National Content: France
France accuses at the Nuremberg trial
| Source | Gaumont-Pathé Archives.WebSite France5.fr/2gm (1946) |
| Event referred to | Beginning of the Nuremberg trial |
| Technological characteristics | Type of file video : 3’08 Readable by Real video or Windowmedia (high and low output) |
| Description of the source | Kind of source :current event films
origin of the source : web Language: French Copyright issues : france 5 / Gaumont pathé archives To read the video : 1. Go to : http://www.france5.fr/2gm/W00399/6/110860.cfm 2. Choose 1946. 3. Choose 1er Octobre 1946 Nuremberg 4. Choose : “Le témoignage de Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier. |
| Contextualisation of the source | The general de Gaulle has just resigned presidency of the GPRF France occupies a part of Germany and has a judge : Henri Donnedieu de Vabres- in the court of NUREMBERG, like USSR - The United States and England. The prisoners in concentration camps who survived, are back. Some French prisoners testify in court at NUREMBERG, among them, Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier (who was in the Resistance) : January 23rd 1946. France is to be rebuilt, economically. |
| Interpretation of the source | France is part of the side of the conquerors and take part in the trial of Nuremberg, which had been dediced by USA, USSR and great Britain.
France asks sentencing for the atrocities committed by the Nazis, especially as regards the French prisoners. In the presented extract, the fate that awaited Jewish prisoners is not mentioned, but to the body of prisoners whatever the motive for their imprisonment in a concentration camp may have been. |
| Original Contents | La France martyrisée, torturée, a fait entendre à Nuremberg la grande voix de son réquisitoire. François de Menthon parlant en notre nom, au nom de dizaines de milliers de nos martyrs, décrit les étapes du calvaire français. « Monsieur le Président, messieurs les juges, la conscience des [inaudible] hier a servi et torturé dans leur âme et dans leur chaire vous demande de juger et de condamner la plus monstrueuse entreprise de domination et de barbarie de tous les temps. » Marie Claude Vaillant-Couturier va dire ce qu’elle a vu de ses yeux à Auschwitz et à Ravensbrück ; 3Nous sommes arrivés à Auschwitz au petit jour. En passant le porche, nous sentions tellement qu’il y avait peu de chances d’en ressortir –car nous avions déjà rencontré les colonnes squelettiques qui se dirigeaient au travail- qu’en passant sous le porche nous avons chanté la marseillaise pour nous donner du courage. Là, on nous a rasé la tête et on nous a tatoué sur l’avant bras gauche le numéro matricule. Il arrivait en général sur un transport de quinze cents, de mille à quinze cents. Il en rentrait rarement plus de 250 et c’est tout à fait un maximum dans le camp. Le reste était directement dirigé au gaz. La chambre à gaz était juste devant notre bloc et naturellement séparée par deux rangées de fil de fer barbelé. Nous voyons donc les wagons déplombés, les soldats sortir les hommes, les femmes et les enfants des wagons et on assistait aux scènes déchirantes des vieux couples se séparant, des mères étant obligées d’abandonner leurs jeunes filles, puisqu’elles entraient dans le camp tandis que les mères et les enfants étaient dirigés vers la chambre à gaz. Une nuit, nous avons été réveillées par des cris effroyables. Nous avons appris le lendemain matin par les hommes qui travaillaient au Zonderkommando –le commando des gaz- que la veille, n’ayant pas assez de gaz, ils avaient jeté les enfants vivants dans les fournaises. » des enfants jetés vivants dans des fournaises. L’ordre nouveau allemand, la grandeur nazie. |
| Original Contents (English Translation) | Tormented and tortured, France made its spokesman appear in court to bring its indictment against the defendants. François de Menthon, speaking in our name, in the name of tens of thousands of our martyrs describes the different stages of the French ordeal. -Mister the President, your Honours, the conscience of the (inaudible) yesterday, served and tortured in their soul and in their flesh, ask you to judge and to condemn the most montrous business of domination and barbarity from time immemorial”. Marie-Claude VAILLANT-COUTURIER is going to tell us what she saw with her own eyes at AUSCHWITZ and at RAVENBRUCK. - We arrived at Auschwitz at dawn. As we passed through the door, we knew only too well how slender our chances were that we would come out again – for we had already met columns of living skeletons going to work – and as we entered, we sang the “Marseillaise” to keep up courage. There, our heads were shaved and our registration numbers were tattooed on the left forearm. Out of a convoy of 1,500, only 250 people stayed in the camp.It was a maximum ; The remainder was directly sent to be gased.. The gas chamber was right opposite our block, though of course, separated from us by two rows of barbed wire. Consequently, we saw the unsealing of the cars and the soldiers letting men, women and children out of them. We then witnessed heart-rending scenes : old couples forced to part from each other, mothers made to abandon their young daughters since the latter were sent to the camp whereas mothers and children were sent to the gas chambers. One night, we were awakened by terrifying cries. And we discovered on the following day, from the men working in the “Zonderkommando” the “gas Kommando”, that on the preceding day, the gas supply having run out, they had thrown the children into the furnaces alive”. The German new order, the greatness of nazism. |