> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Behalf Of Dan Minette
... > May I make a suggestion that will probably be ignored. I'm betting both > Nick and Gautam are accurately reflecting what they were taught. I'm > guessing they were taught different things. I'd be interested in either a > detailed examination of the proposition that the Vichie government was > representative of the attitude of the French or that the Dryfuss > affair was > the work of a minority. Perhaps it isn't clear that this is about context, not facts. Clearly, Gautam knows the facts. My objection is the failure to contextualize the Vichy "government" as a puppet of the Nazis, with policies that did not exist before or after. Its behavior should never be interpreted as representative of France. The words that sparked this were, "The Vichy government could, at the least, have pretended to care about preserving the lives of its Jewish citizens, instead of shipping them off with enthusiasm," in a comparison of national behavior during WWII. Substitute an appropriate description and the sentence becomes almost oxymoronic: "The Nazi puppet government could, at the least, have pretended to care about preserving the lives of its Jewish citizens, instead of shipping them off with enthusiasm." Who would expect Nazi puppets *not* to collaborate? Perhaps what Gautam meant to say was that "The people of France could have fought harder against the Nazis and their puppet French government, which collaborated by shipping Jews off with enthusiasm." Nick _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
