost juvenile shyness.” He had the right qualities not only to fool the Resistance organizations but also to unleash his fury against his victims. It is clear why he was sought by the police ahead of his trial.
At this stage, we gain a useful perspective about Terrier through the Conrad file.6 Conrad, a young Alsatian who knew German, was hired by the SD as an interpreter, under the recommendation of Terrier.
During questioning, “the [German] investigating judge did not hit the accused. That job belonged to Pierre Terrier and Leo Isnard.” In his deposition, provided on October 4, 1944, and added to Terrier’s file, Conrad stated “that after the massacre of the maquis of Séderon, Pierre Terrier became the right hand man of Müller, even according to the Germans themselves.” It is also stated that Terrier was able to find the location of the Maquis. We know that “the massacre of the Séderon Maquis” or more exactly of Izon la Bruisse, on February 22, 1944, happened because of the treason of two members of the Resistance of the Maquis Ventoux, Cyprien Bono and Namin Noiret, who were identified by a witness and gunned down,7 immediately after the massacre. Did Terrier play a role in first obtaining information and then turning the two members of the Resistance round? We have no clear cut answer. However, he was probably present among the Frenchmen who participated, alongside the Germans, in the attack against the Resistance camp.
The Conrad-Terrier team was also tracking the Jews. In Conrad’s interrogation on December 1, 1944:
One night, at a date that you cannot specify, you followed Merle*, an agent of the Marseille Gestapo, to pick up Jews. You were accompanied by Blanc and Bergeron, former miliciens and four agents of the Gestapo of Marseille. You went to M. Valabrègue, rue Bancasse at the “Coq Hardi,” and to other Jews whom you arrested and took to the Hautpoul barracks. Several Jews escaped and you arrested only 5 or 6 of them. That evening, you heard that Merle was accusing Blanc of establishing incorrect lists. You admit having stolen from a wallet in Mr. Valabrègue’s home 8,000 francs that you split with Terrier. You are claiming that, during that night, your role was to serve as an interpreter for Merle, if he ran into German patrols. You state that, on two occasions, you had met German patrols to whom you explained that you belonged to the Gestapo and that you were in the process of picking up Jews.
Pierre Terrier fit the usual profile of an ex-convict hired by the Germans to conduct actions against the Resistance and the Jews, while continuing his side business. The file of his cousin, Louis Terrier, a patrolman in Monaco who visited him in Avignon, does not give the impression that Pierre was the black sheep of the family.8 Louis’ brother, Raymond Terrier, was handling merchandise trafficking between Spain and France. At Liberation, his nephew, Jean Terrier, was detained in Carcassonne as a Gestapo agent. But with Pierre, we are dealing with pure savagery. His tally of kills makes us shudder.
In a letter to the owner of the Bar Carnot, dated September 1, 1944, Marcel Idzkowski, the manager of this nest of Gestapo vipers, wrote: “Terrier has 39 dead Frenchmen on his conscience.” No other information is provided, but the number of victims leads us to believe that he may mean the massacre of Izon-la-Bruisse which was publicly rumored to have been caused by Terrier. Anyway, his file shows a number of actions taken against the Resistance.
There were several women around him, mistresses or just informers. Josette Castagneau, about whom Odette de Saint Oyant, the cashier of the Bar Crillon, said that “every day at the Bar Crillon, she used to drink abundantly, had a lot of money… spoke about sleeping with men to get them caught by the Gestapo.” Josette was the bait, and it is not surprising that Terrier used her. But the testimony does not specify whether they were trying to catch Jews. However, in the file of Marie-Claire Jean9, we learn that Josette had denounced Jean Valabrègue when Terrier asked her whether she knew any Jews. It is likely that Terrier and Conrad used this information to rob Mr. Valabrègue at the “Coq Hardi,” as mentioned by Conrad in his the previously cited questioning. Mr. Valabrègue was not registered at the prefecture, and his first name cannot be confirmed.
With Marie-Claire Jean—her file describes her as a “registered prostitute”—things were different: “She was the mistress of Gestapo agent Terrier, especially in charge of finding Jews. She denounced her lover, the Jew Weimann of Vaison against whom she had a complaint and the Jew Sayas, who was hidden in Sablet and whom she accused of having swindled her out of money and jewelry in Nice. Both Israelites were arrested by Terrier and his gang.” This testimony does not give more detail, but it clearly indicates the interest of Terrier for the Jews. As we can see from this report, the Vichy terminology, “The Jew Weimann” and “the Jew Sayas,” was still in use after Liberation.
Marie-Claire Jean denied having been Terrier’s mistress, who, according to her, “preferred someone younger” (she was 35 years old at Liberation). In the police report of November 6, 1944, she confirmed “that she has asked Terrier to arrange for the arrest of Weimann* who lived in Vaison, and that a few days later Terrier told her that he [Weimann] would not bother her anymore, ‘I had him arrested’.” During her questioning on December 12, 1944, she backed out, stating that she had not denounced that Jew, since he did not exist! As to Sayas, she claimed having met him at the casino of Nice and that he had bought her jewelry at a very good price after an evening of gambling losses. And Terrier told her: “If he is Jewish, I will find him, there can’t be 36 of them in Sablet!” There was indeed a Doctor Sayas who came with his family from Marseille to Sablet. But the secretary of the town hall, Henri Bastet, testified: “The doctor and his family left for Caromb. His brother, a book store owner, has also resided in Sablet. Neither one was bothered by the Germans in Sablet.”
The answer of Terrier has a powerful ring to it: “If he is Jewish, I will find him, there can’t be that many in Sablet!” Many Jews left the cities for villages away from the main communication routes, especially during the spring of 1944. However, the countryside was not necessarily safe because a stranger would easily stand out there. To be safe you would have to live on a farm, never to go out, and be able to trust the neighbors.
Eluding the Jew hunters was close to impossible, especially since every act of daily life could be dangerous. There was nothing to prevent Terrier from finding Sayas, who was probably on the village list of Jews. Anyway, he was known at the town hall. As to Marie-Claire Jean, during her trial, she had a fit of dementia, which she possibly faked. She received a death sentence, commuted to life imprisonment, but her file raises many questions and her testimony does not seem reliable.
The Jews appeared in a different relationship—probably a platonic one—of Terrier with Gisèle Guyon, the daughter of the bar Carnot manager.10 What happened in this bar adjoining the St. Pierre Church, across from the Avignon Synagogue, is both incredible and hair-raising. “On July 14, 1943, M. Boré de Loisy, a hotelkeeper in Marseille, 24 quai du Maréchal Pétain, bought the bar Carnot whose management he entrusts to Denise Guyon Idzkowski; the business was to be run by husband and wife.”
Rapidly, the bar becomes one of the nerve centers of gangster collaboration. Using a black pencil on a small card, a member of the Resistance (probably Blanchard or a member of his group) had established, in short hand, the list of regulars of the bar Carnot. This card appears in Guyon’s file:
Georges Boyer
Nicky, also called Orlof
Alfred André (the killer), tel. 832 Arles, see the bar place Voltaire
André Vial, also called Bouboule
Albert Sauvet, see Nîmes
Mathieu Costa, owner of brasserie Gaulois intersection of rue Molière and rue de la Darse
Robert, tall, strong, very irritable
Blonde, secretary of the funeral home
Paul, very short, hairless, from Chateaurenard
Pierre Terrier
Walter, from Nice, Italian origin
Léo, Spanish origin
Feroldi
Roger Villard, rue Arc de l’Agneau
Raymond Bravy (Renée Estellon)
Docteur Guidoni
Jean-Paul
Félix Olivier
Victor, he is a friend of the woman who owns the hôtel Lucy, he has bought a café in Romans for Ginette
H Jedamzik, torturer of the Gestapo [Hotel de la] Cigale
Bébert, boss of [l’Hotel de] l’Oustallet
Paul Hilhouze, lives at l’Oustallet, Bar de l’Olivier, Gestapo informer
Those specialized in the persecution of Jews made up the list. The bar Carnot was open house for the cream of the crop of rue Bancasse and the Parietas gang. Doctor Antoine Guidoni11 was present with Terrier, an agent close to Müller. Guidoni, a Marseille businessman, a former military doctor, had been recommended by Simon Sabiani, the head of the Marseille PPF, as “a convinced militant and a great champion of the collaboration with Germany.” Following numerous house searches and thefts, Guidoni was picked up by Müller and assigned “to the surveillance of the great cafés and of the bourgeois classes.” He ended up with a death sentence and was executed.
Walter, another friend of Terrier, was in fact Walter Garattoni, an Italian who belonged to the fascist Milice in Nice.12 “Witnesses have seen him in Avignon in the company of Gestapo agents who were looking for Jews to arrest.” He declared that in Avignon he met Terrier who “forced him to denounce the Jew Bernard.”
Several individuals on the list remain unknown. We do not know who H. Jedamzik was. He may have been a torturer of rue Bancasse. As to Paul Hilhouze, the indication “bar de l’Olivier” refers to a bar on the place Pie, where the French members of the Gestapo were also regulars.13 The “bar de l’Olivier” was the ideal location to watch the stallholders on the place Pie open air market. Finally, Léo was probably Léo Isnard, the torture partner of Terrier during the interrogations mentioned previously. In closing this review, let us remember that Villard had long been an administrator of Jewish assets before joining the rue Bancasse team.
The “freelancers” working for Müller, like Terrier, Guidoni and Feroldi (head of intelligence in the Milice of Vaucluse), provided, voluntarily or not, through the bar Carnot, a link parallel to that of Gauthier, between Müller, Boyer’s gang and Alfred André. A keen sleuth, seasoned in underground activity, Müller seemed to cultivate multiples routes to his victims. Can one indeed fully trust any hoodlum? Anyway a lot of paths crossed one another at the bar Carnot.
We continue this story through the court file of Gisèle Guyon, who was 18 at the Liberation. She went out with Terrier, without being his mistress. But at Liberation time, a past flirt with Terrier wasn’t just a mistake; it was high treason. Avignon was in turmoil. People were being executed without trial. Dead bodies were being thrown out just about anywhere. The court of justice was set up quickly, and the public at large was thirsting for revenge. In such a climate of reprisals against “horizontal collaboration”—the sexual insult to the country’s purity—a flirt with Terrier required an arrest and a police file, even if it was to be closed without an indictment.
How did this happen? Gisèle’s mother, Denise Guyon was married to Marcel Idzkowski, a Jew and a member of the Resistance. Marcel pleaded with the court:
In August 1943,* we received the visit of Georges Boyer from the GFP, at the hôtel la Cigale. Alfred André, Marcel Cappe, André Vial and Nicky were his friends. As soon as I became aware of the appalling activity of this gang, I got in touch with the rebels [members of the Resistance]. First, I wrote two reports and gave them to Mr. Pinto, 3, rue Grande Fusterie, who asked me to give a statement at his home in front of Superintendant Schlinger. In November, I became acquainted with Bonin, Pierre Bataille and Guy Planchenault who belonged to the rebellion and transmitted the reports I wrote to their chiefs, Beyne and Fischer….
Gisèle went out with Pierre Terrier, but she did not stop helping the people I was passing the information to. Seven weeks of prison will be enough—I think—to satisfy public opinion which had made its judgment on the base of appearances, because I was unable to disclose neither my secret activity nor my religion, because I had been hunted since 1940 by the Gestapo of Paris, Marseille, and finally Avignon. The discriminatory laws that struck me and forced me to manage a bar with dubious customers caused Gisèle to be exposed by my fault to a despicable environment and I beg to request the dismissal of this case.
When Marcel understood what he was into and the advantage he could derive from the situation, he made contact with the Resistance. Isaac Pinto was a refugee from Dunkerque. He was arrested on May 17, 1943, and immediately released. Did the Germans suspect his Resistance activity, and was he under surveillance? This was not out of question. Claude Bonin, a nephew of the painter Pissaro, was the curator of the Javon Museum† which served as a storage for the provincial museums. He was an intelligence officer in the Resistance. Guy Planchenault was a 20-year-old member of the Resistance who would be killed on July 1, 1944, near St. Saturnin d’Apt, together with several comrades during an attack on the abandoned farm they used as a shelter.14 Philippe Beyne and Max Fischer were the co-founders of the maquis Ventoux. All had been in contact with Marcel Idzkowski.
It is possible to verify Marcel’s statement “Gisèle went out with Pierre Terrier, but she did not stop helping the people I was passing information to.” In a letter sent on October 20, 1944, to Max Fischer, then sub-prefect for the purges, Claude Bonin, who was in Paris, confirmed Marcel Idzkowski’s version: “The information provided about the Avignon Gestapo came from the most part from the bar Carnot.” He asserted that “Gisèle, who can be criticized only for her escapades, provided no information to the Gestapo and continued to inform me after the attack on the Javon camp where Guy Planchenault was killed.” Bonin, who specified that he used to meet Gisèle in Caumont, a small town 10 km away from Avignon, concluded “The secret activity of the Idzkowski and Guyon family deserves recognition on the part of the Resistance.” Colonel Beyne added: “Idzkowski’s information about the Gestapo agents was very precious and proved to be accurate.”
