French Nazi collaborators to be exposed

France to publish names of 1,000 abettors online in 2015.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
nazi olympics 311 (photo credit: Carl and Liselott Diem Archive)
nazi olympics 311
(photo credit: Carl and Liselott Diem Archive)
A comprehensive list of French citizens who collaborated with the Nazis, which has been hidden in a police basement since the liberation of Paris, will be published online for all to see, reported the Telegraph Wednesday.
The publication followed a ruling by France's highest court that last year that French collaborators were not forced to help the Nazis, but did so willingly.
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The documents are under a special classification order which prohibits their publication for 75 years after 1940. The order will expire in 2015, at which point the first of the documents will be released.
The Telegraph reported that every police log, including details of arrest, fines, and interviews will be published. The documents are also expected to reveal details about the roles of the Brigade Speciale, which was France's unit that hunted guerrilla fighters and enemies of the Nazis.
Following the occupation of France, the Vichy government aided Germany in the murder of Jews, socialists, homosexuals, and gypsies. Over 70,000 Jews were deported from France to German death camps during the war.
France first spoke out about the French role aiding the Nazis in 1995, when then-French president Jacques Chirac said “the criminal folly of the occupiers was seconded by the French, by the French state.”