Bad Faith Read online

  To keep good and bad faith distinct costs a lot; it requires a decent sincerity and truthfulness with oneself, it demands a continuous intellectual and moral effort. How can such an effort be expected from men like Darquier?

  Primo Levi,

  Carmen Callil

  BAD FAITH

  Carmen Callil was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1938, and moved to the United Kingdom in 1960. A book publisher, she founded Virago Press in 1972 and ten years later became managing director of Chatto & Windus. She was subsequently publisher-at-large for Random House UK and director of Channel 4 Television. The recipient of numerous honorary degrees, she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and author (with Colm Tóibín) of The Modern Library: The 200 Best Novels in English Since 1950. She lives in London.

  For PBH

  Acclaim for Carmen Callil's

  BAD FAITH

  “Magisterial.…With astonishing detail and documentation (not to mention skill and style) Callil offers a biography of the man who took charge of ‘the Jewish problem’ for the Nazis in France….The stories… will keep readers gripped from beginning to end.”

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  “Stirring….Telescopic yet meticulously drawn…. Among this book's many merits, it is what we might call a ‘living’ document—not a staid history of a locked-up past.”

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  “Callil regards the man at the center of Bad Faith with a contempt that burns on every page….By telling his story so unsparingly in Bad Faith, Ms. Callil helps to right this historical wrong, and reminds us along the way that it does not take a great man to do a great evil.”

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  “A book of devastating power, written with a novelist's eye for character and with an acute delineation of secrets, loss and grief.”

  — (London)

  “Magnificent…. Callil approaches the unenviable subject of human depravity with calm resolution. Her ability to engage imaginatively with the plight of the vulnerable is unusual among professional historians, and rare even among novelists.”

  — (London)

  “A work of phenomenally thorough, generous and humane scholarship…. Callil understands anguish, and lays bare its causes with clarity and precision.”

  — (London)

  “Superb…. [Callil's] book about Darquier is furious…. But what makes it so extraordinary and so touching is its quieter, more confidential admission of pain…. [Her] compassion is responsible for the agonising tenderness of this book.”

  — (London)

  Contents

  List of Illustrations

  Abbreviations

  Louis Darquier's Associations and Newspapers

  Historical Note

  Family Trees: Darquiers and Joneses

  Prologue

  PART I COBBLERS & CONVICTS

  1. The Priest's Children

  2. The Convicts' Kin

  3. Soldier's Heart

  PART II COCK & BULL

  4. Scandal and Caprice

  5. Baby

  6. Shreds and Patches

  PART III HITLER'S PARROT

  7. The Street

  8. Fame

  9. Pot of Gold

  10. On the Rampage

  11. War

  PART IV VICHY FRANCE

  12. Work, Family, Fatherland

  13. Tormenting Men

  14. Rats

  15. The Rat Pit

  16. Death

  17. Having Fun

  18. Loot

  19. D-Day

  PART V SOME PEOPLE

  20. The Family

  21. The Cricket Team

  22. Dinosaurs

  Postscript

  APPENDICES

  I. “In Auschwitz They Only Gassed Lice.” Interview with Louis Darquier by Philippe Ganier-Raymond, l'Express, 28 October–4 November 1978

  II. “The Snows of Sigmaringen” by Louis Aragon

  III. Louis Darquier's Baronial Inventions

  Acknowledgements

  Notes

  Bibliography and Sources

  Illustrations

  MAPS

  Cahors and environs 4

  Tasmania 54

  Occupied and Unoccupied (Vichy) France 195

  French internment camps 224

  INTEGRATED ILLUSTRATIONS

  Le Pèlerin, 3 January 1898 16

  Letter from Myrtle to René, 25 March 1933 89

  Maurras' speech to the medical fraternity of Action Française, March 1933 97

  Letter from Louis to René, mid-1930s 119

  Action française, 22 January 1936 128

  Poster, Comité National de Vigilance de la Jeunesse, March 1936 129

  l'Antijuif, no. 3, 26 June 1937 155

  La France enchaînée, 15 June 1939 179

  La France enchaînée, 1–15 April 1939 182

  Principal authorities dealing with Jews, 1940–44 209

  Jewish carte d'identité 218

  Who was and who was not Jewish in the Vichy State 220

  Certificat de Non-Appartenance à la Race Juive 233

  “Australia in Danger,” l'Illustration, 14

  February 1942 239 Vichy's Commission for Jewish Affairs 258

  Letter from Louis Darquier to Röthke, 11 June 1943 349

  Anne Darquier's record at Chipping Norton School 357

  ILLUSTRATIONS IN PLATES

  1. The Darquier family in Cahors, c. 1906–7 (courtesy of Paulette Aupoix)

  2. Postcard of the sons of the Mayor of Cahors, 1907 (© Le Lot 1900–1902 Memoir d'hier—De Boué)

  3. Édouard Drumont, 1901 (© Collection Roger-Viollet)

