When Paris Went Dark Quotes

“most well-meaning and generous Parisians were aware, in general, of the laws restricting the lives of their Jewish cohabitants but had convinced themselves that the government was only trying to control immigration and “terrorism.”
― Ronald C. Rosbottom, When Paris Went Dark: The City of Light Under German Occupation, 1940-1944

“The strategy of the Germans and their French police cohort was stealthy, predictable, and almost successful. Until mid-1942, when anti-Jewish operations became more violent and the rumors of a Nazi Final Solution had finally reached Paris, most well meaning and generous Parisians were aware in general of the laws restricting the lives of their Jewish co-habitants, but had convinced themselves that the government was only trying to control immigration and terrorism.”
― Ronald C. Rosbottom, When Paris Went Dark: The City of Light Under German Occupation, 1940-1944

“Next to the assignment of the yellow star, the decision to arrest children between the ages of two and 16, then separate them from their parents, was probably the most significant public relations mistake of the Vichy government and their German partners...the sight of youngsters in busses, roaming the streets alone, or holding their mothers hands as they mounted police vehicles made an impression on gentile Parisians. Police reports following the round-up were especially sensitive to public opinion...'The measures taken against the Israelite have profoundly troubled public opinion. Though the French population is generally anti-Semitic, it nonetheless judges these specific measures as inhumane. It is the separation of children from their parents that most affects the French population and that provokes strong criticism of the government and of the occupying authorities...In general, our measures would have been well-received if they had only been aimed at foreign adults, but many were moved at the fate of the children...”
― Ronald C. Rosbottom , When Paris Went Dark: The City of Light Under German Occupation, 1940-1944

“An occupation numbs a city’s vitality, the vitality that makes urban life attractive. Soon the citizen begins to feel alienated, disconnected from a familiar environment; though he is still physically engaged with the city, his emotional attachment to it weakens. Previously confident of his urban sophistication, which had allowed him to navigate a complex environment, he becomes tentative, anxious, angry, and impatient as he wonders how long before “his” city returns to him. One of the ironies is that an occupied city brings its citizens closer together physically—in lines, in movie houses, in cafés for warmth, in smaller living spaces, in crowded buses and trains—but separates them emotionally and sentimentally.”
― Ronald C. Rosbottom, When Paris Went Dark: The City of Light Under German Occupation, 1940-44