Verdict On Vichy

This book is so well written and researched that readers would find its 400-plus pages fascinating even if they knew the verdict going in. What is it? Guilty as charged.

Vichy France collaborated fully and, at times, even enthusiastically with the Nazis. Even those who have already gotten over the shock of realizing this should prepare to experience a series of smaller disturbances while reading this book. The one that continues to haunt me is realizing Hitler borrowed several of the antisemitic laws Vichy passed. In some cases, they proved stricter than the Third Reich’s.

Although I had no family… show more.

Making Cojot, a documentary about a Parisian business consultant who hunted down former Gestapo commander Klaus Barbie, prompted me to closely examine Vichy. This French national administration went out of its way to appease its Nazi occupiers during World War II. But the more answers I dug up, the more questions I had. Verdict on Vichy filled in many of the gaps. For instance, it provided a possible explanation as to why the judges presiding over Barbie’s 1987 trial in Lyon granted his request to sit out the proceedings, thus depriving his victims’ families the opportunity to look him… show more.