In 1995 Jacques Chirac, the former president of france has publicly recognized France's responsibility for deporting thousands of Jews to Nazi death camps during the German occupation in World War II. His statement put an end to decades of equivocations by successive French Governments about France's wartime role, but what difference does this apology really make?
Chirac’s apology has been very warmly welcomed by those affected by the Jew roundups during WWII. However, since he was not directly responsible, I think that he was not the one who should have been doing the apologizing. I do realize that he, being the political representative of France spoke for the whole nation, but ‘the nation’ did not commit any crimes, people did and thus those responsible should stand up and apologize.
The article also mentions that the Jewish families did not retrieve their confiscated belongings, which tells me that the apology was merely verbal, but no action has been taken to repay or mitigate the wounds of the past. Another example of the insincerity of the apology is the lack of initiative taken in the case of Maurice Papon.
All in all, I believe that no apology can make the past events better and substitute the many losses. It is a ‘nice’ idea of France trying to take responsibility what its authorities did during war, but many of those directly responsible are either dead or do not parade their involvement. The truth is that the evil cannot be undone and only through the memory of the deceased and a shift from the primitive attitude towards Jews can there be any healing.
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