164
PARTISAN REVIEJI'
in
the first TTWnths of the occupation
luu1
completely evaporated by
the
end
of the summer. Hatred of the Germans is universal in Paris today.
(2)
This hatred has caused a decided shift of popular sympathy
towards England, not because of any idealistic concern about democracy
but &imply because the British are standing up to the Germans. In recent
months, this popular hostility
has
forced the Germans to take increasingly
repressive measures.
(3)
The old political parties, officially banned, are discredited any·
way and in an advanced state of disintegration. Petain seems to be per·
sonally respected, but the Vichy propaganda arouses liule enthusiasm in
Paris. The efforts of native fascist groups to make political capital out of
the situation
has
been completely unsuccessful because of their policy of
'collaboration' with the Nazis. There is thus
(J
sort of political vacuum
in
Paris today, resulting from the lack of any political expression of the two
deepest feelings of the people: their hatred of the Germans
and
their reac·
tion to the increasing economic privations. There are signs of a political
regrouping, under the surface, along the line of a nationalist revolution.
(
1.)
As is well known, there was a widespread reaction in favor of the
Germans in the first few weeks after the military debacle. This was due
partly to the extremely 'correct' behavior of the Nazi soldiery, mostly to
the people's disgust with their own leaders and with their British allies.
Another factor was the notable lack of any patriotic fervor on the part
of the French masses during the war. The contrast with the Poles is strik–
ing. The same Parisian girls who had gone out with the British Tommies,
welcomed with equal enthusiasm the Nazi troopers after the invasion.
One German soldier told me that the Polish women, on the other hand,
"were as bad as the men,'' that mothers with children in their arms fired
on the invaders, and that forty Polish women were executed in Warsaw
for seducing German soldiers- in order to castrate them. French soldiers
told me that when they had thrown away their arms in the wild retreat
just before Paris fell-"and glad to get rid of them, too"-the Poles had
picked them up and gone forward to defend
la belle France
against the
Germans. The general attitude of the French as the military disaster
developed was summed up in the words of a little corporal who said to
me, with a shrug: "Alors, on sera des Boches." ("We'll become Germans
- so what?") This half-friendly indifference, however, disappeared rap·
idly as the weight of the German requisitions began to be felt and as the
Nazi soldiers cleaned out the stores and restaurants like a horde of locusts,
leaving behind only piles of newly printed 'occupation marks.' For many
months, hatred of the Germans has been increasing.
(
2.)
Although it Is strictly forbidden, every one in Paris listens to the