In the letter that he wrote to superintendant Georges on August 28, 1944, Marcel shed light on his action for the Resistance. He wrote that he had been an informer working for Bonin and Planchenault from February to June 1944. Marcel’s recorded testimony mentioned him in the third person: “When, for the second time, he [Marcel] attempts to contact the FFI on July 2, 1944, Planchenault had just been savagely gunned down by the Germans and the miliciens, and Bonin, who feels he is being hunted down, leaves for Paris. Unable to get the help from his two friends, he [Marcel] leaves to hide away in the FFI group of the Mt Ventoux.”
But above all, he explained the cause of his family’s inferno:
Gestapo agents had a file on me and they ceaselessly blackmailed my wife who, after the massacre of my family, feared for my safety… Managing the bar was beyond her capabilities and she thought that she would save me through her customers [the gangsters]. It was a woman’s idea and a selfish thought, but how was it possible to stand up to regulars who shoot into the window pane when one refuses to open the door at night?
How could the family possibly get out of the trap when Terrier even threatened Denise Guyon to get her husband, Marcel Idzkowski, arrested, if she prevented her daughter from going out with him? The bar managers were rendered powerless. The gangsters were holding all the cards to turn the bar Carnot into a lair for their criminal activities. They did not know that the Resistance was actively listening in.
Evidently, they didn’t expect Marcel Idzkowski’s joining the Resistance under their pressure, and yet, Marcel felt the need to apologize for Denise’s clientele at the Bar Carnot and for Gisèle’s outings in the company of Pierre Terrier. There remained the issue of their mutual feelings. In April 1945 Gisèle, who was living in Besançon, was interrogated by the gendarmes.15 She didn’t hide the fact that she had left her Besançon address with Terrier and that he promised to visit her after the war.
Robert Conrad’s Fate
At first glance, his association with Terrier proved fatal for Robert Conrad. The 26-year-old Alsatian had been sentenced in October 1943 by the Avignon tribunal to 6 months in jail for theft and tobacco trafficking, and, after serving his sentence, he probably met Terrier, who got him into the SiPo-SD.16
A radio operator in the navy from 1937 to 1942, then a technical inspector in the post office (PTT) in Marseille, he found a job at “La Gauloise,” a tobacco and cigarette factory on the road to Sorgues. This is where he got into trouble with the law. Out of prison on January 27, 1944, and visibly without a job or any resources, he became acquainted with Terrier who did not have to push him very hard: Conrad applied for a job with Müller, who was looking for an interpreter.
With a salary of 4,400 francs per month, it was not for translations that Müller gave him a 7,65 mm pistol. He participated in searches, arrests and looting. One more ex-convict who is “put on the right track” by Müller.
On the subject of the hunt for the Jews, his file of course mentions the looting at the “Coq Hardi,” the Marie Riz restaurant, and the theft of Jean Valabrègue’s wallet containing the 8,000 francs he split with Terrier. However, his confession concerning the “collection” of the Jews one night with Palmieri and his men gave him a completely different dimension.
Arrested immediately at Liberation, Conrad was accused of intelligence with the agents of Germany; as an agent of the Gestapo, he had participated in searches, arrests, physical abuse against detainees, and looting. He was sentenced to death. In these early days, the court of justice was far more severe, and his chances to escape execution were slim.
Indeed, the Nimes court of justice rejected his appeal, and the Minister of Justice his plea for pardon. He was executed in Nimes, but the files do not offer any date.
Chief of the Vaucluse Milice
Müller had no time to size up the head of the Vaucluse Milice before placing him on the list of individuals eligible for special passes. Indeed, less than one month had passed between his arrival in Avignon and the establishment of the list. Others higher up than Müller certainly had enough knowledge about his commitment and his loyalty to the occupier. He was probably already known at the Marseille SiPo-SD because of his past record.
On January 25, 1944, Thesmar began his new task in Avignon, appointed by Paul Durandy, the regional head of the Milice in Marseille. His court file had little to say about his prior history.17 Born in Tlemcen (Algeria), a store manager for the Radio Star company in Nice for 12 years, he had climbed the ladder up to “chief of thirty,” and deputy head of the Milice in that town. He did not distinguish himself by a flamboyant attitude, but his actions on the Côte d’Azur must have been significant since he suddenly found himself at the head of an organization that included several individuals well known on the national level for their loyalty to the Germans.
But during his questioning, he only stated his support for the politics of Pétain, the Bolshevik threat and his training at the school of Uriage. He was almost portraying himself as a white knight: “As soon as I arrived in Avignon, I dismissed four men who were working for the Gestapo, namely, Layet, Lucien Blanc, Bergeron and Albert Goldstein.”
He knew how to keep his distance and impose a stern brand of morality: “I got in touch with Müller who did not get along with me. He dealt only with actions against the Jews to steal their money… I forbid my men to have any contact with him.” It’s an order that Feroldi, the subordinate of Thesmar, did not follow. Feroldi’s boss added a little later: “In June 1944, I fired the head of the second service, Feroldi, because of his police activity with the Germans.”18 Thesmar was clearing his own name on Feroldi’s back.
In avoiding money belonging to the Jews by his “reprimand” of the links existing between Müller and his subordinate, Thesmar built a defense which protected him from being seen as in the pay of the Gestapo.
The GFP was headed by captain Hunsch of the Wehrmacht. He wanted to organize operations against the Maquis but I refused to provide any men. It was agreed that I would take care of the arrested French people and would give my opinion about their situation. After earning his trust, I could later, thanks to my influence, get many French people freed.
In simple terms, unable to deny his contacts with the SD and the GFP, he alleged that he had limited them to the strict minimum and drew a flattering picture of his strategy. But, then, how to explain his request to Jean Lebon of the SEC, around March 22, 1944, to inform him of “any obstruction by the Police, the Judiciary, the Prefecture, and others”?19
The mention of Captain Hunsch of the Wehrmacht is noteworthy. Thesmar placed him as the head of the GFP, possibly the part that had remained attached to the Wehrmacht. Was this a maneuver by Thesmar to distance himself from Müller?
The head of such a sinister organization as the Milice had to be taken seriously.
Created by Joseph Darnand in January 1943, the Milice was operational in the Vaucluse as early as February with the establishment of the Union Départementale. A former air force officer, Max Knipping, the first head of the Milice of Vaucluse, and the lawyer Georges Gras, chief of the 3rd service (security), made immediately every effort to open a departmental school of officers at the de Salles barracks in Avignon. As early as April, Pierre Louis de la Ney du Vair, the director of the Uriage national school, visited Avignon to give 4 talks at city hall.20 The teachings and the conclusions of the Milice leaders deserve to be examined.21 They went back in time to the Roman Legions in tracing the Jewish problem, and observed that three solutions had been tried and failed in France:
Expulsion – but the Jew comes back
The Statute – but the Jew works around it
Equality – but the Jew becomes the master.
In their frenzy, they saw no other way than the most severe application of the Vichy legislation, which, by the way, they deemed too soft. The constitution of the Vaucluse Milice was seen very favorably by Prefect Darbou. In his report about the state of mind of the population in July 1943, he observed:
The Milice maintains good relations with my administration which it does not want to hinder. Its intelligence allowed us to arrest a leader of the STO draft dodgers. In my department, I consider that I can personally rely on its chiefs, as well as on the Legion’s chiefs.22
The committee of the Union départementale of the Vaucluse Milice was established in the summer of 1943. At the beginning of September, the RG issued an opinion:
The Union départementale of the Vaucluse includes around one thousand members. However, all are not trustworthy, and according to opinion polls, it seems that a very small proportion of miliciens would respond to the call of their chiefs, in case of serious events. According to reliable sources, there might be differences of opinion among the ranks of the miliciens. Some, one hundred percent collaborationists, support the policies of union with Germany, and the others, called moderates, believe the allies’ military successes and the Russian advance to be an indication of the decrease of German power and the defeat of its armies. The fear of reprisals in case of an allied victory is said to be the cause of these differences.23
The thorough study by Christelle Fageot reduced the numbers significantly.24 She did count 311 registered miliciens including 22 women. These numbers are based on the available archival information, and are probably lower than the true count, but very far from the one thousand cited by the RG. However, the RG seemed better informed about the internal crisis. Their bulletin for the period of September 5–11, 1943, showed significant discrepancies:
Many miliciens want to leave. Some are already attempting to connect to the opposite groups in order to get people to forget as fast as possible their recent activity in favor of collaboration… Darnand is expected to come on September 6–7 to try and resolve the crisis.
Prefect Darbou, who would later become Laval’s chief of staff, came up with a similar assessment in his bimonthly report25 on October 5, 1943:
The Milice appears to be going through a serious internal crisis. Several miliciens have resigned or were forced to resign. The principal heads of service have left Avignon at the beginning of last month under the pretext of taking a few days of vacation. The chief Darnand came to Avignon on September 6 in an attempt to unravel the crisis. Doctor Bonnefoy, chief of the department’s Milice, a volunteer for the Waffen-SS, left for Vichy to take the mandatory medical checkup.
Bonnefoy was then replaced by Raymond Bonnabel as the head of the Vaucluse Milice.
Of course, the execution by the Resistance of the Avignon lawyer, Georges Gras in his own home, on October 28, 1943, was not likely to boost their morale. This prompted Idlas to say at the November meeting of the Vaucluse PPF bureau: “There are chickens everywhere since 25 Vaucluse miliciens resigned on the wake of Georges Gras’ assassination.”26 This caustic remark illustrates the ambivalent relations between the Milice and the PPF. Idlas’ words often conveyed a sense of rivalry, while his assistant Jacques Tricon, who belonged to both organizations, insisted on taking common actions, particularly the surveillance of homes to avert possible assassination attempts. At the meeting of the Vaucluse PPF bureau on January 5, 1944, Tricon bemoaned these antagonisms:
Tomorrow, the Milice and the PPF will perhaps fight side by side. Their ideas are less conflicting than those of the radicals and the communists, who nevertheless came to an understanding in the Popular Front.27
As for the help given to the Germans during operations against the Resistance, discretion was imperative. The issue was never raised during the official meetings of the Milice leadership. Only the French initiatives against terrorism were mentioned, like that of Carpentras, where a committee for revolutionary action had been created, led by a triumvirate: the chiefs of the Legion, the PPF and the Milice. The objective was to gather political intelligence.28
Thesmar’s installation in the Vaucluse practically coincided with the entry of Darnand in the government as General Secretary for the maintenance of law and order. The new prefect, Jean Benedetti, appointed on December 16, 1943, provided a view of the Milice in his bimonthly report of February 3, 1944:
The chief of the Milice, Mr. Bonnabel, was assigned to new duties in Paris. He was just replaced in Avignon by Mr. Thesmar, who is arriving from Nice. The appointment of Mr. Joseph Darnand to the post of General Secretary to the maintenance of law and order has not been received with the expected enthusiasm. The miliciens are indeed afraid that their chief might be inclined to make certain concessions in the application of the Milice program, by taking part in the government. Locally, the Milice still hopes in the creation of a corps of free guards.29
The prefect’s description testified about the state of mind of the miliciens who had overcome the 1943 crisis, namely the hard core with the strongest ideology.
Thesmar who estimated his own forces at around 400 people—a number that was closer to reality—was quite straightforward. The account of a press conference on March 4, 1944, was clear about his mindset:
Thesmar says that the Milice must fight:
1- Against the “Francs-tireurs et partisans,” a movement of communist inspiration
2- Against the “Armée Secrète,” composed of former officers and NCOs
3- Against the STO draft dodgers
In the Vaucluse, he adds, it would be sufficient to get around 60 big chiefs arrested and shot for the Maquis to be wiped out.
The collaboration between the Milice and the German army is necessary, Thesmar claims, because it is aimed at exterminating common enemies.
He proclaims that most of the terrorists are foreign Jews and not French people.30
His estimate of the size of the hard core of the Resistance was not far from the number given by Maxime Fischer.31 Anyway, Thesmar was a man who had perfectly integrated anti-Semitism as a key element of his political propaganda. This may also provide an explanation for his anti-Jewish activity: look for the Jew so that you can find the Resistance. In his report of April 3, 1944, the prefect observed:
As soon as the new head of the Milice, Mr. Thesmar, arrived, the organization became very busy. His efforts are entirely aimed at the struggle against terrorism, and if the department is calmer than at the beginning of the year, his action has been a big part of it. Recently, the terrorist organization in the département has been unmasked and its chiefs responsible for the sabotage that destroyed locomotives at the Rotondes depot have been arrested.32
As for his direct role in the persecution of the Jews, the sources available do not convey a criminal image to begin with. The testimony of his former employer was more than understanding. On October 25, 1945, Camille Barreau, manager of the Radio Star company wrote:
His departure for the Milice [in Avignon] was not motivated by economic interest, because his financial situation with us was excellent. His closest colleagues tried to hold him back, but he seemed to have been led by external influences. From the beginning of the Legion, his desire to distinguish himself led him to accept a first promotion, and step by step, he was pushed toward the SOL and the Milice.
I had never noticed any hatred or political or racial sectarianism in his words or his acts. I want to give a specific example. In 1942, before the occupation, the regional office of Jewish affairs asked me to fire two Jewish employees. Thesmar helped me a lot in all the steps I took which finally allowed us to keep these two people.
