THE EXILE OF THE COLLABORATORS 1944-1989

Ministers at Vichy, police chiefs, press magnates, radio presenters, cinema actors or ordinary individuals, they left in August 1944 in the wagons of the enemy and then went into hiding. For some, their exile lasted 45 years! Yves Pourcher offers us here a gallery of history's shipwrecked souls.

August 1944. The day before, they had still been ministers, police chiefs, press magnates or cinema stars. But now they are fleeing. They leave France in the wagons of the enemy. Some will die in exile. Others will return to seek refuge in oblivion. Certain ones will end up hunted down and put on trial. Their names? Abellio, Bonnard, Déat, Céline, Darquier de Pellepoix… Their crimes? The glorification of Hitler, the administration of Vichy, the formation of militiamen, the repression of resistance fighters, the deportation of the Jews. Their places of refuge? Crushed Germany and, from there, neutral Switzerland, Francoist Spain, Peronist Argentina — and even secluded Alpine convents.

It took Yves Pourcher to unearth the archives, testimonies and correspondence that reveal the post-war lives of the collaborators — the ringleaders and the small fry, the celebrities and the anonymous. In this gallery of history's shipwrecked souls, where dishonour and nostalgia mingle with denial and hardening of hearts, the ultras rub shoulders with the cowards, the inveterate opportunists and the incurable fascists. Whether reinventing themselves as tutors to the wealthy, oyster merchants, swimming instructors, press columnists, science-fiction authors or cursed writers, they flee before the tide of opprobrium, suffer the curse of the defeated, brood over their past and dread the hour of their condemnation. So many pathetic existences, commensurate with so many criminal complicitics.

An unprecedented and exhaustive investigation. A masterful book. A great history lesson on the France of yesterday.