They were as ruthless as the Gestapo

‘These methods proved very effective for the detainees to confess, and they should be applied when appropriate.’

Naturally, as well as being tortured, many Jews or Communists who found themselves in the clutches of the Special Brigades did not have long to live. Some would die under torture, while others would be shot after a perfunctory trial carried out by legal system in hock with the Nazis.

During the course of the War, the Brigades arrested a total of some 1,600, of whom more than 200 were executed. Yet such numbers pale when compared to the results of the work of another particularly sinister branch of the police – the Police des Questions Juives (PQJ), or t he Police of t he Jewish Question.

Formed in November 1941, the PQJ was staffed by volunteers who were particularly keen to hunt Jews and to enforce the anti- Jewish laws that the French Government was only too willing pass.

As well as being forced to wear yellow Stars of David, Jews were also not permitted to own radios, travel by bicycle, use private or public telephones, go out after 8pm, or visit such public places as cinemas, theatres, public gardens and markets.

The French police also assisted the Germans by carrying out a census of Jews, and collating a card file in Paris of the 150,000 Jews living in the capital.

The PQJ helped with all these measures and, acting under the guise of legality, they stole from the Jews and sold their goods on the black market.

More disturbingly still, the police were assisted in their work by ordinary French men and women, who were only t oo eager to denounce Jews.

The archives feature countless letters written to the police, most of which are anonymous. A letter from a doctor shows that he was worried about his son marrying a Jew and he asks for the police to intervene.

In another letter dated November 16, 1941, an anonymous writer complains about a Monsieur Cremer, a Jew ‘without nationality’, who had sought refuge i n France after leaving Germany. Monsieur Cremer may have hoped that he would be safe in Paris but, tellingly, his name is underlined in the letter by a policeman so no doubt a file would have been opened.

Some letters are not anonymous. In an undated letter, a Mademoiselle Cochard s pi te fully denounces a former lover called Stürtz for being a Jew.

Helpfully for the police, Cochard even supplies the man’s address — 94 Rue de Lévis. Doubtless, he would soon have received a knock on the door.

The most terrifying actions carried out by the police against their own people were the notorious roundups that took place all over France, and signified the beginning of the journey of many Jews ‘to the East’.

Some of the tales by those who survived are heartbreaking.

In July 1942, in Dax in south-west France, an 11-year- old boy called Georges Gheldman came back home to find his mother had scribbled a note for him: ‘Come quickly and meet me at the police station.’

Young Georges did as he was told and found his mother but was detained by the police for the night. He was released the following day, whereupon he wrote this letter to his mother’s sister, complete with spelling mistakes that reveal his youth and innocence.

‘Dear Aunt, I’m writing you now to tell you that they came to get Mama to take her to a consentration camp to work. I crying so much that I have no more tear and my heart is melted. They tore me away from Mama after spending the night in the German prison, there were 10 people and two children, and this morning she left with other Jews to Merignac where they are going to consantrate them and then they will go to Germany.’

Georges would never see his mother again, as she was sent to