On the surface, he had nothing in common with Bonnefoy, his predecessor. Indeed, in July 1943, Marthe Angel, née Arokas, went to the headquarters of the Milice, because she erroneously believed that they arrested her father Salomon, her mother Ida and her brother Maurice.33 She hoped to get them freed. Bonnefoy turned her away with this explanation: “For the Jews, no mercy!” Salomon and Ida were Salonika Jews, established in the city for a very long time. Maurice was born in Avignon in 1923. All three were deported, Ida on convoy 60, and Salomon and Maurice on convoy 59.
Thesmar’s Men
During the trial of René Caprio, both a milicien and PPF assigned to the surveillance of the Jews, René Zarade, owner of two stores in Avignon, remembered the night of September 1942, when a flock of bullies was daubing slogans over the windows of Jewish shops throughout the city. Once the job was done, they all returned to Caprio’s house. Zarade added that Kraskourine, a man linked to Caprio, had told him that “Caprio was assigned to the liquidation of Jews, freemasons and Gaullists.”34
Another milicien, Pierre Kuhling, a fanatic SOL, leading ten men, armed and in uniform, was specifically assigned to gather intelligence about Jews.35 After committing various swindles, he was employed by the OPA (Office de Placement Allemand).* While managing the convoying of French workers to the Reich, he too was in charge of locating dodgers and in particular Jews. The list of his activities was very long, but once again an ex-convict was active in the repression.
Mary Lévy, the spouse of Jean Lévy, from Carpentras, reported36 that the milicien Paul Desjardin and his brother-in-law Barbarant, chief of the Carpentras PPF, denounced her husband to the Gestapo. Jean Lévy was deported on convoy 64.
Among the miliciens, some anti-Jewish activists were ready to take things to the bitter end. The Gandon case illustrated this hatred.37 In his deposition of June 15, 1945, Kurt Leppien, the husband of Suzanne Ney, who was deported on convoy 72, declared:
My name is Kurt Leppien, 35 years old, laborer, Quartier des Confines in Sorgues.
I was a neighbor of Auguste Gandon. In the course of several conversations from 1941 to 1944, we were able to notice, my wife and I, that Gandon expressed antinational views, disgraceful for a French man. We were able to retain a few sentences verbatim, as he said them:
“Winning this war would have been a calamity for France. Fortunately, we lost it. I got the Military Cross because I was able to run faster than others. I believe that we will have to fight once again, but I sure hope that this time it will be side by side with Germany against England. It is about time that the Germans occupy the southern zone of France to put some order and rid us of the Jews and the Resistance groups.”
Gandon advised me several times to work for the Germans, because, with the knowledge of their language, I could make a lot of money, as he would have done himself, if he had the capacity and the necessary skills.
After he realized that our thinking was different from his, he ended up threatening us several times and said that he would get us sent to concentration camps. He uttered the same threats toward our neighbor, Gil.
During the fall of 1943, Gandon joined the Milice. We saw him in uniform and he boasted that he owned weapons and that he would gun me down on the first occasion.
At the beginning of 1944, he told us “I have you now under my control. I cannot do anything against you, because you are a French soldier like me [Kurt Leppien had obtained the French citizenship after volunteering in the Foreign Legion], but I have learned through M. Baudière that your wife is of Jewish descent and she will be soon in a camp and deported to Germany.”
Although we do not have positive proof, we have no doubt that it is Gandon who attracted the attention of the CGQJ, who visited us soon after. It is following this incident that my wife was arrested by the Gestapo on March 21, 1944. I was also arrested by the German Feldgendarmerie in Avignon on March 22, 1944…38
Kurt Leppien cited the “German Feldgendarmerie” which probably was helping the German police. It is also possible that he meant the GFP. He also linked his wife’s arrest to the CGQJ, which, at the time, was represented by Jean Lebon, inspector of the SEC.*
The Horn Affair: a Specific Interest in the Jews
Did Thesmar merely cover his men and once in a while rein in their anti-Semitism to get them to deal with his first priority, namely the struggle against the Resistance? Indeed, the Government Commissioner enumerated a long list of charges consisting of raids against the Resistance, at times together with German units, interrogations accompanied by torture, arrests and even executions. Every time his responsibility was emphasized, but nothing was mentioned about the Jews.
Yes, but there was the Horn case. Henri Horn was Jewish; he was born in Nancy on April 30, 1904. After his arrest on March 14, 1944, he was deported on convoy 73. Since he was not registered, there is no way to know how long he had been in the Vaucluse.
He lived with his companion, Clairette Grely, who testified that in April 1943, he obtained a permit to sell fabrics on the open markets after managing the “Restaurant de la Banque.”39 He had a stall on the Place Pie and a former police inspector, Durand, was providing some help in exchange for a cut of the profits. She added that Horn had false papers that were sent from Paris. She knew of no link to the Milice. In the context of the times, there was nothing unusual.
But, at the Liberation, she accused her jealous husband, Jules Gondoin, a plumber and zinc worker from Avignon, of having denounced Henri Horn. Gondoin, after a 5-month jail sentence for theft, then volunteered as a worker in Germany. She remembered his threats in a bar: “I know he is Jewish, he will pay dearly, with his life.” In her mind, her husband must have known at that time that Horn had just been arrested and deported by the Gestapo. During his trial, a man named Le Lorrain affirmed that Gondoin was probably an informer of the German police; Gondoin rejected emphatically this accusation and denied having denounced Horn.
The investigation took a completely different dimension with the declaration of Moustrou, who was in charge of special intelligence operations for the Resistance:
In March 1944, I came across information about Henri Horn, a fabric merchant in Avignon. One day, I recorded a conversation involving Villard, a Gestapo agent who was shot at the Liberation by the Resistance in Buis les Baronnies. Villard was saying that Horn was an informer for the Milice and the Gestapo and that he mainly provided information to get Jews arrested. He is said to have given his information by using little notes inside cigarette packs; he would give the packs to Germans or miliciens who acted as ordinary customers. Villard had added that Horn was playing a double game and that “his cover got blown.” He was accused of having warned a Jew after denouncing him and having received 50,000 francs for this services.40
A nasty business with a Jew playing the role of the traitor, but it did not yet reach Thesmar personally; he was only implicated because he was the boss. However, a note from the RG of Avignon to the Director of Sûreté Nationale in Paris, dated December 23, 1944, brought the head of the Milice straight into the heart of these events:
The man named Henri Horn, domiciled at 50, rue Banasterie in Avignon and a stallholder, was a member of the Milice. Very cautious, he was giving information personally to Thesmar. For his services, he was getting fees between 1,000 and 10,000 francs, depending on the importance of the cases. He was specialized in the denunciation of Israelites. Arrested in March 1944 at the behest of Thesmar whom he had double crossed; the chief of the Milice accused Horn of having warned a person about to be arrested and of having received 50,000 francs in exchange. Horn was deported to Germany because he was a Jew. This was a dangerous individual; capable of accomplishing missions on behalf of the enemy in whose service he had probably entered, if he has not been killed.
But a research report, compiled by Pierre Bonvallet41 and found in the Musée de la Résistance in Fontaine de Vaucluse, offers another point of view. Bonvallet cited a list of members of the Resistance provided long after the war by Philippe Beyne, the chief of the Maquis Ventoux. Henri Horn was named in the list of “dead, missing and deported members of the Maquis Ventoux.” Was Horn then a member of the Resistance who was turned around by Thesmar? During these times of unbridled violence, everything was possible under pressure and threats.
Thesmar was not just a man wearing a uniform, whose responsibility was in line with his rank. He was at the leading edge of the network. This fighter against greed who supposedly shunned the persecution of the Jews collaborated with the German police.
Strangely, the court of justice left out one side of his deeds. The prosecution did not look for the arrest of Jews; therefore the persecution of the Jews did not appear in the list of charges. In particular, the assassination of Schlema Medvedowski, the Jewish doctor of the Resistance, was one of the charges against Thesmar. But nobody asked whether the fact that he was Jewish had anything to do with his summary execution.
The Medvedowski Affair
Before Liberation, Thesmar’s declaration of July 6, 1944, gave the facts as he saw them.
Doctor Medvedowski was arrested by us in Cucuron on June 16. We brought him to Vinon because of the requirements of our investigation. He disappeared during the night of June 17-18, and on the 18th we were unable to bring him back with us to La Tour d’Aigues. His car, which had a breakdown, was towed; at some point, the tank was fueled to start the engine, but following a short, it caught fire and we left the burned-out car on the side of the road. Later, I learned that the car had been brought back to La Tour d’Aigues.
A report about Doctor Medvedowski is going to be sent by the Milice to the regional Prefect. I think that doctor Medvedowski left for the Maquis unless he was arrested by the German units which, at that time, were performing a regional police operation. I will try to get information and see whether he was arrested by the German Autorities.42
This declaration took place two weeks after the event, but also after a popular protest demanding clarifications about the arrest of the doctor from La Tour d’Aigues as well as his liberation. On June 17, praising the dedication and competence of Medvedowski, a letter signed by 101 people from the village of Grambois “begs the responsible authorities to return him as soon as possible.” On the same day, La Tour d’Aigues’ mayor wrote to the prefect:
Doctor Medvedowski, who practices medicine in the [medical] center of La Tour d’Aigues, was arrested on June 16, 1944, in Cucuron by the French Milice.
Sir, our doctor knows only one duty, his doctor’s duty. He rushes up even at night where he is needed without worrying about the distance. He has said many times that a doctor is like a priest and he has taken care of his patients irrespectively of their ideas or opinions.
Sir, before taking any measures, we are asking you to investigate this case.
Attached, are the signatures of all the people who have benefited from his dedication.
(220 signatures follow)
On June 18, a third letter with 91 signatures from the people of St. Martin de la Brasque asked the prefect to intervene with the Milice to obtain the doctor’s liberation.
On June 19, it was the turn of 31 citizens of la Motte d’Aigues. The tone was the same: praise for the caregiver and respect for his “French qualities.”
Doctor Medvedowski’s tragic end was revealed much later. His body was discovered on November 20, 1944. His son, Jean-Louis Medvedowski described the circumstances in his book.43 If Thesmar was not the executor, he was the one who gave the order, according to Gaston Turcan’s testimony, cited by the author.
In July 1944, confronted by the impressive solidarity of the people for their doctor, Thesmar had to resort to a travesty of reality. Had he tried to justify the action as part of the struggle against Jewish terrorism, his argument would have fallen on deaf ears.
On June 22, 1946, Thesmar was sentenced to forced labor for life, but his life sentence was commuted to 20 years. He got off easy, considering the charges: “As a chief of the Milice, his responsibility is found in all the operations and wrongdoings attributable to this organization.”
Thesmar had first fled to Germany “where he was assigned to the Charlemagne brigade as a lieutenant, then as a political instructor at the Etville parachuting, spying and sabotage school.” In the Charlemagne brigade, he had named the group he was heading after “Philippe Henriot”—in memory of this Pétain’s fervent propagandist who was eulogized by the archbishop of Avignon, Mgr. Gabriel de Llobet, after he was gunned down by the Resistance. As the allies were closing in, he fled to Italy like many others. “Unmasked and arrested in Milan under the name of René Euch, he had succeeded in getting hired as a secretary at the French consulate.”
The Head of Milice Intelligence in the Vaucluse
Sentenced to death in absentia on June 14, 1945, Tiziano Feroldi was never found by the court of justice.44 His tracks were lost right after the general mobilization order of Darnand’s Milice, more precisely in Mulhouse and Belfort where Charles Palmieri was the last to see him.45 He was fleeing in the direction of Germany like the others. But during his questioning of March 13, 1945, Palmieri had some doubts about his destination: “I know that Tiziano Feroldi intended to settle in northern Italy where he has relatives.” Was he successful?
Born on July 24, 1904, in France in Sathonay (Ain),46 Tiziano Mario Feroldi was 40 at the Liberation. He was the divorced father of a little girl. Just before his departure, he picked her up and took her away from the places where he had brought death. The gendarme Aimé Bourguet confirmed it in his report of March 17, 1945. A man and a young child are less likely to attract much attention. On March 19, 1945, police headquarters in Nice (Alpes Maritimes), on the Riviera, reported that it had “looked for him to no avail following a warrant for his arrest.” Some tips and Palmieri’s deposition had probably situated him in Nice, on his way to Italy.
Before the war Feroldi had been a maître d’hôtel, then a musician and a band leader in night clubs.
When Pétain came to power, he joined various political movements (they are not specified) before landing in the Vaucluse. In 1941 he headed the “Companions de France” in Pertuis, and in November 1942, he becomes department inspector for the SOL, where he manages recruiting, propaganda and new members. He continued in that position, even after the transformation of the SOL into the Milice in February 1943, in addition to the intelligence service. He became the head of the Milice 2nd Bureau.
Feroldi had an office on the third floor of Milice headquarters, at 71, rue Joseph Vernet in Avignon. He almost always wore a uniform and carried a side arm. His closest friends were Georges Cruon and Albert Marin, who “always ride in the first car, in the company of Thesmar, during raids against the Resistance.”
