The daily monitor leader. [volume] (Mount Clemens, Mich.) 1942-19??, 1944-10-20
Four Years in Hitler's Gray Paree
Porision Was Foreigner
in Own City Under Nozis

ers of the supermen as the no.
tells, headquarters, movies, clubs,
restaurants and bars which were
set aside for Germans. Paris
ians were not allowed to use the
sidewalks in front of these "Sa-
cred" places.
From the first day the Nazis
entered Paris the display of the
French flag was verboten. 1t
was replaced everywhere by the
swastika. The price of removal
of the swastika was the life of
the French policeman on whose
beat il flew. The only eXcep-
tons to the no-Tricolor rule
were for a handful of favored
traitors: Herr Won" Brinon,
the Ambassador from Vichy;
"Hauptmann" Darnan's militia;
and barracks of the Anti-Soviet
Legion, composed of few
thousand rascals led by pro-Nazi
Doriot and Deaf. The only
French flags which escaped the
prying eyes of the conquerors
were those painted on the en-
trance of the city's public laun-
dries.
SHOW COLORS
Ingenious PariSians always
found means, however, to display
the French national colors. Shop
windows were arranged so that,
"by accident" the goods display
ed were in sequence blue, white
and red. Despite the most care
full guard, every morning there
appeared on the grave of the I'm
known Soldier at the Arc de Tri-
omphe a fresh tribute of blue,
white and red flowers.
Street arrests were, of course,
commonplace. The stories of ges-
tapo brutalities in Paris would
fill volumes. / will cite only a
few examples which / personal
ly witnessed:
Whenever the Allied air forces
came over Paris, the French
would stand on the streets and
watch quietly, but proudly. One
night q man dressed in civilian
clothes pointed to bombers over
head and said: That's their lib
Grafton Bombs on civilians"
They never bomb the city, but
only the factories in the SUBJ
urbs," corrected a young by
stander of about a. Whereupon
the civilian proclaimed himself
to be a gestapo agent, struck the
youth hard in the face, handcuf-
fed him and dragged the boy
away with him.
1t goes without saying that no
one could express an anti-Ger-
man opinion without the great
est of caution. 1t was doubly
hard to hold ones tongue be-
cause the Germans seemed to de-
light in provocation. There was,
for example, the daily parade of
the guard at l o'clock, from the
Place de la Concorde to the Arc
de Triomphe. During this lunch
hour display of arrogance no one
was permitted to cross Paris
most famous boulevard.
Simply smoker brought end
less trouble. One summer after
noon in 1941 l was unable to Wis
it the Observatory gardens. They
were shut because a week earlier
someone had laughed at the sight
of grown men marching like
geese. A German officer had shot
down one of the laughers.
Normally the curfew was
either IL o'clock or midnight. If
one could not get home before
that hour, it was best to stay in
q hotel somewhere. Even that
was not easy. In all but hand
full of the hotels no native Paris
fore one could enter any hotel at
ians were admitted. Indeed, be-
all he had to be invited by a resi-
dent. And, of course, the Ger
mans had requisitioned an over
whelming majority of the decent
places.
The Partisan was indeed a for
eigner in his own city, what with
requisitioned theaters, movies,
restaurants, clubs and homes.
But in some ways this was al
most an advantage. 1t brought
the Partisan less often in contact
with the Germans. Fortunately,
too, the Germans had notorious
ly bad taste. They were notably
absent from the places of real ar
tistic merit, preferring to DOM
-. IL al