Trotskyists during the Occupation
Source: La Vérité, January 15, 1943;
Translated: for marxists.org by Mitchell Abidor;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2010.
The corrupt press has the audacity to present as a great success the first “class” of the fascist Labroue[1] on “the History of Judaism.” In reality, this individual received the reception he deserved.
On December 15, a little bit before 3:00 p.m., a large number of students went to the Michelet amphitheater after having presented their cards to two controls. In the room was a group of stewards made up of a few gentlemen who were a bit too mature to be students.
At the scheduled hour Labroue, accompanied by Darquier de Pellepoix,[2] who also has no reason to be at the Sorbonne, entered. And then the most frightening conference ever heard in a university began, a repugnant jumble of the worst stupidities of a Montandon[3] or a Céline,[4] delivered with a hatred that disgusted the listeners. Murmurings began to be heard, and then a few interruptions. The affirmation that “the Jews are not men like the others” caused a tempest of boos, despite the applause of a handful of suspicious characters. When the “orator” then declared that the Jews were “a race of criminals” two-thirds of the room rose up and interrupted the ignoble individual, shouting: “That’s enough! Bandit! Lowlife! Bastard!” A few tracts were thrown, then all the anti-fascists, that is the overwhelming majority of the students present, left the room demonstrating. At the end of the class Labroue was again loudly booed.
This is the state of culture under Petain’s regime: merchandise of this type presented as a scientific doctrine in the classroom where Mathiez [5] held his classes! All of this will one day be paid for. And the workers, both intellectual and manual, will approve of us when we apply to the cowardly persecutors of the Jews, who are today given free reign, but for less time that they think, the formula:
“For an eye, two eyes;
For a tooth, the whole mug.”
1. Henri Labroue, professional anti-Semite and author of “Voltaire Antijuif” (Voltaire Anti-Jew)
2. Louis Darquier de Pellepoix, head of Vichy’s anti-Jewish agency, the Commisariat aux Questions Juives.
3. Georges Montandon, anthropologist who attempted to provide an scientific basis for Jew hatred
4. Louis-Ferdinand Céline, anti-Semitic and collaborationist author. One of France’s great writers of the twentieth century.
5. Albert Mathiez, left-wing historian and professor of the French Revolution. Died while delivering a lecture at the Sorbonne.