Feroldi’s Associates
Georges Cruon was an obsessively anti-Semitic Milice chief. He was a member of the Bollène establishment. Since he owned a bus company in Bollène, Aimé Autrand used his services on August 26, 1942, to drive the foreign Jews from the northern part of the Vaucluse to the camp of Les Milles. He was constantly focused on arresting Jews. He drew up the complete list of the Jews in Bollène; he had identified 38 of them through the Legion, and on January 28, 1943, he sent the list to de Camaret.47 At the end of the list, Cruon added a comment: “You doubtless know the harmful influence of this race, and I am sending you this report for your information.” After a raid against the Resistance, he was seen in the company of Marin in a hotel-restaurant of Baumes de Venise, where he demanded to see the list of patrons so that he could identify the possible Jews among them.48
Cruon was sentenced to death in absentia on October 5, 1945, but he surrendered of his own free will on June 7, 1951, to settle his situation in the Marseille military court.49 On the eve of his trial, he was living as a free man at the home of a certain Mme. Eliette’s, 35 place Jules Guesde, in Marseille. The testimony against him was overwhelming. Let us cite a few witnesses.
M. Joffre, Mayor of Seynes (Gard), 49 years old:
I am unrelated to the defendant
- In June 1944, I was driving a car, when a group of armed miliciens ordered me to stop and to get out of the car
- The car was searched
- Mr. Cruon was armed, he had a pistol in his hand. He seemed to be the chief. He interrogated me about my actions. He checked my wallet, which he then returned to me. I recognize Mr. Cruon without any doubts.
- It is Mr. Cruon who signed my release document
- There were no arrests in the village
Mr. Jean Prince, 59 years old, farmer, Noves:
I am not related to the defendant
- I was arrested in Noves on July 19, 1944. There were Garros, Ferret, Sartin, and Mr. Cruon, the driver.
- Cruon was holding a sub-machine gun and aimed it at me.
- The gang stole 250,000 francs from me.
- In Avignon, I was tortured with the electricity in a dreadful way. It left me crippled. My hand is now paralyzed
- Mr. Cruon did not torture me. I do not know whether or not Cruon did participate in the search [of my home]
- Mr. Michon told me after Liberation that Cruon was the driver during my arrest.
M. Vincent Michon, 52 years old, farmer:
- I was arrested on July 19, 1944, at 9:30 a.m. at my home
- Cruon, among others, Garros, Perret, and Santini were present
- Ferret tortured me with electric current
- Cruon was holding me in sight and ordered the others to search my house
- They stole 350,000 francs in banknotes and gold coins. They ate in my place and stole cold cuts. They rummaged through everything in my home.
- I must mention that Cruon gave the order to set my house on fire. They did not do it, but they burned an empty shed a little further away.
- I was dropped at the school in Noves, and then driven to Avignon. Cruon was present during the tortures in Avignon. He did not intervene to stop the tortures.
- I was never asked for information about the Resistance. I stayed in Avignon until August 24. Then, I was handed over to the Germans and released when Avignon was liberated.
- I recognize Cruon without any doubt
Cruon denied everything.
With the exception of the death sentence I was given in absentia on October 5, 1945, I have no criminal record:
- … I only held a passive function in the Milice. I did not participate in any arrest. I was the head of transportation of the Avignon Milice. I have not arrested anybody.
- The witness Jean Bruce is lying brazenly. The only true details are that I was the driver—although I do not remember having been in Mr. Bruce’s home. If I went, I stayed in the car. I definitely never owned a weapon.
- Mr. Bruce is lying. It is not at the Milice of Avignon that he lost the use of his hand. He had polyarthritis.
- With respect to Mr. Roche’s deposition, I must say this. One day, I heard screams, and I saw that Mr. Roche was being tortured. I interceded with Mr. Thesmar so that he stopped the beating. Immediately, the beating stopped. When he was freed, he thanked me, he held out his hand, and said “No hard feelings!” I never hit Mr. Roche.
- I believe that Mr. Michon’s memories are rather vague.
- During the investigation, he did not recognize me. He must have confused me with someone else.
On December 17, 1952, Cruon was sentenced to 8 years in prison and 5 years of ban from the area. His sentence was automatically reduced in 1954 and 1955, and he was finally pardoned. Much later, he reappeared a few times in Bollène; he was rumored to be in Franco’s Spain.
Feroldi was a member of the apparatus, focused on the smooth running of its criminal enterprise. He was active on all fronts.
A propagandist, he made a point to brainwash the young people he wished to recruit. A 19-year-old farmer from Jonquières, Michel Mercier, mentioned the influence of the village school teacher and above all that of Feroldi, who succeeded in getting him to sign up for the Milice “by giving him a long-winded speech about the repression of black market and the maintenance of law and order.”50
An organizer, he regularly visited Antignac, the parish priest of Chateauneuf de Gadagne, who was also a registered milicien. With the priest, he prepared the imminent arrests of the opponents in the village.
A torturer, Feroldi used a pickax handle to get information out of prisoners from the Resistance, at the farm of the Roussets, a family of miliciens.51
A henchman, he assassinated a café-owner from Bollène with his own hands, following an order from Raymond Bonnabel, Thesmar’s predecessor as the head of the Vaucluse Milice.52 This murder was carried out in retaliation for the execution by the Resistance of the Avignon lawyer, Georges Gras, a milicien and a visceral anti-Semite.
As a back-up for the Germans, he was side-by-side with other French men, miliciens and Waffen-SS from the 8th Regiment of the Brandeburg division, during the expedition against the Maquis Ventoux.53 The 35 members of the Resistance, who were stationed around the village of Izon-la-Bruisse, on the hills of Séderon (Drôme) were the victims of a bloody massacre. Among others, Alfred Epstein,54 who had escaped arrest and deportation in August 1942, was executed during this operation.
The report of March 1, 1944,55 documenting the meeting of the federal board of the Vaucluse PPF, offers a sampling of Feroldi’s role:
Augusta Vernet,* the delegate for cultural affairs, reports that she has learned from the militant Adrean from Ménerbes, that a few days ago, in the area of Sault, Feroldi, one of the chiefs of the Milice, has killed an armed car driver and captured two of his comrades. The two were British nationals, representatives to the terrorists.
The testimony of Albert Coupon of February 13, 1945, in the context of the investigation of Judge Albert Leyris, was not just eloquent about Feroldi himself, but also suggested the existence of informers working for him.
On March 22, 1944, around 6 a.m., six plain-clothes individuals knocked on my door, and told me they had come to arrest a member of the Resistance they suspected to be hiding in my home.
I noticed two armed German guards in front of the door and in the corridor of the apartment building. One of these individuals who were all speaking French correctly asked me who was coming to sleep in my home… They were referring to my cousin, a member of the Resistance who was sleeping in my apartment at every visit he made to Avignon. The way they searched my home, I understood that they were well informed and that my cousin had been denounced.
After being treated harshly for a good while, I was taken to the offices of the hotel de la Cigale and from there to the Ste Anne prison where I was held for 53 days.
During my absence, my home was looted and I strongly suspect—I am even certain—that a man named Feroldi participated in the looting…
Because of this abuse, the damage amounted to about 130,000 francs in clothes, jewelry, linens, etc., they stole.
Mr. Barras and the owner of the Pavillon de Flore, rue de la République, as well as Mr. Paturel assured me that it was indeed Feroldi who did it.
Every opportunity was too good to miss.
As for the Jews, an examination of the court files does not provide any information about arrests, except for those in Bollène, in the company of Alfred André.* Of course, this did not mean that it was the only case. In general, we are far from being able to associate a perpetrator with every Jew arrested. The small number of surviving deportees has limited the availability of testimony, and the survivors did not always know the names of the perpetrators. It has only been possible to determine that the Vaucluse Milice had a contingent of individuals involved in crimes against the Jews.
The Looting of the Store “Les 200.000 bas”†
The usual actions of the miliciens consisted of operations against the Resistance, denunciations and arrests. On the margin and behind the shield of the ideology of law and order, the profit generated by blackmail, theft and looting was a powerful motivation in the hunt for the Jews.
Feroldi was just such a case. Henri Gardiol, director of the Roblot funeral home, 23, rue Carnot in Avignon, testified on March 6, 1945. A former officer in the Legion, he kept his distance at the creation of the SOL which signaled the criminal drift of the Legion. He did not change his mind because of the expressions of anti-Semitism, but because of the letters of threats and denunciations against some war veterans. This aspect added to value to his testimony.
In response to the information requests published in the press, I am honored to make the following declaration, relating to two miliciens in Avignon: Titien Feroldi, former department inspector of the Milice, and Marin, former employee of the department transportation team*.
Here are the facts: on April 4, 1944, a dark red Peugeot-5 cv [horse power], stopped next to the store of Mr. Imberton, a tailor at 21, rue Carnot, in front of my offices. Marin, the driver, and a passenger, unknown to me, came out of the car. Shortly thereafter, Feroldi whom I knew well and Layet, executed since then, arrive on foot. The four of them entered the building of the food store “Le Casino,” 19, rue Petite Saunerie. They asked the manager, Mme. Béraud, where the warehouse of the “200,000 bas” belonging to Mr. Nahoum was located.
Without losing her cool, Mme. Béraud, who was suspicious of the individuals she was dealing with, told them that she was not the manager of the building and that she had no information for them. Feroldi, who had found nothing came back aggressively, and threatened her, he pressed Mme. Béraud for information while showing a card with red, white and blue stripes; she believes it read “Milice Française” [French Milice]. In any case, Feroldi stated that he belonged to the German police. With the threat hanging over her head, Mme. Béraud had no choice but to give him the information he wanted.
As soon as they heard, the four individuals broke the door open, and entered the warehouse which they burglarized from top to bottom. You can still see the state in which they left the place.
They loaded the car over and over again for two days openly and publicly. In addition to the vehicle, Layet and Feroldi, who had helped load it, left on foot, carrying packages full of merchandise, stockings, coats, etc. Everything was stolen.
At the same time, a pickup truck was operating at the residence and store of Mr. Nahoum, 2, rue St. Jean le Vieux. The house was practically emptied; the German were operating at that location. Besides, the teams of miliciens and Germans seemed to be operating under the same orders.
Everyone in the neighborhood was distressed and helpless at witnessing this organized burglary. I was able to understand exactly what happened from my office, which is a perfect observation post; this is why I can absolutely assure you of the truthfulness of my statement which I sign in all conscience.56
Raymond Layet, the third man cited by Gardiol was not a newcomer. He was a milicien and the owner of the Central Bar. His café on the Place de l’Horloge was not a place for choirboys. In her deposition of December 2, 1944, Denise Layet declared:
I was a shopkeeper; I was managing the Central Bar… I have been jailed since August 23, 1944. On that date, I was arrested by the Avignon police together with my husband. When I asked why, I was told it was a security question since my husband was a milicien.
People of the underworld were the main patrons of the Central Bar; among others: Marcel “the doctor,” who managed a brothel, rue Favart, Mimi Poggi, and many others whose names I do not remember. I can also cite MM. Marin, Feroldi, Bouillon, and Mme. Gras. These people would come to the bar about 2 or 3 times a month.
I knew Conrad very well; he had a girlfriend, Mme. Schmidt who was a waitress in my bar. I also knew Pierre Terrier and Max William, as well as René Boyer, who used to come, sometimes in company of Jeannot Ricard, the owner of a dance hall in the rue St. Jean.57
Henri Gardiol was very specific about the date of the looting. He said “on April 4, in the morning.” He did not say, or did not know, that Moïse, Sarina and Isaac Nahoum (one of the Avignon families from Turkey who at the time formed the majority of the Jewish community) had been arrested on March 29, 1944, and later deported; Moïse on convoy 74, Sarina and Isaac on convoy 71. And it just so happened that the looters operated on April 4, namely 6 days later. Of course, this could have been the result of postponed looting. But this two step action was not necessarily conducted by the same perpetrators. The looters could also have been tipped by a discreet informer. It must be noted however that Germans and hoodlums were all sharing in the loot.
What did Feroldi do with the booty? A few weeks earlier, during the looting of Château de Gourdon in Bollène, after the arrest of the Rosenbergs, Feroldi unloaded part of the property at his domicile at the “Caserne des Passagers,” and dropped the rest at the Milice headquarters. For the Nahoums, we do not know. Did he sell his “war trophies” and to whom? The full knowledge of this lucrative underground trade network escapes us, because of the lack of full documentation. But it will be possible, here and there, to establish clear complicities in selling the proceeds of the looting. Many indications point toward the Villa Monclar, where Wilhelm Müller had a finger in the pie. Thesmar assured us in his testimony that he had forbidden his men to have any contact with Müller; this is an order that Feroldi did not obey. His boss added a little further into his deposition: “In June 1944, I fired the chief of the second division, Feroldi, for his police activity with the Germans.”58
All of this puts financial interest at the center of anti-Semitic violence.
One can’t help but notice that Thesmar “dumped” his subordinate Feroldi rather late, just at the moment when the allies were pouring onto the beaches of Normandy and when the noose was tightening around the south of France through northern Italy and the Mediterranean coast.
