Maurice Papon, eighty-six years of age, stands accused of
having, between July 1942 and May 1944 -- a period during which
he was general secretary of the Gironde Préfecture
("governorship" of the Bordeaux département),
-- participated in the sending away of 1,560 persons of Jewish
origin, until then interned in the camp at Mérignac, to
Drancy, whence they were to be deported to Auschwitz. He is due
to appear as of 8 October 1997 before the assizes of the Gironde
on charges of complicity in murder and in unlawful arrest and
imprisonment, these offences having taken on the character of
"crimes against humanity", in all clarity, and de
facto , that of crimes against the Jews.
Barrister Yves Jouffa, aged seventy-seven, is the subject of a
long note in Emmanuel Ratier's Encyclopédie politique
française (vol. I, Faits & Documents, 1992, p.
363). According to this note, Y. Jouffa, chief of the Young Socialists
in 1939, was interned at Drancy for over a year (from 20 August
1941 to September 1942). Released by the French authorities, he
was not deported, having joined the General Union of French Jews
(UGIF), of which his father was treasurer, to work in an aircraft
factory in the Belleville district of Paris. He is Honorary President
of the Association of Former Deportees and Internees of Drancy.
From 1984 to 1991 he was president of the French League of Human
Rights. He has pleaded in legal proceedings against revisionist
authors. In particular, he has solicited judgement against me.
On 28 January 1997, on French television (TF 1), reporter Paul
Amar showed, during his magazine programme "Le Monde de Léa",
an interview with M. Papon in which the latter, at one point,
recalled that at the Drancy camp an important Jewish personality
participated in the "sorting" of Jews bound for Auschwitz.
This remark was to provoke the wrath of Daniel Schneidermann,
a Le Monde journalist and director, at the television station
La Cinq, of the programme "Arrêt sur image"
(Still Photo) (Le Monde, 2/3 February, p. 39; La
Cinq, 2 February, 12.30 - 1.30 PM).
At first I believed that M. Papon was alluding to Robert Blum,
who signed his notes (including those relating to the preparation
of deportation convoys): "Lieutenant-Colonel Blum, Commandant
of Drancy Camp" (Maurice Rajsfus, Drancy , Manya,
1991, pp. 234-275 ; see my article: "Le milliard des juifs...
ou du Maréchal Pétain ?", Rivarol ,
7 February 1997, pp. 6-7).
In reality, the allusion concerned Barrister Y. Jouffa. Did this
man know that he was sending his co-religionists to what, since
the war, has been referred to in the media as an "extermination
camp"? And if he did not know it, who could have known it?
Was Y. Jouffa released from Drancy in September 1942? For what
reason and on what conditions? Did he then work in an aircraft
factory in Belleville, thus for German military aviation?
Did he and his father belong to the countless "Brown Jews"
(an expression relaunched by M. Rajsfus) who collaborated with
the occupation forces, enjoying the active -- even financial --
protection of Marshal Philippe Pétain, and who notably
prepared the big rounding up of the Jews housed in the Paris cycling
arena, the Vel'd'Hiv, in July 1942?
Were they among all of those self-amnestied Jews who in 1944-1945
appeared before the so accommodating "intra-community tribunals"
whilst an atrocious "purging" was being visited upon
so many of those French people who could not claim to be Jewish?
9 August 1997
+++++++++++++++++++++++
First displayed on aaargh: 17 April 2001.
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