  4. Charles Maurras and Léon Daudet (© Collection Roger-Viollet)

  5. The Marquis de Morès, 1896 (© Collection Roger-Viollet)

  6. Anatole de Monzie, c. 1920

  7. Henry de Jouvenal, with his wife, Colette, and their daughter, c. 1920 (© Collection Roger-Viollet)

  8. Louis Louis-Dreyfus, 1938 (© Archives du CDJC—Mémorial de la Shoah)

  9. The Jones family, c. 1911 (© Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery, Launceston)

  10. Australia as Terre Napoléon, 1811

  11. Cahors, Boulevard Gambetta, early twentieth century

  12. Launceston, Brisbane Street, early twentieth century (from Launceston © M. Simco and P. Jermy, 1997)

  13. Jean, Pierre and Louis Darquier, c. 1915 (courtesy of Yvonne Lacaze)

  14. Gunner Harold George Cope, soldier from the same battalion as William Robert Jones (© Australian War Memorial)

  15. Statement of a witness at the Court of Inquiry into the death of William Robert Jones (© National Archives of Australia)

  16. Charles Workman, with his son Roy, c. 1905 (© V&A Images/ Victoria and Albert Museum)

  17. Charles Workman as Ben Hashbaz in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Grand Duke, 1896 (© V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum)

  18. Louis and Myrtle, court case 32 at Marylebone Magistrates Court, 1930 (© The City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)

  19. Anne, c. 1933 (courtesy of Alistair Rapley)

  20. Anne with May Brice, c. 1936 (courtesy of Alistair Rapley)

  21. Louis and Myrtle, London, 1931 (from l'Express, 14–20 February 1972)

  22. The riots of 6 February 1934 (© Collection Roger-Viollet)

  23. The removal of the wounded from Place de la Concorde (from l'Illustration, 10 February 1934)

  24. The funeral of Lucien Garniel (© Collection Roger-Viollet)

  25. Colonel François de la Roque, 1935 (© Gaston Paris/Roger-Viollet)

  26. The nationalist leagues on the streets of Paris, 1934 (© Snark Archives/ Photos12.com/Oasis)

  27. François Coty (© Harlingue/Roger-Viollet)

  28. Eugène Schueller (© Photos12.com)

  29. Pierre
Taittinger, 1942 (© Archives du CDJC—Mémorial de la Shoah)

  30. Pierre Taittinger's league, Jeunesses Patriotes, 1928 (© Harlingue/Roger-Viollet)

  31. Charles Trochu, 1941–43 (© Centre d'Etudes et de Documentation Guerre et Sociétés Contemporaines)

  32. Louis' campaign leaflet for his 1935 election to the Paris City Council (© Archives Municipal de Paris)

  33. One of the covers of The Protocols of the Elders of Sion, c. 1934 (from Warrant for Genocide by Norman Cohn)

  34. Louis Darquier in court, July 1939 (from La France enchaînée, 15–31 July 1939)

  35. José Felix de Lequerica

  36. Louis Aragon, c. 1936 (© LAPI/Roger-Viollet)

  37. Léon Blum, c. 1936 (© Collection Roger-Viollet)

  38. Édouard Daladier, February 1934 (from front cover of l'Illustration, 3 February 1934)

  39. Bernard Lecache, c. 1930 (© Martinie/Roger-Viollet)

  40. Jean Boissel (© Photos12.com/Ullstein Bild), Louis-Ferdinand Céline (©Photos12.com/KeystonePressendienst),HenryCharbonneau(from Dictionnaire commenté de la Collaboration française by Philippe Randa), Henry Coston (© Archives du CDJC—Mémorial de la Shoah), Pierre-Antoine Cousteau (fromDictionnairecommentédelaCollaborationfrançaise),Pierre Gaxotte(©Albin-Guillot/Roger-Viollet), Henri Massis (© Martinie/ Roger-Viollet), Thierry Maulnier(©Martinie/Roger-Viollet),BernardFaÿ (©LAPI/Roger-Viollet)

  41. Joseph Darnand (© Harlingue/Roger-Viollet), Philip Henriot (© Archives du CDJC—Mémorial de la Shoah), Paul Sézille (from l'Antisémitisme du Plume, 1940–44, ed. Pierre-André Taguieff), Georges Montandon (© Archives du CDJC—Mémorial de la Shoah), SS Hauptsturmführer Theodor Dannecker (© Archives du CDJC—Mémorial de la Shoah), Otto Abetz (© Photos12.com/Oasis)

  42. Franco and Pétain, Montpelier, 1941 (© LAPI/Roger-Viollet)

  43. General Maxime Weygand, Paul Baudouin, Paul Reynaud and Marshal Pétain, May/June 1940 (© Sigma, London)

  44. Cardinal Emmanuel Célestin Suhard, Cardinal Pierre-Marie Gerlier, with Marshal Pétain and Pierre Laval, 1942 (© LAPI/Roger-Viollet)

  45. The 2ème Régiment d'Infanterie Coloniale marches past Marshal Pétain, Admiral Darlan, Pierre Laval and Louis Darquier, 1942 (© Médiathèque Municipale Valéry Larbaud/Ville de Vichy)