Feroldi’s Connected Networks
Feroldi did not operate on his own; obviously he did so with other miliciens, but also with the upper crust of the French agents of the German police. He was listed in the Blanchard list of the bar Carnot, the headquarters of the French GFP gang of the rue Bancasse. This is also where other right-hand men of Müller stayed, like Pierre Terrier and the PPF Antoine Guidoni, aka the doctor, “in charge of the surveillance of the large cafés of Avignon and the bourgeois classes.”59 It is more difficult to determine his relationship with Palmieri, but they knew each other, and Palmieri was quite open about it: “I have known Feroldi the milicien through the intermediary of Pierre Terrier, an agent of the SD in Avignon. I have met this Feroldi at police headquarters, boulevard Monclar.”60 This placed Feroldi in two centers of the Avignon German police, Gauthier’s domaine at the rue Bancasse, and the offices of his boss, Wilhelm Müller, at boulevard Monclar.
Feroldi’s greatest strength was his ability to establish contacts outside the Milice and to cooperate through informal networks with members of other organizations. This networking was also the strength of Georges Boyer—Parietas, Alfred André, Lucien Blanc, Gaston Mouillade, Palmieri himself, and so many others. Moreover, Feroldi was no stranger to Parietas, who reported on March 15, 1945:
I know Feroldi very well; I know he was head of the Milice in Avignon. I saw him often at the Cigale when he brought information to the German inspector Rupp. I never worked directly with him.
… or Emile Gratian, 50 years old, sports instructor, who declared on March 13, 1945, during his detention at St. Anne prison:
I got acquainted with Feroldi when he was department inspector of the Milcie in Avignon.
He was often going out with Georges Cruon,* Albert Marin, and Jiovani, three miliciens from Avignon. At every outing, the four of them organized expeditions against members of the Resistance or communists.
I heard from Feroldi himself that he was a pillar of the fascist Revolution in Italy. By the way, this is the reason he had earned a high rank in the Milice.
When the general mobilization of Darnand came, Feroldi was already working for the Gestapo, at the Hôtel de la Cigale, rue Bancasse. I am not aware of his activity on the side of the Germans. However, I know that this individual was extremely mean to the people he arrested.
Feroldi was not a newcomer in the extreme right militancy. When he arrived in Avignon, he had already been active within Italian fascism. However, his action in the Vaucluse went far beyond the more moderate—should we say less malevolent?—action of the Italian fascism described by Renzo de Felice in his Storia degli ebrei italiani sotto il fascismo† (1961); an image that was reinforced by a less brutal, and often protective, attitude by the Italian occupation forces in the southern zone.61
To carry out his mission, Feroldi needed intelligence, and he drew it from any source. It was the testimony of Ferragut which had placed him at the home of parish priest Antignac from Châteauneuf de Gadagne, who was also an organizer of miliciens’ meetings: “Feroldi came to visit me after leaving the home of the priest. Feroldi used to have his meals at the priest’s home. He already had a complete list of people to arrest.”62
Feroldi was not going to confession when he was visiting with Antignac, the parish priest who stoked the anger of the population of Gadagne at the Liberation. The archbishop of Avignon, Gabriel de Llobet, alluded to it in a letter to the prefect on September 27, 1944, to thank him for his “intervention in favor of the priest of Gadagne, who will be assigned elsewhere after some rest.”63 Justice did not touch the clergy, which appeared to be a state within the state. Moreover, the letter attested to the ambivalence of Archbishop de Llobet. In 1940–1944, he was satisfied with the privileged position the Church held within the anti-secular Vichy regime; he was first and foremost a convinced Pétain supporter, who preached the cult of the Maréchal. But he was however uncomfortable about the persecution of the Jews, to the point of denouncing “the materialistic doctrines based upon race” in a Lent sermon of 1941. Although some members of his clergy remained forcefully anchored to the anti-Semitic traditions of the Church throughout the war, a large segment of public opinion was nevertheless strongly influenced by the protest of Cardinal Salièges, soon joined by Théas at Montauban, Gerlier at Lyon and a few others, before switching to Gaullism, and a small group even went into active résistance. The resistance of several Avignon Catholic institutions (St. Joseph High School, the Sacré Coeur Convent, and the Immaculate Conception Convent) must have been known at the archdiocese.
After the stress of the war period, de Llobet readjusted his position and practiced realpolitik toward the new order at Liberation, even if this new order did not offer the Church the same promises as the previous regime.64
The Deep Dive
In April 1944, Jean Poutet, the all-powerful milicien and PPF chief, took his leave from Thesmar.65 He was leaving for Paris to a posting as colonel in the line guards. Before his departure, Poutet came to say good bye to Thesmar, and he did not forget to inquire about Feroldi. In his testimony, Poutet stated that Feroldi had also applied for a job in the line guards and communications, an organization where Poutet would have an influential position. Was Poutet advising a friend to clear out before it was too late or was he promising to pull some strings? At the time of this visit, Feroldi was still the chief of the second bureau (intelligence) of the Vaucluse Milice, according to the certificate from Thesmar on May 14, 1944:
I, undersigned, Yves Thesmar, chief of the French Milice of the Vaucluse, certify that Titien Feroldi, holder of the food card No. 21 854 category T* is still in the permanent service of the French Milice where he occupies functions that require significant physical exercise.
Then, Feroldi, who expended a lot of energy, disappeared at the last minute a few days before Liberation. After his departure, his name was mentioned several times. On January 29, 1945, the Avignon police superintendant broadcast his description:
Information
Former assistant to the chief of the Compagnons of France in Avignon
Former chief of the SOL of Avignon, then Département Inspector of the same organization
Member of the PPF
Chief of the Département Milice
Agent of the Gestapo, informer of the German services
Very dangerous individual – a killer
In case of arrest, inform the government superintendant at the Court of Justice of the Vaucluse.
Then, the trail went cold. Much later, on February 21, 1952, Feroldi’s file was sent to the Government commissioner at the court of Marseille, in relation “to the procedure against Raymond Bonnabel.” On December 6, 1957, the State Public Prosecutor told the Public Prosecutor at the appeals court of Nîmes that “… Tiziano Feroldi… is still wanted.” Finally, on January 1964, a document sent to the appeals court in Nîmes repeated that he “is still wanted, like Jacques Bouchet and Suzy Pommier, all sentenced to death.”66 This woman’s file indicated that she had taken part in operations against the Resistance and that she had married an industrialist from Milan in 1945. The State Public Prosecutor warned that the sentences were to lapse between the end of June and the beginning of July 1965, because of the statute of limitation.
So, did Feroldi survive in another country or even a different continent? In any case, he was one more criminal who evaporated in the chaos of Liberation. But with Feroldi, we are in for another surprise.
Feroldi Reappears
By sheer coincidence, the story of Tiziano Feroldi came to a dramatic ending. We were able to locate with the help of Internet an actor named Tiziano Feroldi who played bit parts in four movies: Grand Prix, by John Frankenheimer (1966), as the doctor on the Monza race track, Revenge, by Pino Tosini (1969), as the commander, A Woman Against Arsene Lupin, by Tony Blaad (1971), as the police chief, and True Life, a remake of Revenge by Alastair Reid for the BBC (1972).
We found no other movies before 1966 or after 1972. Feroldi however played a few theatre roles in Italy, in particular in “Maman Colibri” under the direction of Anton Giulio Majano and in “Partita a Quattro” under the direction of Raphael Meloni.
At first glance, the doctor from Monza was about 60 years old—the age of Feroldi from the Vaucluse. In his last film, he looks 65 to 70 years old. Everything fits, his age, his disappearance until the statute of limitations in 1965, and his profession in show business where he started before the war in night clubs. There is no biographical data in any actors’ data bases. We are in the presence of a man who “did not exist” before his first film at a late age. We found one exception though: Feroldi played a secondary role in “L’Anaspo” at the Milano Picolo Teatro, on March 2, 1964, just before the end of his 20 years run. Did he think that he was not taking a great risk with this role in an avant-garde show?
The actor of 1966 had a large build, and was rather stout. With his physique, he could have played the role of the harmless and easy going neighborhood storekeeper. Who would recognize the Feroldi of the dark years? However, in a photograph found in his file, he had the same profile, the same nose, and the same chin, in spite of the intervening years; and most of all, the same chilling eyes.
So, respectability was at the end of the road for Feroldi, one of the most accomplished figures of the collaboration in the Vaucluse. He took his secrets with him, including the reasons for the missing 20 years in his biography. One does not disappear that long without help.
In 1864, after fleeing the Austrian persecution of northeastern Italian nationalists, Tiziano’s grandfather, Louis Feroldi from Brescia, and his wife Monica Brusaferri had settled near Lyon, where Louis created a silk business. As soon as Italy was finally unified in 1861, he set up headquarters in Milan67. His son, Charles, took over the business; three children were born from his marriage with Helene Gippet: Monica, Tiziano and Garibaldi. The first names of the two boys were not just an empty expression of Italian pride, and after World War I, the family returned to northeastern Italy, where Tiziano Feroldi joined the Fascist Party.68 This strongly suggests that the Milan region was where Tiziano found help during his “missing years.”
Feroldi’s story offers some resemblance to that of Paul Touvier, a graduate of Uriage, a murderer, an intelligence specialist in the Lyon Milice, and later its chief, who disappeared before his death sentence in 1946. In his flight, Touvier was helped by the Catholic Church which provided him with hiding places, until he is arrest in 1989 near Nice where he lived quietly away from the limelight. Touvier knew well that, even if his original death sentence lapsed after 20 years, the crimes he had committed fell in the category of crimes against humanity, without statute of limitation, as defined by the law of December 26, 1964.* As to Feroldi, he seemed to not realize that, by coming out of the shadows in 1966 under his real name in a film with mass appeal, he exposed himself to the death sentence, until its cancellation on October 9, 1981, and to life in prison thereafter.
The “White Collar” Agents of the “Collaboration” Group
1.
Charles Uhl
The founder
The 60 year-old Swiss born, Charles Uhl—Karl for the Germans—obtained French citizenship in 1930.69 He was the thinker of the “Collaboration” group, although “thinker” may be a big word. He was a sales representative in southeastern France, of Baignol et Farjon, the pencil manufacturer, and his thinking was centered around the spirit of collaboration aimed at moving France from the camp of the vanquished to that of the victors.
“Collaboration,” a group created before the symbolic encounter at Montoire between Pétain and Hitler, liked to think of itself as an echo chamber for the old Maréchal. Its motto was borrowed from the call of the great military man: “It is not sufficient to trust me; I need your help.” Fernand de Brinon, the plenipotentiary ambassador of the Vichy government in Paris, took the organization under his wing. The clearly stated objective was for “France to seize upon the unique chance of recovery by participating willingly in the irresistible movement which drives Europe toward its unity.” A statement that defined the framework.
The instructions were well defined: “In each town where you will create a movement or a sub-committee, you will make sure that the individuals called upon are of unquestionable morality and you will require them to give their word that they are Aryans and do not belong to freemasonry.”
In Avignon, Charles Uhl was on a roll. The recital of the facts in his court file described him accurately.
He has been a member of the Collaboration group from early June 1941 until Liberation. He was a vice-president from 1943 and worked intensely in favor of collaboration with Germany. Under the assumed name of Charles Sonat, he published in “l’Union Nationale,” a weekly of New Europe, and in “le Petit Vauclusien,” articles in favor of rapprochement with the enemy. He created posters for lectures by notorious collaborators, Georges Claude, Grimm and others. He even went so far as to say that the French had harmed Germany more than the Germans had done so to France. He wrote enthusiastic letters to Doriot and to the Gringoire newspaper.
Basically, his “love” letter of December 31, 1940, to Jacques Doriot was a statement of his intentions:
Your movement is the only one capable of implementing in France at the same time the social and national renewals, and by a loyal collaboration with Germany, the indispensable integration of France at one of the first places in a Europe united against plutocracy and fake democracy which must be made powerless at all costs.
I subscribe heartily to the editorial of your newspaper of the 21st of this month, “Yes, Monsieur le Maréchal!” and I am asking you to kindly accept me in your ranks, and if so, to accept my pledge to fight, body and soul, for the realization of your program.
The exposition of the facts by the prosecutor stated:
In Avignon, he was in constant contact with Stehling, the chief of the OPA; he had regular contacts with chief of the Gestapo Müller, and his name is on the list of special passes which the Germans were supposed to provide to their informers in case of an Anglo-American landing.
Uhl claims that he considered collaboration in a spirit of equivalence and mutual respect. He pretends to have been able to help several people arrested by the Gestapo, thanks to his connections. He maintains that he never was an auxiliary of the Gestapo, and explains the presence of his name on the list of passes by Stehling’s positive feelings toward him.
What set Uhl apart from the other leaders of “Collaboration” in Avignon was first and foremost his knowledge of German (he translated article by Goebbels “War and the Jews” in the newspaper Das Reich of May 9, 1943). In addition, his closeness to Stehling was nothing but puzzling.
