VIEWSrnFascism and Anti-Fascismrnby Paul GottfriedrnFor the last several months, a war crimes trial has been nnfoldingrnin Bordeaux in Southwest France. The defendant,rnMaurice Papon, an octogenarian on the verge of cardiac arrest,rnwas the subprefect of the Gironde during the Vichy regime. Atrnthat time Papon and his superior, Maurice Sabatier, oversawrnthe deportation of thousands of Jews destined for concentrationrncamps and often eventual extermination. The trial of Papon isrnbeing used to underscore French complicit)’ in the holocaust,rnand, as L’Express (November 26, 1997) observes, most of thernprosecution’s case has consisted of “discours solenneh” insteadrnof rigorously presented evidence. The trial was originallyrnplanned to deal with the misdeeds of Papon’s boss, but sincernSabatier inconsiderately departed this world before the proceedingsrnbegan, the prosecution has had to refoeus.rnBut the gloomy sermons are far more central to the trial, asrnobject lesson, than some legal critics recognize. These orationsrnare meant to drive home what the French and American mediarnindustn,’ does not want Frenchmen (and other s’cstigially Christianrnpeoples) to forget, that their societies had eagerly collaboratedrnin Nazi atrocities and that their inherited cultures hadrnpredisposed them to such behavior. Though this complicitv’rnwas admittedly more common in France than it should havernbeen, the charges made are all too often questionable. One,rnfeatured in the movie Le Chagrin et la Pitie, is that religiouslyrnindoctrinated Frenchmen ran to welcome the German armiesrnthat oerran their countr’ in 1940, as a bulwark being offeredrnagainst Jews and communists. On the basis of highly selectivernsources, such as the pro-Nazi statements of the rector of thernCatholic histitute in Paris, we are led to believe that professingrnPaul Gottfried is a professor of humanities at EhzabethtownrnCollege in Ehzabethtown, Pennsylvania.rnFrench Christians happily supported Hitier’s occupation andrnthe deportation of Jews. But French Calvinists, almost withoutrnexception, protected Jews, invariably at the risk of their lives.rnAnd though the Catholic record was, on the whole, less impressive,rnmonasteries and convents throughout France took inrnJewish refugees. One benefieiar)’ of such kindness is the presentrnFrench primate, whose parents had been Polish Jewish immigrants.rnAnother fault)’ generalization is that most of France’s intelligentsiarnwere well-disposed toward Nazism. Here a distinctionrnis appropriate that may also apply to other European intellectualsrnof the same period, bebA’cen those who (like Louis-FerdinandrnCeline) applauded the Nazi regime in all its grislinessrnand those w ho merely went along. It is the latter who were inrnthe vast majorih’, certainly in France, and who form the subjectrnof Jean-Robert and Giles Ragaehe’s probing study, Des ecrivainsrndes artistes sous I’occupation 1940-1944 (1988). Unlike suchrnproudly collaborationist authors as Celine, Robert Brasillach,rnand Pierre Drieu La Roehelle, most intellectuals —for example,rnJean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Andre Gide, andrn(throughout most of the Occupation) Andre Malraux—tried tornstay out of harm’s way. This also applied to the Russian }evishrnartist Marc Chagall, then resident in the French village ofrnGordes. The Ragaches studiously avoid confusing plainly differentrnactions—such as cheering on the Nazis, keeping a lowrnprofile, or expressing generic pro-fascist sentiments —and turningrnJews over to the WafiFen SS.rnThere is, of course, a compelling reason why most Frenchmenrnno longer ask who did or did not collaborate, and in whatrnway, with the Vichy government. From June 1944 untilrnmonths after the war ended, French communists (who ironicallyrnhad been among the most conspicuous Nazi collaboratorsrnMARCH 1998/13rnrnrn