Paris Liberation made "Whites Only"

Abstract

Background: Many who fought Nazi Germany during World War II did so to defeat the vicious racism that left millions of Jews dead. Yet the BBC's Documentary programme has seen evidence that black colonial soldiers -who made up around two-thirds of Free French forces -were deliberately removed from the unit that led the Allied advance into the French capital. By the time France fell in June 1940. 17,000 of its black. mainly West African colonial troops, known as the Tirailleurs Senegalais, lay dead. Many of them were simply shot where they stood soon after surrendering to German troops who often regarded them as sub-human savages. Their chance for revenge came in August 1944 as Allied troops prepared to retake Paris. But despite their overwhelming numbers. they were not to get it.