His correspondence with Stehling in German seemed compromising. First, he gave 500 francs to the German Red Cross. Then, he put his own car at the disposal of Stehling for 100 francs a day. They signed a proper contract to that effect. Finally, a note from Stehling to the Gestapo of Konstanz spoke very highly of Uhl as an enthusiastic and leading supporter of collaboration. But his speech in the name of “Collaboration” at the reception given by Stehling at the Hôtel Crillon on November 13, 1943, one year after the invasion of the southern zone, exploded with “Uhlian” terminology:
As soon as you arrived in our town and from our first contact with you, we were won over by your constant kindness and impeccable behavior. During the weeks and months that followed, our sympathy for you, Mr. Stehling, did not stop growing, and for some of us it turned into a feeling of sincere friendship. This feeling is all the more valuable for us that we see in you, dear Mr. Stehling, the representative of new Germany, of National-Socialist Germany, in short Adolf Hitler’s Germany.
Stehling was not just anybody in the German occupation system in the Vaucluse. He was the one who banged on the table when the efficiency of the STO was not as it should be, and who demanded a higher contribution of workers. The tracking of dodgers was in itself of the highest importance, since the considerable German mobilization had taken a high toll on human reserves in Germany. We already know that Kuhling was leading the tracking of the Jews in the STO.
On the national stage, “Collaboration” was the descendant of the France-Germany committee from before the war (1935–1939) and had the strong support of Ambassador Otto Abetz. Created in 1940 by the writer Alphonse de Chateaubriant, it was authorized in February 1941 and was specialized in the indoctrination of the French, through a multitude of speeches on diverse topics, but all linked to collaboration with Germany. Its recruits, anti-democratic and pro German, all belonged to the intellectual elite and to the conservative bourgeoisie.
The local Avignon group had been created at the end of 1941. On January 9, 1942, Philippe Dreux, director-founder of the weekly L’Union Française (the official newspaper of “Collaboration”) came to establish a sub-committee in Avignon.70 The kickoff started with a speech and a discussion at the Café-Glacier on the Place de l’Horloge. This was the beginning of a sustained period of activity at the headquarters of the Avignon collaborationists at 11, rue St. Charles. They held monthly meetings with undeniable attendance peaks. Uhl was in the forefront of the preparation and organization of these encounters, where speakers, French and German alike, blathered on. The announcement of the upcoming speech by the propagandist, Dr. Manfred Zapp, reads:
The lectures-discussions will be extremely interesting, given the extensive knowledge of Dr. Zapp about the vast contemporary political problems, and more specifically about the politics of the United States, Roosevelt and the Jews. In our judgment, they will have a deeper and effective influence directly on our propagandists and on people who already have training and culture strong enough to easily absorb this information. They will then be in a better position to take advantage of it, broadcast it and contrast it to the stupidity and lies so brazenly spread by the Judeo-Gaullists.
According to several reports, during the lecture tour of Professor Hans Grimm in the unoccupied zone, 4000 people gathered in Avignon on June 5, 1942. Assembled inside and outside city hall, they came to hear the eminent jurist from the German academy of law, and the author of the book Hitler and France, published in 1938. The preamble to his Avignon lecture reminds the listeners that:
Grimm argued against the Jews in Cairo, in Switzerland when Wilhelm Gustloff was assassinated by a Jew,* in France when the German diplomat vom Rath was assassinated by the Jew Grunspan.†
The court sentenced him to 10 years in prison. Why only 10 years? Even if it is hard to believe, the reason was that the charge of being affiliated with the German police was dropped.
Possibly, the certificate he received from his employer, the pencil company “Baignol et Farjon,” on October 30, 1944, had some influence with the court.
No one among the customers he visited in the southeast reported any behavior or talk against France. Quite the opposite, two out of his three sons have served the country; one of them was in the air force for 6 years. He was our very loyal representative in the sale of our products in fierce competition with German products.
Did the presence in his file of the letter from Mgr. Salièges, the archbishop of Toulouse, who reminded that the Jews belong to mankind, contribute to those extenuating circumstances?
2.
Jean Gaugler
The chief and his network
Although Jean Gaugler was not on the list of Müller’s “favorites,” he is very important to understand the network. An antifascist on the eve of the war, pro-German after the armistice, he was a Legion militant, and at the end of 1942, the département delegate of the “Collaboration” committee for the Vaucluse. In the following year, he became its president, and remained in that position until Liberation and his flight to Germany.
During those years, the activity of “Collaboration” was not limited to ideology. Its ranks included some key figures. Another “favorite” of Müller, Laurent Idlas, a manufacturer of sanitary equipment, served as general secretary to “Collaboration” before he resigned in April 1943 to dedicate himself fully to his job as chief of the local PPF. Idlas received the death sentence in absentia.71
Other PPF activists became founding members of “Collaboration.” With Charles Uhl,72 the salesman, who was the true initiator of the group, we find a lawyer from Orange, René Le Flem,73 in the Milice and member of the anti-Bolshevik committee of Joachim Gatto,74 the architect Maurice Riety.75 Riety, sentenced in absentia to national indignity for life, retreated to Germany in the bus carrying the members of the PPF,76 and was killed in an allied airplane raid near Loriol in August 1944.
The accountant, Raymond Bonnabel, chief of the Vaucluse Milice in 1943, was also a member of “Collaboration” before moving on to higher postings in the Milice.77 Sentenced to death in absentia by the Vaucluse court of justice on June 30, 1945, Bonnabel surrendered voluntarily to the Marseille court of justice in 1951, and his sentence was commuted to 30 months in prison on February 24, 1953.
Dr. Passelègue, a war veteran and convinced Pétain supporter, was president of the Vaucluse “Collaboration” group in 1942. This lightweight president did not last very long and left in October 1942. He went on to help the resistance, and was rehabilitated thereby lifting his sentence to national indignity.78
The membership of the “Collaboration” group peaked in 1942 in the département. It seemed to benefit from the influx of a certain number of renegades of the “Amicale de France,”79 an organization of Pétainiste propaganda created in the Vaucluse by Jacques Petit, a lawyer from Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, and dissolved at the national level on July 23, 1942. Idlas and Gaugler for example were members of l’Amicale before joining “Collaboration.” In 1943, “Collaboration” shrank from 300 to 200 members. Gaugler claimed the same 200 members in 1944 and announced only two resignations during membership card renewals.
But beyond the size and the ideology of “Collaboration,” it is particularly interesting to examine Gaugler’s case in order to open a window into the persecution of the Jews. Gaugler did not just appear in de Camaret’s file.80 He was a candidate to a position as provisional administrator on December 11, 1941, stating that he was the recipient of the Legion of Honor and of the Military Cross. An engineer by profession, he was also an architect and an expert at the court of Avignon. He boasted about his competence in the strength of materials, making him a prime candidate for the rehabilitation of a number of buildings confiscated from Jewish owners.
The Statut des Juifs and the CGQJ gave him a new opportunity for social promotion. Like all the candidates for provisional administration, he provided references meant to impress the recruiting commission. Gaugler cites Michel-Béchet, the doctor of the Milice and deputy mayor of Avignon, Caurel, the delegate for the propaganda in the Vaucluse, and Knipping, chief of the Avignon section of the Legion, later chief of the SOL for Vaucluse, then head of Milice in the Bouches du Rhône, before he was called to higher functions in Paris. Knipping was sentenced to death by the Paris court of justice in 1947,81 in part for the assassination of Georges Mandel, Jewish Interior Minister under Paul Raynaud. Knipping was obsessed by visceral anti-Semitic hatred, to wit his letter to Knochen where he suggested providing the list of Jews from the entire northern zone while the SiPo-SD commander was asking only for the Jews of Paris and surroundings.
With all this support, Gaugler became the provisional administrator for the Vaucluse. He destroyed the businesses belonging to René David, and as a reward, received a generous pay and looted the assets of the victims under the cover of the law*.
As an informer and a denouncer of Jews, Gaugler went even further. In its session of September 23, 1944, the CDL studied his case, with evidence in hand: “Berger, a stallholder in Avignon, joined the Collaboration group in July. On that same day, he gave Gaugler the names and addresses of his colleagues whose status was illegal vis-à-vis the social laws [the Statut des Juifs]. Gaugler decided to hand over the list to de Camaret, because he did not trust the Gestapo who, according to him, sometimes gave away the names of their informers.”82
Gaugler returned the favor to de Camaret who received extensive information about the Jewish stallholders; on that basis 68 names were sent later to Marseille by Jean Lebon.83 In exchange, Gaugler could count on de Camaret in his function of provisional administrator. Cautiously, Gaugler kept his distance from the rough French agents of the Gestapo. At “Collaboration” in Avignon, members sported good manners; one could find an insurance agent, Jean Grégoire, sentenced after the war to 4 years in prison; or an engineer, Marius Ribière, 15 years of forced labor. These were people who enjoyed discussions and philosophical debates about “the grouping of French energies toward continental unity,” for instance.
But sometimes it may be necessary to descend from the clouds. During the monthly session of January 22, 1944,
Gaugler advises the members of Collaboration to join the Milice as Free Guards, if they are young, and as simple miliciens, if they are older or female. Incidentally, he is very pleased with the presence of Darnand and Philippe Henriot in the government. He hopes to see Marcel Déat* take an important position soon. During that same meeting, Gaston Mouillade rose up against the fact no one mentioned the action of the PPF, the movement the most feared and the most hated by the Gaullists and the communists; all the more since Doriot† is the only party chief in combat on the eastern front. Gaugler‡ assures him that he respects Doriot, but by acting too often as a free lance party, the PPF stood in the way of a movement of national unity. Clearly, Charles Uhl builds consensus among the parties by wishing to see the government of the 3 Ds: Doriot, Darnand, Déat.84
A few lines added in a neat handwriting on the typed record of the court session of May 24, 1945, when Jean Gaugler was sentenced to death in absentia,85 specified that “the military tribunal of Marseille acquitted him on January 9, 1952.” In fact, he appeared voluntarily on November 17, 1951, as he had probably been assured that his risk was minimal. It had been worth waiting for! Less than seven years later, nothing remained of the membership in “Collaboration,” the Milice, the PPF; nothing of the accusation of intelligence with the enemy, or of having asked Knipping to impose sanctions against Gaullist magistrates, of his collaboration with the Germans; nothing either of the list of stallholders which made its way to the SiPo-SD by transiting through Jean Lebon. Times had changed and the general amnesty was not far away.
1.
René Le Flem, an Ambitious Young Man
A Breton from St. Brieuc, living in Orange since 1936, must have found it advantageous to accumulate memberships.86 Member of the “Collaboration” group in 1941 and 1942, he was also a member of the Legion, and SOL, then chief of hundred in the Milice. He claimed he was not a milicien since September 1943. However, he scrupulously renewed his PPF membership from 1940 to 1944. Of course, there was also his membership in the anti-Bolshevik committee.
This 34 year old lawyer was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He came from a modest family and became a lawyer through the shortcut of a two year diploma, which was not the most prestigious road. He took an internship with a lawyer and finished his studies while on the job. His court file is not very eloquent about this penniless hard worker, but his career path demonstrated a strong desire to emerge from his social class. This ambition was confirmed by an RG note of August 30, 1945, which mentioned that “he was hoping to be appointed sub-prefect of Orange, when Caprio, the PPF secretary for the Vaucluse, would become the prefect, under the reign of Doriot.”87 His strategy of social advancement, anchored in political activism and power through allegiance to the winning side, made a lot of sense.
His forced labor 20-year sentence of May 17, 1945, was based on his “membership in anti-national groups and his collaboration with those organizations by engaging in propaganda and recruiting.” He was also accused of having “maintained relationships with the Gestapo with the goal of denouncing French people or providing information to the enemy.” His presence in the list of the “favorites” appeared in the findings, but it did not lead the court to begin any investigations. Le Flem played the role of someone who did not understand why he was on the list and even claimed that “this list is a fake.” Of course, one can understand his desire to elude justice, but shown previously, the documents of the Bouches du Rhône archives confirmed that those on the list probably were recognized informers.88 Some, including Le Flem, were agents of Ernst Dunker from Section IV* of the Marseille SiPo-SD. When working for Dunker, Le Flem was rubbing shoulders with members of the Palmieri gang.
The case of Le Flem was troubling for another reason. His sentence was rapidly commuted to a one-year prison term;89 this caused considerable discontent among members of the Resistance. Was that the result of an attempt to limit the damage with a “favorite” of Müller who boasted that he went to avenue Monclar to intervene in favor of arrested fellow countrymen? Strangely enough, he was not asked for any names. All of this did not fit a leader of this caliber, who attended the funeral of Georges Gras, his professional colleague, a visceral anti-Semite executed by the Resistance on October 1943. This was not the last time that justice takes a back seat.
2.
Jean Poutet, the Industrialist
According to Palmieri, the all powerful Jean Poutet worked directly with Müller.90 He also had a record at the Marseille SiPo-SD with the code letter Z (Zutrager or informer). Socially he was of larger stature than his colleagues of the PPF, and his relations with the Germans earned him high esteem within the collaboration circles. The German guards would stand at attention when Poutet entered the Kommandantur in l’Isle sur la Sorgue.
