No, Not Everyone Was Conquered

The French Foreign Minister needs a basic history lesson.

I wonder if there is not a bit of guilt motivating the Minister’s questions. After being reminded that England was never conquered by the Nazis in WWII, he asked if any Jews had been deported from England to the Nazis. This may be an attempt to rationalize France’s not-too-reluctant deportation of Jews from unoccupied Vichy France to concentration camps in Eastern Europe. One might argue in their defense that had they not complied willingly with Nazi demands, they would have merely been forced to. However, we don’t know if that is true–some nations (Denmark, Bulgaria) were able to protect their Jewish populations for long periods of time through national policy (and they were both completely occupied). That France did not even make the effort (indeed, one could look at the record and believe they relished the task of handing the Jews over to be murdered) represented the abetting of pure evil.