Occupation: The Ordeal of France 1940-1944

The occupation of France during the Second World War has to be viewed from a distance to be brought into focus at all. It is done brilliantly by the Englich historian Ian Ousby. He searched original sources to capture the attitudes and reactions of the times, as well as specific events. France suffered swift military defeat and then the humiliation of a collaborationist government. Petain's Vichy government hoped to negotiate better terms for French citizens, and it seemed to be working until Germany's need for food and workers became too urgent. As deprivation became more severe, clusters of resisters, "Maquis", rural guerillas, sprung up, some Communist. They were good at sabotage, and to attempt to control them, an opposing French militia, "Millice", was developed. The internal war became faction against faction, Frenchmen against Frenchmen. By the end of the war, retribution became the order of the day, again, Frenchman against Frenchman, often for no clear reason. Anti-semitism was near-universal. All this sad story is told in flowing prose. The author offers the level of documentation for any questionable assertion or for popular assertions with which he must disagree. The book is an attempt to portray that dismal era as accurately as possible. This is what a history should be: a readable book, well-researched, as neutral as possible, and enlightening.

From back cover: "The real story of the Occupation uncovers a reality more complex, more human and ultimately more moving that the myths which have grown after the event. Defeat in 1940 left the French so demoralized that they readily supported the Vichy regime, committed not just the pragmatic collaborations but to finding scapegoats for the nation's disgrace. Jews and Communists became the chief victims of a witch-hunt which left plenty of scope for private grudges as well. Resistance came late: the Occupation was 14 months old before the first German soldier was killed. The public mood changed only as the Reich's original correctness gave way to brutality, and as events outside France prefigured possible German defeat. But even as Liberation approached, resistance was for from being the mass army of later myth. Different visions of who should inherit France complicated the pursuit of collaborators and foreshadowed the chaos of post-war polititics. During the Occupation selfishness, bigotry and cowardice played parts as great as courage and idealism. They left a 'poisoned memory' which persists even today. But others should not feel superior. In such an ordeal, who can claim they would have done better?"

The French experience of 1940-44 was primarily a cultural happening, rather than a political or military one. This is an obvious fact, but also an inconvenient one. Histories habitually focus on militaria and political squabbling. How do you get a grasp on an era when there were no battles or politics? Ian Ousby's solution is to make a cultural survey of the time, focusing primarily on the minutiae of everyday living under the Occupation, rather than on the self-aggrandizing postwar fables of ideologues and fanatics. Ousby notes fashion and literary trends--and tells us, inevitably but with a dash of humor, what Sartre was doing. Less frivolously, he tosses us statistical nuggets like the following: 'By 1942 the mortality rate in Paris was 40 percent higher than it had been in the years 1932-8; deaths from tuberculosis among the elderly and young had doubled. In the poorer districts of the city adolescent girls growing up between 1935 and 1944 were 11 centimetres shorter, and boys 7 centimetres shorter, than their predecessors. A generation developed bad teeth. Adults lost anything between 4 and 8 kilos.' You wouldn't want to read a book of paragraphs like that, but it works very well where Ousby's put it. It's in a fascinating middle chapter, "Are You in Order," which discusses smuggling, rationing, 'Le Systeme D', and how Sartre and de Beauvoir's joint of pork had white maggots in it, though they ate it anyway. Ousby is a journalist and literary critic rather than an academic or so-called "professional historian." This gives him an enormous advantage over most writers on the period. He does not bring a suitcase of prejudices to the party, or buttonhole us in a corner while explaining how wonderful and innocent the Communists were, or how feckless was De Gaulle, or how corrupt was the small-town postmaster who looked the other way when the Gestapo came to town. Instead he tells what appears to be a fair and balanced and well-researched story. If you've read a variety of other stuff on the period, you may find Ousby's outlook charmingly naive, even eccentric. For example, most historians regard Paul Reynaud, the last French PM in 1940, as a weak number--a bombastic, egotistical flake, in thrall to his bossy mistress, a little man who talked big and accomplished nothing. Ousby doesn't seem to be aware of this body of opinion. He paints Reynaud as an energetic and able statesman, France's last hope, who came on the scene just a moment too late. But who knows...maybe Ousby's right!

This is the best non-fiction book I have ever read. If Ousby is criticized by some for not treating the subject like a proper "historian" would do, he's better off for it. Ousby uses fascinating little details like popular French jokes to give readers not only a factual account of the Occupation but also their own little "in" into life at the time.

OCCUPATION is one of the best historical non-fiction books I've read. You can tell that its author, Ian Ousby, is not a historian by profession. The book reads like a literary critque, and Ousby occasionally ventures into such topics as symbolism during the Occupation, and the emotions behind living in France during WWII. The book is ladden with stories and qoutes originating from source material of Vichy and Occupied France, giving the book a human quality that you will often fail to find in most historical texts. The book is often frightening, with true stories of Gestapo cruelty, and triumphant as the reader follows the events of France's history from the day the Germans marched on Paris, till the day Paris was liberated and beyond. I closed the book, and came to the conclusion that it was one of the best books I've ever read since I gained a solid platform of knowledge that would be hard to acquire through an expensive history course. The only gripe I had with the book was that it sometimes takes up three pages in what could be said in a paragraph. However, this occurred rarely and the majority of the book flowed beautifully and kept my interest. In summary, if you are in the least bit interested in French history during WWII, this is a book that you MUST find its way into your bookshelf. I highly recommend it.