Kristen Lefebvre, G09

By Any Account

Kristen Lefebvre, G09, hopes to educate museum visitors about the Vichy regime.

Has France fully come to terms with the Vichy regime? asks Kristen Lefebvre, G09.

It wasn't a typical family outing that caused the seismic shift in the life of Kristen Lefebvre, G09, when she was thirteen years old—no coming-of-age ceremony, camping trip at a national park, or all-inclusive Caribbean excursion. It was a trip to Dachau.

"My father was in the Air Force, so my family moved around a lot," said Lefebvre, who recently completed her master of arts in history and museum studies. "When I was in sixth grade, while we were stationed in Germany, we visited the Dachau concentration camp. It left such an impression that it motivated me to start learning more about what happened during the Holocaust."

Following the trip, Lefebvre sought out the memoirs of survivors, and began reading. She continued to study these accounts as a European history major at Bates College, writing her thesis on the different accounts written by men and women. While at Bates, Lefebvre also took a course on France's Vichy regime. "The class sparked my interest in looking at World War II and the Holocaust as it related to France, specifically," she said. "And when I came to Tufts for graduate school, I started investigating the role the regime played in perpetrating the Holocaust; and how this period is viewed today."

The Vichy regime came to power in 1940, following the French army's defeat by German forces. The country's democratic Third Republic was dissolved and France was divided into occupied and unoccupied zones. Complicit with the Nazis, the Vichy regime rounded up Jewish individuals from the region and deported them to concentration camps. Notably, in July 1942 French police arrested 12,884 Jewish people (including 4,501 children and 5,802 women) in what became known as
La Grande Rafle, or "the big roundup."

As recently as the 1990s, France was widely criticized for not coming to terms with the complicated history of the Vichy regime. As Lefebvre found, such criticism may have been misguided.

"For a period there was, I believe, a denial that the Vichy regime collaborated with the Nazi occupying forces," said Lefebvre. "But I found that the French have very much come to terms with this historical period."

As proof, Lefebvre cites the many monuments and memorials erected in France in honor of the victims of the Holocaust; and changes in the educational system, in which the history of the
Vichy regime is now required reading for students from primary school through high school. She also notes former French President Jacques Chirac's official acknowledgement in 1995 of the country's role in deporting Jewish individuals to concentration camps. Still, Lefebvre said, while the French seem to have confronted their past, "They are sometimes criticized for taking so long to do so."

Her master's program behind her, Lefebvre continues to be interested in World War II and the Holocaust. She works at StudyPoint, which specializes in one-on-one, in-home tutoring services, but hopes to land a job related to her academic interest.

"I plan to work in the education department of a museum that focuses on Holocaust history and education," she said. "I hope to inspire and engage students in the study of history, as others did for me."

Article by Robert Bochnak, G07, senior writer/communications manager, Office of Graduate Studies

Photo by Alonso Nichols