Questions about French Resistance
Short answers, pulled from the story.
What was the French Resistance and who were its members?
The French Resistance was a collection of armed groups that fought the Nazi occupation and the collaborationist Vichy regime in France during the Second World War. Its members came from across French society, including academics, students, aristocrats, Catholic clergy, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, communists, and Spanish Republican exiles, with the proportion of the French population participating in organized resistance estimated at between one and three percent.
How large did the French Forces of the Interior become by 1944?
The French Forces of the Interior (FFI) counted around 100,000 fighters at the time of the Normandy landings in June 1944 and grew to 400,000 members by October 1944. By VE Day in May 1945, France had rebuilt an army of 1.2 million men, the fourth-largest in the European theatre.
Who was Jean Moulin and what role did he play in the French Resistance?
Jean Moulin was a former prefet of Chartres who became General de Gaulle's representative in France, tasked with unifying the separate resistance groups under the authority of the Free French National Committee in London. He parachuted back into France on the 2nd of January 1942 and by the 26th of January 1943 had persuaded the three main southern groups, Franc-Tireur, Liberation, and Combat, to unite as the MUR, the Mouvements Unis de Resistance.
What was the Milice and how was it connected to the French Resistance?
The Milice was a Vichy French paramilitary organization created on the 30th of January 1943 and commanded by Joseph Darnand, with Pierre Laval as its official head. It had 29,000 members, including an elite force of 1,000 Francs-Gardes, and was tasked with hunting down the maquis guerrillas and opposing communists, Gaullists, Jews, and Freemasons. After the liberation of France in 1944, between 25,000 and 35,000 miliciens were executed for collaboration with the Nazis.
What was the maquis in the French Resistance?
The maquis were rural guerrilla fighters, mostly young Frenchmen who fled to the countryside rather than report for compulsory labour in Germany under the Service du Travail Obligatoire law of the 16th of February 1943. The name came from the Corsican Italian word for the dense scrubland where bandits traditionally hid. At least 40,000 men formed the core of the maquis, making up 80 percent of resistance members under thirty.
What was the Vel d'Hiv Roundup and what happened to those arrested?
The Vel d'Hiv Roundup, or grande rafle, took place on the 16th of July 1942 when 9,000 French policemen arrested approximately 12,762 Jewish men, women, and children across Paris. The arrested were held at the Vel d'Hiv sports stadium, then transferred to the camp at Drancy before being deported to Auschwitz.