Paris Under the Occupation Quotes

“Finally, it is worth mentioning, in the interest of thoroughness, that the defeat exasperated the conflict between generations. For four years the combatants of 1914 reproached those of 1940 for having lost the war, and those of 1940, in reply, accused their elders of having lost the peace.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Paris Under the Occupation

“Paris was dead. More cars, more pedestrians—except at certain hours in certain quarters. We walked between the cobblestones; it appeared that we were the forgotten members of an immense exodus. A bit of provincial life was caught on the sharp angles of the capital; it remained a skeleton city, pompous and immobile, too long and too big for us: too large, the streets that we discovered as far as the eye could see, too great the distances, too vast the perspectives: we got lost.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Paris Under the Occupation

“Houses were never sanctuaries. The Gestapo often conducted their arrests between midnight and five in the morning. It appeared that at any instant the door could open, allowing a cold breath of night air to blow in, and three friendly Germans with revolvers.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Paris Under the Occupation

“The English and the French have not a single memory in common. Everything that London suffered with pride, Paris suffered in shame and despair. It is important for us to learn to speak of ourselves without emotion,”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Paris Under the Occupation

“Arriving in Paris, many English and Americans are surprised to find us less thin than they imagined. They have seen the elegant dresses that appear to be new, the suits which, from afar, still seem fashionable; rarely have they encountered that paleness of face, that bodily decline that normally signifies starvation. Their solicitude, since it has been deceived, turns to rancor: I believe that they are dismayed not to find us conforming to the pathetic image they had formed of us in advance.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Paris Under the Occupation

“Unity may be achieved under a strong man, but the time comes when a people must stop looking for a savior and take responsibility for their own future.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Paris Under the Occupation

“Liberation does not bring unadulterated joy. When a tyrant falls, when an occupying army is ousted, when an oppressive regime gives way to a free and democratic order, a new day does not dawn. Triumphant speeches by new leaders may distract attention from the problems facing the liberated country; victory parades or spontaneous celebrations in the streets for a time may obscure deep divisions within the newly free society. But any occupation leaves scars on a nation’s psyche. The complicity of some with the former rulers, the persecution of others at the hands of their fellow citizens, courageous acts of resistance offset by the passivity of the majority of the population—only by facing these shameful features of its subjugation can the liberated nation achieve harmony, heal its wounds, and regain legitimacy in the eyes of the outside world.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Paris Under the Occupation

“From one end to another in this war, we did not recognize our actions, we were not able to vindicate their consequences. The evil was everywhere, every choice was a bad choice, and yet it was necessary to choose and we are responsible. Every heartbeat thrust us into a guiltiness that horrified us.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Paris Under the Occupation

“So it was necessary to work, to maintain a semblance of economic organization in the nation, to guarantee, despite the destruction and the pillaging, a level of activity. Unfortunately, the least action served the purposes of the enemy who was slaughtering us, attaching his suckers to our skin and living in symbiosis with us.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Paris Under the Occupation

“this petrification of men was so intolerable that many threw themselves into the Resistance to escape it. Strange future, barred by suffering, prison, death, but at least we procured it by our own hands. (If there is an excuse or at least an explanation for collaboration, perhaps we should say that it too was an attempt to give France a future.) But the Resistance was nothing more than an individual solution, and we always knew that; even without it, the English would have won the war, with it they would still have lost if they were going to lose. It had, however, in our eyes, a symbolic valor; and that is why so many resisters had a desperate air about them: always symbols. A symbolic rebellion in a symbolic city: only the torture was real.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Paris Under the Occupation

“Thousands of times the French saw, over the course of those four years, in shop windows, bottles of Saint-Emilion or of Meursault arranged in neat pyramids. They’d approach the window, enticed, only to read on a placard: artificial display. So it was with Paris: it was nothing more than an artificial display. Everything was hollow and empty: the Louvre without paintings, the Chamber without deputies, the Senate without senators, the Lycée Montaigne without students. The artificial existence that the Germans maintained, the theatrical events, the races, the miserable and lugubrious festivals held only in order to show the universe that France was saved because Paris still lived: all were the strange consequence of centralization.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Paris Under the Occupation

“This horror had many other causes as well. But before going further, we must avoid a misunderstanding: don’t think that it was overwhelming. As I have already said, we lived. What I mean is, we worked, ate, conversed, slept and at times even laughed – even if the laughter was rare. The horror appeared to be outside us, inherent in things. We could distract ourselves for moments at a time, becoming involved in a lecture, a conversation, a love affair; but we’d always return to ourselves and realize that it had not left us.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Paris Under the Occupation

“In Avenue Foch, however, in the Rue des Saussaies, we would hear from neighboring buildings, all day long and late into the night, cries of suffering and terror. There was nobody in Paris who did not have a relative or friend arrested or deported or shot. It appeared that there were hidden holes in the city and that it emptied itself through these holes as if from an internal and incurable hemorrhage.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Paris Under the Occupation

“Wives and mothers of the disappeared, when they were present at the arrest, would swear that the missing had been taken away by very polite Germans, similar to those who asked us for directions in the street.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Paris Under the Occupation

“Sartre’s reputation as France’s preeminent moral spokesman during the postwar period is rather tarnished these days. In 1941 he had no qualms about accepting a post at a prestigious lycée that came vacant when its previous occupant, a Jew, was dismissed by the Vichy authorities. His contribution to the Resistance was slight—he wrote articles for underground papers but took few risks—and his subversive play The Flies could not have been produced without the approval of the German censors. To undermine the heroism of resistance fighters appears self-serving, and coming from a man who was not a devout Catholic, the claim that Resistance fighters were willing martyrs is simply bizarre.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Paris Under the Occupation

“When Sartre wrote “Paris Under the Occupation,” the dead were still being mourned while the fate of prisoners of war and the deported remained unknown. Shortages of food and raw materials, a crippled transportation system, rampant inflation, and a thriving black market were sources of great unrest. Months before the Liberation, the settling of scores had begun.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Paris Under the Occupation