French Students in German Schools During World War II
The experiences faced by the French during the German occupation seem unfathomable to many of us today. This article explores the complex situation of French students in German schools during World War II, addressing the nuances of language, education, and resistance during this tumultuous period. It delves into the motivations behind learning German, the impact of the occupation on French education, and the various forms of resistance demonstrated by students.
The Reality of Occupation
My great aunt, Janine Simone (Cella) Hopkins, was only seven years old when the Germans invaded Paris. As an adult, she was encouraged by her family to record her experiences and reflections of her life in Paris during the German occupation. The experiences faced by the French during the German occupation included lack of heat, electricity, and adequate food. My aunt and her sister Josette both recall that the winters of 1941-1943 were some of the coldest on record. They had chilblains (painful bumps) on their fingers and toes from the cold, and the ice on the inside of the windows of their apartment was about three inches thick. Air raids were a common occurrence. Although only two years old at the time, Josette remembers the one time her family used the old coal cellar as an air raid shelter. Their large apartment complex held hundreds of people, and all of them were huddled into this cellar. It was so traumatic for the kids that their family preferred to be huddled in their apartment together. Both my aunt and her sister remember food being scarce. Adults were rationed 50 grams of meat a week, including bones and gristle. Their grandmother, who lived outside of Paris, would bring a suitcase full of vegetables from her garden, and sometimes a rabbit. Josette recalls her mother making “stone soup.” The recipe her mother would use always included tapioca. The Germans had a rationing system for the French, and Josette remarked that, “Rationing is fine and dandy, but often… you would get to the places you were supposed to pick up the rations and there was nothing. Both Janine and Josette remember their family gathered around the radio with the lights off. Josette remembers listening to de Gualle in England, but not what was being said. When the Germans were leaving Paris, Josette remembers the Germans shooting out the lamp posts as they marched down the street.
The Shifting Landscape of Language Learning
Before World War I, German language education in France was more popular than English. After that war, popularity declined somewhat, with English replacing German at the top spot. However, the numbers of German learners peaked in 1942 for French school curricula and also for people voluntarily enrolling in German-led institutes.
During the occupation, increasing numbers of French children and adults began learning German. The Berlitz language school increased its enrollments from 939 adult students of German in 1939 to 7,920 in 1941; the German Institute in Paris from a few hundreds in the 1930s, to 15,000 by 1942, mostly taught by French instructors. „Les écoles de langues sont prises d’assaut. En 1939, l’école Berlitz avait 939 élèves d’allemand et 2470 élèves d’anglais, à l’automne 1941, les premiers sont 7920 et les seconds 625. Certains Français écrivent à l’administration militaire pour proposer à des officiers un échange de cours de langue. D’autres cherchent par les petites annonces un professeur à domicile; les plus exigeants spécifient : ‘aryen et si possible d’origine allemande’. [Mais] l’intérêt pour l’allemand déborde des bancs d’école.
This rise in German language learning reflected a complex mix of factors, including a practical need to communicate with the occupying forces, career advancement opportunities, and the accommodation of intellectual and academic elites. The prominent historian Lucien Febvre demanded the resignation of Marc Bloch, the Jewish coeditor and co- founder of their journal Annales, so as to save it from being banned. While Bloch joined the Resistance and was executed by the Germans, Febvre continued to edit the journal - which in no way promoted resistance - from the safety of his country house. Similarly, such respectable French publishers as Gallimard purged their lists of Jewish authors and turned to publishing texts by German racial ideologues and French collaborators. Nor did many renown French writers desist from having their works published during the Occupation, including Louis Aragon, Georges Bataille, Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Blanchot, Albert Camus, Paul Claudel, Marguerite Duras, Paul Éluard, François Mauriac, Jean Paulhan, Romain Rolland, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Paul Valéry. Marcel Aymé wrote for the fascist antisemitic journal Je suis partout, Mauriac contributed to the collaborationist Nouvelle Revue Française, Camus cut out a chapter on Franz Kafka from Le Mythe de Sisyphe to have it published in 1942, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry paid a quasi-official visit to Germany to promote the translations of his books there, and Aragon excised references to Heinrich Heine and the Dreyfus Affair from his writings to facilitate their publication in Germany. Other artists followed suit. Jean Cocteau expressed admiration for Hitler, Abel Gance made a friendly visit to wartime Germany, and Pierre Fournier gave concerts in the Reich.
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German Language in regular schools
In regular secondary schools learning German was always second place after English from the First World War on. It took first place before. In numbers for school tuition we see a trend of decline from 1933-1951, the percentages being below 30% and reaching a low in 1950 at 21%. (- Frank Günther Spohr: "Deutschunterricht in Frankreich und Französischunterricht in Deutschland. But Burrin also lists in contrast to the just cited numbers a figure of 2/3 of all pupils learning German during the occupation, indeed reversing the pre-war situation in relation to English. (Burrin, p309.