An engineer, he was known as the administrator of the “Plâtrières du Vaucluse” (Gypsum manufacturing of the Vaucluse)—founded in 1906 by the merger of the businesses belonging to three families, Poutet, Char and Rieu. Jean Poutet was both a PPF member and a milicien. In October 1940, as president of the Legion in l’Isle sur la Sorgue, he denounced the poet René Char (his colleague on the board of directors of the company) for Gaullist activity. What followed for the writer was being under surveillance and the checking of his mail. But, with the arrival of the Germans, his arrest was about to take place and Char fled to the Basses Alpes where he was in charge of the Landing and Parachuting section of the Resistance.
Poutet was also targeting another share holder of the same company, a friend of Char, François Papelon, a member of the Resistance, who would die for his political choices. His name was listed among the “undesirables” from l’Isle sur la Sorgue, established by Poutet on April 30, 1943. The list included members of the Resistance, British citizens and Jews. Poutet identified 16 Jews, including Georgette Goldstein, the wife of René Char. Four Jews were deported: Jules and Jeanne Israel, on convoy 75, Hedwige Mayer and Jacques Weiss on convoy 61.
In the case of René Char and Francois Papelon, their ousting from the “Plâtrières” for political reasons was bound to serve Poutet’s business interests.
Poutet’s collaboration with Mouillade, the close ally of Wilhelm Müller, through the steps leading to the arrest of Jews in l’Isle sur la Sorgue left absolutely no doubt. In the court documents, one cannot find a testimony about the Jews more precise than that of Jean Légier, a local chief of the Resistance, who claimed that Poutet was the instigator of the arrest of “21 patriots.” According to a report of the Criminal Investigation Department on June 20, 1945, Poutet “is congratulated by Idlas for the information destined to the Gestapo about Gaullists, communists and the Resistance.” But how many Jews, whether members of the Resistance or not, were among his victims? In the heat of Liberation, focusing the interest on Resistance patriots was the norm.
Generally, Poutet did not stop halfway. At the beginning of 1944, when he was designated as commissioner of the French Guards* by the PPF leadership, he drew a plan to deal with street fighting and snipers on the roofs. But was this 47-year-old man, who loved action on the side of the German forces, suddenly losing his courage? Did he fear for his life when he ran away, in April 1944, from the volcano about to erupt and left for Paris to become a colonel in the Line Guards and Communications for the Paris region? Or was he simply abandoning the management of the “Plâtrières” to “see how things are elsewhere” and “have a whitening treatment,” ahead of the allied advance?
In his presentation of the facts, the government commissioner revealed:
… that he held his post in Paris until August 17, 1944. The investigation proves that in Paris Poutet was frequently visited by German officers and miliciens… Around August 20, he arrived in Nancy accompanied by people in uniform. On August 31, 1944, he resigned from his post in the Line Guards.
What follows came as no surprise: after Nancy, he went on to Germany. His file mentions that he became an officer in the Waffen-SS but Poutet claimed during his trial that three lectures for the PPF were his only activities. As for the accusation that he participated in arrests, he denied everything altogether.
His trial took place late, because he surrendered to the American troops in Innsbruck on May 6, 1945. He was first imprisoned at the prison of La Santé on October 15, 1945, and then transferred to Nîmes on November 2, 1945. Sentenced to death on November 6, 1946, he nevertheless eluded the execution squad and his sentence was commuted to forced labor for life.
3.
Vahan Sarkissoff, the “Servant”
It is almost unbelievable that the court of justice did not wonder why Vahan Sarkissoff was on the list of special passes. However according to his file and the resulting “closing without further consequence” that is what happened.91
Sarkissoff was an Iranian and a refugee from Alsace-Lorraine. He was “apparently forced by the Gestapo to become a jack-of-all-trades, to run errands, to open the doors at the villa of avenue Monclar… He was arrested by Gestapo agents due to a libelous denunciation in August 1943 as an Israelite. Even after he proved it wrong, the Germans forced him to work in the Gestapo building.” This servant of Müller was seemingly paid as an unskilled worker and his name was on the city hall list of employees paid by the “Occupation Authorities.” According to rumors, he was particularly abused by his employers and some witnesses stated that he was pro-French.
Why would Müller have delivered a special pass as an informer to a servant whom he treated like a dog, and moreover who had not performed any collaborationist service? Could it be that, as a doorman, he knew too much?
Laurent Idlas and the Activists of the PPF
Louis Bergeron joined the PPF in 1936, as soon as it was set up in the Vaucluse. During the occupation he was in charge of maintaining order, but his role was merely as an agent of Palmieri.
At the time of the Front Populaire, Raymond Verguier, a country doctor from Goult, was its president with Maurice Renier, a brick-layer who had been a communist, as his deputy and typically for the Vaucluse, one of the few working class militants who joined the local PPF. During the war, Renier became a member of the leadership group. He even held a secretary function at the national level. In April 1944, just after the move of the Vaucluse PPF headquarters to “Marisse,” the requisitioned “Jewish store” at 7, rue de la République, he expressed the wish that “the PPF blow up the synagogue, if a terrorist attack is launched against the new headquarters.”92 Did Renier get his idea from the reprisals against the Marseille Synagogue at rue de Breteuil, a little earlier in January 1944?93
It was also in 1936 that René Caprio, owner of the store “Aux Belles Fantaisies,” rue des Marchands, joined the PPF.94 He served as secretary for the Vaucluse from the beginning of 1942 to April 1943. During his interrogation on November 13, 1944, he displayed surprising candor:
During my time in the party, I was a convinced anti-Semite like all the militants. At every meeting, we used to talk about the Jewish problem and like all the other comrades, I was sure that this race had to be eliminated.
The significance of this declaration is somewhat mitigated when he added that he used to mingle with Jews at the Avignon Sporting Association.
In 1936, the PPF recorded Gaston Barbarant, as a member;95 he was an engineer and owner of a manufacturing plant of slippers in l’Isle sur la Sorgue, and then in Carpentras. In 1938, Barbarant presided over the party, with Dr. Gaillard from Vaison la Romaine as the secretary. Dr. Gaillard later became an agent of Palmieri.96
Jean Poutet was another militant from the early days along with the members from before the war, François Séraphin, an electrical engineer, future delegate for information and member of the Vaucluse board. In a note of April 4, 1945, about him, the chief of the RG from Avignon informed the National Security services “that he proposed executing Jews in reprisals for executions of collaborationists by the Resistance.”97 The administrative secretary was none other than Augusta Vernet, the woman called “the Kraut” in the streets of Avignon. She too had been a member since 1936, and held the position of delegate for culture, then of delegate for French workers in Germany. She was a fanatic who kept a photograph of Wilhelm Müller in her handbag and loved to write “Power to Doriot, PPF will win” on banknotes. Concerning the Jews, she proved “moderate,” as she proposed to just demand a ransom from them in response to the “terrorist offensive,”98 namely the action of the Resistance against the PPF.
The size of the PPF membership before the war was not known with any precision and its organization remained unclear. Barbarant indicated that the Vaucluse PPF was divided into two sectors in 1938. He was the chief of the southern sector which included Avignon, Cavaillon, Apt, Pertuis… while the northern sector was headed by Dr. Gaillard from Vaison. In 1938, the two sectors merged and Gaillard took up the responsibility for the entire département. We know that the sole section of l’Isle sur la Sorgue had 15 members. This probably brought the entire département to somewhat more than 200 members.
Everything collapsed when the war ended in a French defeat. A note described the situation:
… Just after the armistice of 1940, the PPF of the Vaucluse was completely disorganized. Only the section of Cavaillon had some activity. Dr. Gaillard undertook as département secretary to restart the PPF. Gaston Mouillade, the sole member of the Avignon section, was designated Gaillard’s assistant. In January 1941 there were already 120 members. A duty office was set up at 21, place Crillon.99
However, by the end of 1941, Mouillade “displeased” the leadership and was dismissed from his functions as deputy federal secretary. In the following years, it cannot be said that the PPF grew in numbers, although it is undeniable that it maintained a high level of activity until August 1944. The list of members found in the documents seized at the Liberation amounted to about 100 individuals.100
Gaillard lobbied intensely in favor of recruiting for the LVF; he even volunteered personally in 1941, but remained in Vaison “under the orders of the party leaders.” However, he did not renew his membership, and in 1944, he became an agent of Palmieri in the same way as Mouillade and Charrasse.
A note attached to the procedural file against Charles Palmieri sheds some light about the tensions around Gaston Mouillade. Indeed, “as he was trying to get closer to the PPF in order to collect information for the Gestapo, two members of this party, François Séraphin and Albert Sicard, led a campaign against him, stating that they did not want to rub shoulders with an ex-convict, who is also an agent of the Gestapo…”101 These tensions continued all through the war, but they did not end up in a clear cut split, at least as far as the hunt for the Jews is concerned.
After the demotion of Mouillade, Charrasse from Orange—the man who applied in July 1943 for the purchase of the la Gardine property in Châteauneuf du Pape*—became federal secretary of the PPF with René Caprio, deputy federal secretary, at his side.
At the beginning of 1942 Caprio took the leadership after the resignation of Dr. Gaillard. On December 14, 1944, testimony by René Zarade, a Jewish merchant at Place du Change in Avignon, accused Caprio of having personally directed actions of vandalism against Jews in September 1942—daubing their store fronts and smashing their shop windows. Denunciations to the German police and arrests would soon follow.
The period of Caprio’s leadership was unstable probably because of strong rivalries. The Vaucluse seemed to be awaiting a chief but Caprio complained of the arrival of “questionable individuals, recruited by Mouillade, notably pimps.”102 When he decided to give up the reins of power in October 1942, agents of Sabiani came from Marseille and threatened him. He was forced to go back on his resignation. The Vaucluse PPF seemed to become more and more lined up along the national model and in particular that of Marseille—where Sabiani had been trying for more than a decade to find himself a spot on the political spectrum while relying heavily on the violence of the underworld. The ideology did not matter as much as power, money and influence.103 In that sense, Sabiani looked more like a godfather than an ordinary party boss.
In March 1943 Caprio finally succeeded in making way for someone new. Laurent Idlas, a businessman in sanitary equipment in Avignon, one of Müller’s “favorites,” became the leader of the PPF federation of the Vaucluse.104 A renegade of the local “Collaboration” group, where he was the federal secretary, he put all his energy into his new job. Idlas headed the PPF during most of the German occupation period.
Very soon, in May 1943, he organized the département conference in the presence of Sabiani at the Hôtel des Sources in Avignon. The conference was held in private because the French authorities had forbidden all public meetings. Idlas put a federal board in place, and until the end, he held regular leadership meetings. During that time, the RG did not stop reporting on this activity for the benefit of the prefecture and of Vichy. During the summer of 1942, they noticed that a slogan was circulating in Avignon: “Down with Laval, and Doriot, come back from the eastern front to seize power!” This was probably due to the influence of the collaborationist press, which accused Vichy, and in particular Laval, of helping the Jews. This was indeed the period of fruitless continuing “negotiations” between Vichy and the Germans for further denaturalization of Jews where the national context played a key role.
Vichy and PPF Tension in Avignon
Jacques Doriot, the national leader of the PPF, pushed more and more toward total collaboration with Germany. After a falling out with Laval, probably for propaganda purposes, he volunteered for the Russian front at the head of the first contingent of the LVF in September 1941; this was not to Vichy’s liking. Henri du Moulin de Labarthète105, Pétain’s personal secretary, described the repugnance of the Maréchal during a Vichy visit of Doriot who had just returned from the front.
He stopped in Vichy, in December 1941. The Maréchal, who could not forget that the chief of the PPF, the former lieutenant of Abd-El-Krim,* had worn the German uniform, refused purely and simply to meet him. But Admiral Darlan put up with it, and asked me to keep him company…
The relations between Doriot and Pétain’s immediate entourage were truly tense. The gripes of Vichy against Doriot did not stop at his wearing the German uniform. They suspected that he wanted to create the political conditions conducive to a putsch against the government, while seeking German support.
Doriot’s quarrel with Laval and the Maréchal’s refusal to meet him certainly coincided with the radicalization of the PPF and its leader. This had evidently also reinforced Vichy’s hostility toward an element which was going too far for its taste. Vichy firmly intended to steer a delicate course between both extremes, on one side Doriot and the ultra-collaborationists, and on the other, the ultranationalists—including those in the government—who accepted no concessions to the Germans.
The schism between Vichy and the ultra-collaborationists suited the Germans nicely, as they played brilliantly on this division. By using the ultra-collaborationists when it was in their interest, without actually favoring one or the other, the Germans were obtaining from Vichy increasingly important concessions, with a truly French seal. If the Germans had imposed their will directly on the country while going around the government, they would have run the risk of accelerating the drift of the population toward the Resistance. Paradoxically, maintaining the division between the various collaborationist ideologies was one of the few points of full agreement between Vichy and the occupation authorities.
The PPF clearly aroused the interest of both the RG and the Resistance.106 Their informers provided information from the end of 1943, long after the break between Doriot and Vichy. At that time, the PPF was already radicalized and war was declared between the party and the government. From then on, the party leadership was going to gravitate increasingly toward the occupying power. On February 4, 1944, two contributors to the Cri du Peuple were the guests of the PPF of the Vaucluse.
Ralph Soupault,* a cartoonist for the collaborationist newspapers, and Camille Bryère, an editor for Le Cri du Peuple, were conducting a survey for Le Cri du Peuple among the militants; they interviewed various officials about their activities.