  46. The men of the second Vichy government, 1940 (© Getty Images/ Hulton Archive)

  47. General Charles de Gaulle, 1940 (© AFP/Getty Images)

  48. Jacques Doriot, 1944 (© Snark Archives/Photos12.com/Oasis)

  49. Léon Degrelle with Pope John Paul II, 11 December 1991

  50. The Métro advertises Louis' l'Institut d'Etude des Questions Juives, c. 1942–43 (© Klarsfeld Collection)

  51. Louis with Reinhard Heydrich and Helmut Knochen, 1942 (© Klarsfeld Collection)

  52. Louis Darquier on his appointment as Commissioner for Jewish Affairs, 1942 (© Collection Roger-Viollet)

  53. Xavier Vallat, 1941 (© Archives du CDJC—Mémorial de la Shoah)

  54. Joseph Antignac (© Klarsfeld Collection)

  55. Monseigneur Mayol de Lupé, 1944 (© LAPI/Roger-Viollet)

  56. René Bousquet with Karl-Albrecht Oberg, SS chief Helmut Knochen and Herbert-Martin Hagen (© Klarsfeld Collection)

  57. François Mitterrand, dining with René Bousquet in 1974 (© M. Bidermanas/ANA)

  58. The Schloss Collection (© A. Vernay)

  59. Nazi and French services oversee Jewish arrests (© Klarsfeld Collection)

  60. Jewish men, women and children in Drancy concentration camp, 1942 (© Klarsfeld Collection)

  61. Jewish women and children at Drancy on the same day (© Klarsfeld Collection)

  62. Louis and Myrtle dining (© Archives du CDJC—Mémorial de la Shoah)

  63. Louis launches his Institute of Anthropo-Sociology in Paris, December 1942 (© LAPI/ Roger-Viollet)

  64. The Falkland Arms pub, Great Tew, Oxfordshire (courtesy of Alistair Rapley)

  65. The wedding of May Brice to Gilbert Rapley, 1948 (courtesy of Alistair Rapley)

  66. Elsie Lightfoot in 1961 (courtesy of Alistair Rapley)

  67. Anne aged twelve (courtesy of Alistair Rapley)

  68. Louis in Madrid (from l'Express, 28 October–4 November 1978)

  69. Louis Darquier, 1978 (© Juana Biarnés)

  70. 59 Weymouth Street, London W1, where Anne died

  Every effort has been made to trace and contact copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to correct any mistakes or omissions in future editions.

  Abbreviations

  AF: Action Française, the movement. Newspaper: Action française

  AJA: Association des Journalistes Antijuifs, Association of Anti-Jewish Journalists

  CATC: Coopérative d'Approvisionnement, de Transport et de Crédit, Cooperative for Supply, Transport and Credit

  CDP: Centre de Documentation et de Propagande, Centre for Information and Propaganda

  CGQ J: Commissariat Général aux Questions Juives, the Commissariat for Jewish Affairs

  ERR: Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, untranslatable, always called ERR. Alfred Rosenberg's plundering office. One of Rosenberg's official titles was Custodian of the Entire Intellectual, Spiritual, Training and Education of the Party and of all Coordinated Associations

  Gestapo: Geheime Staatspolizei, secret state police or political police

  LICA: Ligue Internationale Contre l'Antisémitisme, the International League Against Anti-Semitism, now called LICRA (Race has been added). Newspaper: Le Droit de vivre, The Right to Live

  LVF: Légion des Volontaires Français, an idea of Jacques Doriot's but founded August 1941 by Marcel Déat with Deloncle as president. These were French units, wearing German uniforms, who fought for the Germans on the Russian front. Integrated into the SS Waffen Charlemagne in August 1944

  MBF: Militärbefehlshaber in Frankreich, the military command of France, provided by the German army, the Wehrmacht

  MSR: Mouvement Social Révolutionnaire, a Pétainist group founded by Eugène Deloncle, which provided most of the troops for the LVF

  OAS: Organisation de l'Armée Secrète

  PPF: Parti Populaire Français, fascist party of Jacques Doriot

  PQ J: Police aux Questions Juives, Police for Jewish Affairs, of the CGQ J

  RHSA: Reichssicherheitshauptamt, the Reich Central Security Office

  SCAP: Service de Contrôle des Administrateurs Provisoires, Department of Provisional Administrators or Trustees (for Jewish enterprises)

  SD: Sicherheitsdienst, intelligence service of the SS

  SEC: Service d'Enquête et de Contrôle, Investigation and Inspection Service, and “police” service of the CGQ J

  SOL: Service d'Ordre Légionnaire, created by Joseph Darnand in 1941,a paramilitary elite devoted to the service of Pétain, later to become the Milice

  SS: Sicherheitspolizei, SiPo, Security Police, which had various subsections, one of which was the Gestapo

  STO: Service du Travail Obligatoire, Compulsory Labour Service