Accommodation, Collaboration, and Resistance
Burrin’s concept of accommodation uses broad, contextual analysis to evaluate decisions made by various social groups including the Catholic Church, captains of industry, intellectuals, and regular French men and women who struggled to survive during the Occupation. Did French men and women who served a German clientele, manufactured products for the German war effort, or simply learned to speak German sympathize with the ideological goals of the Nazi regime, support resistance efforts, or just try to make some easy money?
The occupation policies aimed to foster cooperation through offers of friendship, published propaganda promoting germanophilia, and campaigns against the 'old schools' of German studies in France. Less with force, but with kind words, and a lot of money. Curiously, while the occupational policies are usually described as being to get much harsher after the defeat of the Germans became ever more evident when reading reports from the Eastern front, the political efforts went the other way around; moving from repression to an outwardly attempt at more and friendlier cooperation. Not in the least to win over more French volunteers, for example for the 'fight against Bolshevism' and the like.
French students engaged in various forms of resistance, from subtle acts of defiance to more overt protests. On 11 November 1940, a few months after the start of the occupation of parts of France by Nazi Germany, hundreds of Parisian high school students and university students decided to demonstrate on the Champs-Élysées towards one of the capital’s most emblematic monuments, the Arc de Triomphe (Arch of Triumph). The date chosen, that of the commemoration of 11 November 1918, was symbolic: the victory over Germany during World War One. In a city transformed by the omnipresence of Nazi uniforms, road signs in the German language and swastika flags, Parisian youth mobilized rather quickly and courageously in the face of oppression. From September, particularly in the Latin Quarter, students throw eggs or tomatoes, draw the “V” for victory in white paint on walls, shout “Vive De Gaulle” in subway corridors and put anti-Nazi leaflets in libraries. That day, at dawn, groups of students come to lay flowers at the tomb of the unknown soldier placed under the Arc de Triomphe, symbol of heroism against Germany. At the end of the afternoon, when there were nearly 3000 gathered, singing La Marseillaise (national anthem of France) or “Vive De Gaulle” (Long live De Gaulle), the German army, helped by the French police, decided to intervene with rifle butts and weapons fire to disperse the demonstrators whose average age is barely 18 years old. Around fifteen injuries were reported as well as around 200 arrests followed by imprisonment. Remarkable because it took place only some months after the occupation of France, this first public act of resistance had no real political roots even if some high school students had proven communist sympathies.
The Broader Context of War Children
German childhood in World War II describes how the Second World War, as well as experiences related to it, directly or indirectly impacted the life of children born in that era. In Germany, these children became known as Kriegskinder (war children), a term that came into use due to a large number of scientific and popular science publications which have appeared increasingly since the 1990s. The concept is unquestionably aimed at a generation that spent part of its childhood in Germany during the Second World War, "for whom - without necessarily being threatened by organized annihilation - experiences of violence, separation, and loss were, at least to some degree, impacting their life". Jewish children, who were neither deported nor murdered, are generally not included in this definition. For them, the term survivors is used as they were exposed to additional and very specific threats to their lives which necessitated living in hiding. It is characteristic for the generation of the so-called war children of the Second World War that until the beginning of the 1990s they did not receive any attention either in scientific research or in the public consciousness.
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Liberation and its Aftermath
When the Germans were leaving Paris, Josette remembers the Germans shooting out the lamp posts as they marched down the street. We stopped in the middle of the Pôterne and both parents were crying…There were half-tracks and tanks with colored shields on them. They were not Americans, but French 2nd Division (2eme DB) commanded by General Leclerc. They had started their campaign in Africa, the Tchad to be exact, and as Paris could not hold on any more, some of the Resistance (FFI) went on bicycles to Evreux and brought them to Paris the back way. They stopped there long enough to talk. One soldier said his Dad lived rue Damesme. We could all have been killed, standing there laughing, crying, kids running while cannon shells were passing over our heads. They could have just as well shot at us, but they didn’t. Josette does not remember the French soldiers, but remembers the Americans. She recalls the soldiers standing in the tanks and throwing gum and candy to the kids, which were things that the French children had not had in a long time. Josette also remembers the US Army convoy coming through and the print on the dress her mother was wearing at the time-little flowers (blue and pink flowers on a light blue background.) Janine would later write about the Americans formally entering Paris and the fireworks that would take place at the Eiffel tour. Even though Paris was liberated, the days following were still terrifying. My aunt recalls four German bombs falling,all of them missing their targets. “One fell across the street, the aim was the factory. The Cella family’s life, like other French families, did not go back to normal after Paris’ liberation. The war raged on for almost another full year in Europe. Josette remembers when her great uncle came to visit when she was seven years old and Paris was still not back to normal. Care packages from family in America helped with food, clothing, and other items. Janine and Josette’s parents did not talk about the war, but when they got together with friends, they would send the children to play-all the men would then discuss the war.
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