Fr 139 WWII and France
Nadeau & Barlow: Ch. 7 "World War
II: the Unforgotten War."
Reading Questions
1. Why did France succumb so quickly to the Nazi German invasion?
2. Who was the Maréchal Pétain? How do
historians now see his regime under the Nazi occupation?
3. What contradiction did Nadeau uncover in his research into
Resistance hero Jean-Marie Bressand?
4. How did Bressand participate in the Resistance?
5. After the liberation, what typically happened to French women
who had slept with Germans?
6. Why did Charles de Gaulle propagate the "myth" that all
of France had supported the Resistance?
7. How did the Vichy government of France persecute Jews during
the Occupation?
8. Why is Jean-Jacques Fraenkel particularly bitter towards the
Vichy government?
9. What was one way in which French anti-Semitic law was
different from German anti-Semitic law?
10. After the war, what did De Gaulle do to restore France
politically and socially?