Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Interesting Fact I Learned Today

Not all the French Resistance was French. A number of fighters in the French underground were Moroccan Arabs who had been stationed in France as part of French organized colonial units prior to the German invasion. I had never thought about the role of people from North Africa and other French colonies in the French Resistance before. Given the large number of Moroccans in the French military prior to World War II it is not surprising.

2 comments:

Nathanael said...

Within the hexagone itself, foreign Jews were most of the earliest perpetrators of acts of resistance. The communist party sought them out as they could not get natives to perform the same acts of sabotage, and the immigrants from Eastern Europe were in a more desperate situation. However, when liberation seemed like more of a possibility, and when more Frenchmen wanted to become resistance members themselves, the CP dumped the foreigners so that they appeared to be more of a native organized resistance.

J. Otto Pohl said...

Thanks for the information.