Although the Holocaust is infamously associated with Germany, the persecution of Jews stretched throughout Europe. This was partially because of Adolph Hitler's desire for world domination. In France, it was called the Vel' d' Hiv' or Operation Spring Breeze. The northern jurisdiction of France at the time was under German control. Thus, French officials, under German authority, carried out orders from the Nazi powers to avoid complete German dominance. Just as in Germany, men, women and children of Jewish origin, were dragged away from their homes and sent to camps where they were either put to work or death. .
The greatest mass-arrest of Jews ever carried out on French soil, the Vel' d' Hiv' targeted all Jews. However, the reason for this massacre wasn't because French officials were anti-Semitic, it was more of a power struggle/ partnership between France and Germany, "competition between Vichy [government in France from 1940 to 1944] and the Germans for pride of place in the legalistic victimization of the Jews.""(France and the French-263) After the invasion of Russia, the German's techniques to exile the Jews became more aggressive. The total Jewish population in France was roughly 300,000. Half of them were recent immigrants and refugees already under attack from previous movements of the 1930's. "The internment of many Austrian and German Jewish refugees at the outbreak of war was justified as necessary measures against enemy aliens, and a form of moral justification accompanied the expansion of camps across the southern zone, into which foreign Jews of any origin were herded in 1941."" (France and the French 263). .
Beginning around September of 1940, the French government had over 45 camps for men, woman and children. Some were listed as foreigners, others listed as Jews, political prisoners and undesirables. The Germans had also been administering transit camps for political prisoners around the same time.
