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Nimes at War: Religion, Politics, and Public Opinion in the Gard, 1938-1944

Robert Zaretsky
Reviewed by By Fritz Stern
July/August 1995
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Robert Zaretsky
Penn State Press
1995
276 pp.
$50.00

An analysis of the moods and behavior of the population of one French department, the Gard, which by virtue of its religious composition--Protestants made up a quarter of the population--was probably atypical. Clearly the Protestant groups were more reserved about the great "father figure" Petain than were Catholics or the hierarchy. The Protestants were also more active in helping Jews. Despite the early support of Vichy, concludes the author, a young American historian working closely with local archives, the Resistance increasingly gained many more sympathisants, vital to the struggle against Vichy and the Nazi occupiers.

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