Status Updates From Paris '44: The Shame and th...

« The notion of national solidarity was a common theme of all the post-liberation instant history. To sustain it required some radical editing of the photographic record. […] The side of France that aided and abetted the Nazis was also almost completely absent from the celebratory expo and the outpourings of the publishing houses – several of which had carried on business happily under the occupation. »

« For most, liberation brought a rush of optimism. But Brasillach was right; the euphoria could not last, though for a little while no one wanted to dim the dream of a fresh start and a better future. ‘A new era is beginning,’ wrote Raymond Ruffin […] ‘an era of liberty […]. But will it succeed in sweeping away all the harsh memories of what we have just been through?’ »

« On the other side of the city in the Bois de Vincennes, the [Fourth Infantry Division] were bedded down in bivouac tents. They were damp and dirty but, lying there with the raindrops pattering on the canvas, they felt secure and flowing with the joy of existence. It seemed to Irwin Shaw, […] now in Paris with the army film unit, that this ‘was the day when the war should have ended.’ »

« The hot, still air was flooded with the sound of bells. It had started just as [Capt Raymond] Dronne arrived at the Hôtel de Ville […] ‘The shouts, the singing of the Marseillaise mingled with the chimes. We all had tears in our eyes and lumps in our throats… This was the sound of victory.’
The Germans heard the bells too and felt a different emotion. [Dreizner] felt a ´shiver go down my spine.’ »

« The street fighting had the intimacy of a battle of antiquity. […] Sartre witnessed a grisly incident when the FFI ambushed a German saloon car, ‘black and powerful like an Andalusian bull,’ […] Coming under fire […] [A FFI militant] levelled his pistol and with the ‘slow, careful grace of a torero calculating the moment for the last fatal plunge of the sword’ pulled the trigger. »

« To impose his authority on France [De Gaulle] had to control Paris. As well as being the heart and soul of the nation, it was the cerebral cortex, directing all the essential functions of the state. […] To thwart any fait accompli, the Allies had to march on the city immediately. And Eisenhower was the only man who could make the decision to hand him the keys to his kingdom. »