France and the Holocaust

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/opinion/france-and-the-holocaust.html

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To the Editor:

Re “Le Pen Redirects Blame in ’42 Roundup of Jews” (news article, April 11):

The horror of the Holocaust still has an almost gravitational power to distort our perception of the truth.

The absurd claim by Marine Le Pen, the presidential candidate of the far-right National Front party — that the French were not responsible for the “Vel d’Hiv roundup” that led to the deportation and murder of thousands of Jews — is but the latest effort to deflect, deny or minimize the extent to which the peoples of Europe were complicit in genocide.

The harsh truth is that the Nazi eradication of the Jews would not have been nearly so cataclysmic without the active participation of both the governments and the general populace in many European countries. And this fact is particularly hard to accept when it comes to countries like France and the Netherlands, both renowned for their sophistication and tolerance.

But the government in France at the time — like the governments in the Netherlands, Hungary, Norway and other countries — actively collaborated in the murder of segments of its own population. Ms. Le Pen may pander to her voters by denying this, but the facts of this history are well documented.

DAVID HAYDEN, WILTON, CONN.