Hunting Down the Jews: Vichy, the Nazis and Mafia Collaborators in Provence, 1942-1944

With Isaac Levendel, PhD., the author of "Not the Germans Alone, A Son’s Search for the Truth of Vichy."

The author's mother, Sarah Lewendel, a Jewish woman originally from Poland, disappeared in the vortex of the Nazi extermination machine on D-Day, June 6, 1944. Her son has lived with this tragedy for over sixty-five years and has carefully reconstructed the history of the Holocaust in Provence, the Vaucluse, and its main city, Avignon.

Germany invaded southern France in November 1942 and the German police made abundant use of freelance Jew hunters, who eagerly seized the opportunity. This lecture details of Nazi and Vichy anti-Semitic policy and analyzes the mechanisms of collaboration with its Mafia component.