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October 3, 1940. The Vichy Government enacts a
"Statut des Juifs," France's first overtly anti-Semitic law, imposing special
regulations on Jews and excluding them from public life. Jews are dismissed
from the Civil Service, the armed forces' officer corps, and from teaching.
They are forbidden to work in the press, radio, theater, or cinema, and their
ouster from all professions is foreseen. While the German occupation
regulations of September 27 defined Jews only in terms of their religion, the
statute proclaims that Jews are a race:
We, Marshal of France, Chief of the French
State, with agreement of the Council of Ministers, decree:
Art. I. –
Is considered a Jew, for application of the present law, any person descended
from three grandparents of Jewish race or from two grandparents of the same
race if his spouse is also a Jew....
October 4, 1940.
Prefects are authorized by Vichy to confine foreign Jews to their homes or to
intern or assign them to forced labor. October 7, 1940. Under a Vichy
law-by-decree, Algerian Jews, French citizens since 1870, are stripped of their
citizenship. An estimated 115,000 Algerian Jews are affected.
October 18, 1940. A German occupation ordinance orders Jews to
declare their possessions and assets to the police and provides for the
appointment of administrators to take control of Jewish-owned businesses in
order to sell them to non-Jews or liquidate them. A parallel Vichy decree
creates an agency to control the temporary administrators and ensure that they
are French citizens.
October 19, 1940. The Jewish census is
completed in the Seine Department (the city of Paris). Begun October 3 under
German orders, it is used by the Prefecture of Police to create a Jewish census
index that will be instrumental in drawing up lists of Jews for arrest and
deportation.
In Paris, the Criminal Investigation Department of the
police organizes the census, with the required forms collected from Jews at
their local police stations. The size of the task makes it necessary, by the
end of October, to establish a special section at the Prefecture of Police. The
Jewish census file office, called the "Tulard service" after André
Tulard, director of the office, is charged with classifying census
declarations, establishing the card file index, receiving late forms, examining
cases of arrested Jews who have not filed forms, and using the files to provide
information requested by the police or administration. The files classify Jews
in four ways: by name, nationality, street address, and occupation.
The
census in Paris registers 85,664 French Jews and 64,070 foreign Jews, a total
of 149,734 persons. The Jewish population of the rest of occupied France totals
an estimated 20,000.
October 25, 1940. The Vichy Minister of War
dismisses Jewish officers and enlisted men from the French armed forces.
December 9, 1940. At the Gurs camp, in the lower Pyrenees, 17
deaths are reported for the day. A total of 470 deaths are counted in Gurs for
the months of November and December, almost all from hunger and cold. (Gurs was
the first French internment camp, established in April 1939 to hold Spanish
Republican soldiers fleeing into France after their defeat by
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FRENCH
CHILDREN OF THE HOLOCAUST A memorial
Serge Klarsfeld
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