Once the survey was finished, Ralph Soupault spoke, and let it be known that, in Paris, the PPF was looked at with less hostility. The bourgeois did not hide that they wanted the defeat of the occupier, but they are afraid of Bolshevism. So they start turning toward Doriot with sympathy…
The next day, Soupault attended the meeting of the Avignon section of the PPF where feelings against Laval exploded. The head of the Cabinet became a lightning rod for the antigovernment sentiments of the PPF.
Ralph Soupault declares “the true revolutionaries cannot trust Laval, since he is of the Jewish race, because his mother is a moghrabite [sic]. Moreover, on photographs, he looks more like Abd-el-Kader than Vercingétorix. Thanks to the events, his fortune now reaches two billions…”
Maurice Riety says that Laval is indeed of the Jewish race, because Dr. Montandon, the specialist in ethnology, has concluded as much. He adds that he is a saboteur anyway, because he has forbidden the delivery of “Je suis partout”† for the subscribers of the southern zone.
Here, Riety was alluding to Dr. Georges Alexis Montandon, a communist sympathizer who veered to the right and developed “anti-Jewish ethnoracism,” the French version of Nazi racism. In 1940, Doriot appointed Montandon president of the ethnic commission of the PPF. In March 1943 he became director of the Institute of Jewish and Ethno-racial Questions, attached to the CGQJ. It was Montandon’s role to rule on individual questions of “non-belonging to the Jewish race” in conjunction with the application of the Statut des Juifs.
The diatribe against Laval showed not only the hostility of PPF members toward him, but also a fantastical style which is the trademark of most fanatics. But this was only a starting point for an even more significant drift. The hunt for the Jews by the PPF mobsters was governed by a dynamic that was practically independent of Vichy.
The Radicalization of the Vaucluse PPF
During May 1943, one of the first targeted arrests of Jews took place in Carpentras. Barbarant, a member of the PPF federal board and a direct link to Müller, provided an account of this event. The presentation of the facts by the government commissioner can be found in Barbarant’s court file:
In May 1943, Bonadona (chief of the French Guards in Carpentras) was required to leave for Germany. To avoid leaving, Barbarant sent him to meet Müller at the Gestapo. Müller accepted to intervene, but asked in exchange for the list of Carpentras Jews. Bonadona, Laget (chief of the Carpentras PPF section) and Barbarant put the list together and the first two men took it to Müller. As to Barbarant, he put five people on the list. Three of them are still in Germany…
The three Jews mentioned in the commissioner’s report were Adrien, Gaston and Marcelle Naquet, deported to Auschwitz on convoys 59, 58 and 59, respectively. But, Barbarant himself provided a second version of this event, which appears as plausible as the first. In his interrogation of January 11, 1945, he stated:
Concerning the Jews, it is not the Gestapo which asked us for the list but the PPF. Idlas asked Laget for the list. Laget came with Bonadona to talk about the list and I gave a few names of Jews I knew, but they knew better than me… After the list was established (I think that Mouillade did this), I do not know who used it. Practically speaking, the consequences were not that terrible since only Jews were arrested and freemasons and communists were not bothered by the Germans…107
No need to comment on “the consequences that were not that terrible,” but let us look at the initiator of this list, which apparently was not limited to Jews. It is impossible to incriminate Idlas with any certainty, but the head of the PPF did not remain on the sidelines of the hunt for the Jews. Palmieri implicated him in his deposition of March 13, 1945: “I have known Idlas while I was a member of the PPF. Later, I saw him two or three times and I know that I was giving information to Josselme.” Pierre Josselme was a grassroots PPF and also an agent of Palmieri, and as such, one of the most effective Jew hunters. But more importantly, the piecing together of various testimonies unveiled a scheme whereby Idlas, the political chief, became the informer of Josselme, the simple member but mostly an individual without scruples; anyway, a proven scheme to erase any fingerprints.
In June 1943, during a meeting of the federal board, Idlas admitted publicly having made contact with Müller, and the RG note provided the details:
From this moment on, he held weekly talks with Müller and his agents. Jacques Tricon, deputy federal secretary, also attended. As the Doriotists of the département were often bringing information to Idlas about political enemies, the federal secretary hastened to bring them to Müller.108
While it is likely that information about the Resistance was one focus of these meetings, it is more than likely that the hunt for the Jews was another very good reason. Moreover, in the mind of the protagonists, the Jews held a prominent place among the “political enemies.”
On August 8, 1943, PPFs from all over France gathered for a march in Paris. Idlas had succeeded in sending about sixty militants from the Vaucluse. Later, some of them remembered this parade as the high point of their demonstration of strength and bitterly regretted that the party had not attempted to seize power then. On his return, Idlas raised his level of energy, and wanted weapons for his most combative men. The RG bulletin for the week of September 12–18, 1943, indicated:
Idlas announces his intention to create a shock team of 15 militants. These will be chosen among the members of the federal board, the men of the police contingent, and several militants whom Idlas trusts. The list, established by Jacques Tricon, chief of the PPF police, will be communicated to the German authorities to eventually obtain the authorization to bear arms and to travel under any circumstance. In the event of a landing on the coasts of France, these 15 militants would be grouped and serve as back up police to help with maintaining order in the streets. Idlas added that the most dedicated Doriotists in the département would be asked to play the same role.109
Idlas obtained the weapon permits from Müller for 15 members of the PPF, but this agreement was suspended in January 1944. It is likely that the Germans backed out because of the discontent of the French authorities, who rightly suspected the Doriotists of planning to take power by force under the pretext of civil disorder. In the face of this set back, Idlas reassured his troops:
The Doriotists can continue carrying their revolvers but at their own risk. Nevertheless, in case something happens, an intervention will take place anyway to prevent legal repercussions.
Idlas must have received assurances from Müller. But it is impossible to clearly know whether Idlas wanted to arm his elite forces out of fear of the Resistance, to join the German army in case of allied landings, or to help in a coup by Doriot; maybe all three reasons together.
The end of the summer of 1943 marked a peak in the self-confidence of the Vaucluse PPF. As time went by doubts began seeping in. Indeed, it was not easy to maintain the goal of leading a national revolution intended to establish a totalitarian regime. Idlas tirelessly continued to encourage his troops to not be influenced by the news about the change in the fortunes of war. The belief in a German victory was as imperative as the conviction that Doriot would finally be anointed by the Germans; this would put an end to the Laval government, that held far weaker beliefs and was seen as a traitor in the Doriotist mindset.
At the end of 1943, “Idlas asks the militants to fill information sheets about the Resistance, Gaullists and communists, the police and the gendarmerie. These sheets, prepared for the upper echelon of the Gestapo by the intelligence services of the party, were taken to Lyon by Albert Sicard, delegate for the press and propaganda.” In reality, the PPF of the Vaucluse encountered significant difficulties in preparing this information about the “anti-France,” because of the insufficient presence of the party at the grassroots.
The PPF fell short of its political goals of building an intelligence network, readying for the ultimate fight against the partisans, to provide maximum help to Germany, through the STO on the German home front and through the LVF on the war front. It was not for lack of trying. But, the resistance was growing and the PPF militants realized that their lives were threatened. As for Germany, the likelihood of an allied landing, increasingly eagerly expected by the French population, made any chances of victory unrealistic.
And yet, in the middle of this storm where all predictions jostle each other, obsessions still remained. The RG recorded that during a meeting of the federal board on February 5, 1944, the département PPF inspector Salobert…
… recommends to return to virulent politics toward the Jews and the freemasons, who have been left alone for several months, because the party was focused on terrorist acts. Salobert then informs the people in attendance that the PPF proposes to allocate all the Jewish assets to the victims of bombings.110
The meeting of the federal board of March 1, 1944, showed a PPF full of verbal energy and going nowhere.
… Edmond Baptiste would want to see the PPF raid the Villeneuve city hall to seize a bust of the Marianne painted in blue, white and red. Idlas promises to organize the expedition. Augusta Vernet volunteers to participate in this raid…
Even if the organization was not ready to fight on the eastern front, the boss was confident he could assemble enough courage to attack the tricolor Marianne of Villeneuve across the river Rhône.
Barely three weeks had passed since the great roundups of Avignon, and at the meeting April 23, 1944, of the Avignon section, Mouillade asked “the PPF to make use of its authority to force the government to take severe action against the Jews and the freemasons”; to which Idlas responds that…
… the PPF has no influence on Vichy. To see anything new, one must wait for the advent of the State of Doriot which is anti-Jewish and anti-Masonic in its essence.111
It seems thus that the complete disengagement of the prefecture pushed the PPF more and more toward one alternative: either wait-and-see or collaboration with the Germans. One should not be fooled though by the saber rattling of Idlas against the Villeneuve Marianne. He was not only a man with whom Müller was dealing personally, but he was also a partner of the Kommandantur, in the Hôtel Brancas, 35, rue Joseph Vernet, the Feldgendarmerie, in the Hôtel St. Yves at the corner of the Place Pie and rue Thiers, and the OPA, in the “Jewish store” Parisette, 8, rue de la République, a stone’s throw away from his own offices, in another “Jewish store” Marisse. This man, ready to take things to the bitter end, still presided over a public meeting in the salons of city hall.
Idlas had a file at the SiPo-SD of Marseille as an informer, and evidently, his information was valuable enough to earn him a spot in Müller’s list of special passes.
It is not clear whether it is his admiration or servility toward the German masters, or his personal taste for culture that induced Idlas to actively sponsor the Franco-German Institute which organized two lectures: one about music and the other about poetry—both German of course.112
During the night of August 23, 1944, Idlas left Avignon, and after him, the fleeing Doriotists embarked in a bus. The information note of December 12, 1944, specified “He was never seen again.” There was good reason for it: he died during his escape, probably in a blind machine-gunning during an air raid. As late as October 4, 1946, the city hall of Macon issued a death certificate. His wife indicated that he died in that town on August 23, 1944. In the meantime, the court of justice had sentenced him to death in absentia on June 21, 1945.
As to Tricon, a note from the Avignon Central Police, under the heading “information,” described him as follows on January 29, 1945: “Member of the PPF, former SOL. The mind of a killer. Deputy Secretary and chief of the policing service. Intelligence agent for the Gestapo.” He was sentenced to death in absentia on June 19, 1945, but was acquitted on October 23, 1951, after surrendering voluntarily.113
____________________
* Intelligence Service (probably British).
† A neighborhood of Avignon outside the ramparts.
* This is probably Elie Elias from Avignon.
* Merle is the pseudo name of Charles Palmieri, whom we will meet again in Part Two, Chapter 9.
* We also found the spelling Wiedmann.
* The date is incorrect since Boyer arrived in Avignon in November.
† The castle of Javon (15th century) is situated in the village of Lioux in the Vaucluse.
* Office of German Placement, a German service in charge of securing a French work force to cover German needs.
* Once again, we note the approximation of functions in a contemporary testimony.
* In her neighborhood, Augusta Vernet was called “the Kraut.”
* This episode is described in Chapter 1.
† The 200,000 stockings.
* According to Thesmar who was impressed by his administrative competence, Marin, the Département secretary of the Milice, had been requisitioned by the Prefect for the maintenance of public order.
* Here, Georges is the first name of Cruon; elsewhere it is Pierre. Are we dealing with two individuals?
† The Jews in Fascist Italy. A History.
* Category T: Persons of both sexes from 12 to 70 years of age who hold a difficult job requiring a great expense of muscular energy.
* The single article law states: “The statute of limitation does not apply to crimes against humanity, as they are defined by the UN resolution of February 13, 1946, adopting the definition of crimes against humanity, as it is stated in the charter of the international tribunal of August 8, 1945.”
* Wilhelm Gustloff, the German leader of the Swiss Nazi party, was assassinated on February 4, 1936, by a Jew, David Frankfurter.
† Ernst vom Rath was assassinated on November 7, 1938, by Herschel Grynszpan (and not Grunspan).
* This is found in Part Two, Chapter 7
* Founder of the Rassemblement National Populaire.
† Doriot was the head of the PPF.
‡ Gaugler was considered as a “non militant” member of the PPF.
* Initially, Section IV-J was the Jewish Section in Berlin; later, it became IV-B-4. Section IV-B was the Jewish Section of the Marseille KdS.
* In its process of militarization, the PPF sets up the Gardes Françaises in 1943, both as a response to a growing string of terrorist attacks and as an expression of radicalization.
* During his communist period, Doriot and the Communist Party had taken sides with Abd-el-Krim, the rebel of the Riff war, against the French government. Doriot had not literally been the “lieutenant” of Abd-el-Krim, but as Labarthète shows it well, this past “treason” stuck to the founder of the PPF even after he veered toward fascism.
* Ralph Soupault, a cartoonist turned nationalist and fervent member of the PPF, put his talent at the service of Je Suis Partout and Le Pilori, and published violently anti-Semitic drawings.
† Je Suis Partout started in 1930 as a neutral newspaper for international news and progressively veered toward fascism and anti-Semitism. Authorized to continue appearing during the war, its tone became collaborationist. Its final drift took place in September 1943 with its new editor, Pierre Antoine Cousteau, who aligned the newspaper with Nazism; hence the opposition of Pierre Laval.