Police des Questions Juives
- Police for Jewish Affairs
- PQJ
Dates of Existence
1941-10-19/1942-08-05
History
In 1941-10 the Commissariat Général aux Questions Juives was reorganized and its role became more aggressive with the creation of the Police des Questions Juives as a unit within it. Not a part of the regular police, and including rogues and pimps from Pigalle in Paris, the PQJ, though it had no legal power to make arrests, specialized in hunting down Jews, both searching and stealing from them, and acting as guards in the internment camps, where they stole jewelry, watches, rings and money. A brutal, violent, and corrupt group, it was transformed on 1942-08-05 into the Section d’Enquête et de Contrôle, the Section for Enquiry and Control (SEC), a more neutral name.
Places
Founded in France.
Sources
Verdict on Vichy : Power and prejudice in the Vichy France Regime / M. Curtis. – London, 2002. – p. 130