Selected records of the Civic Chambers, attached to the Judicial courts of the Department of the Seine Les registres des arrêts des Chambres civiques de la cour de justice du département de la Seine (Z5)
Extent and Medium
32,454 digital images, JPEG and TIFF
Creator(s)
- Cour d’appel de Paris, chambres civiques de la cour de justice du département de la Seine
Biographical History
The Court of Appeal of Paris, civic chambers of the court of justice of the department of Seine was responsible for judging acts of minor collaboration. The ordinance of August 26, 1944, which instituted national indignity, stipulated that this would be pronounced by special sections established with the courts of justice called upon to repress the facts of collaboration. These sections were taking the name of civic chambers by order of September 30, 1944. National indignity was punished by national degradation, which notably entailed the deprivation of voting rights and of eligibility, and could be accompanied by the confiscation of all or part of the property.
Archival History
Archives nationales (France)
Acquisition
Source of acquisition is the Archives nationales (French National Archives). These records were transferred to the National Archives by the registry of the Paris Court of Appeal on April 27, 1960 and December 4, 1991 (the individual trial files had already been transferred on April 27, 1960.) The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the collection via the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s International Archives Project in Nov. 2019.
Scope and Content
The archives of the civic chambers of the court of justice, departmental section of the Seine, are constituted by the files of the cases judged from 1944 to 1951, classified by registration number of the Prosecutor's office, as well as by the registers of judgments and the files on behalf of the accused allowing their files to be found. The accused are often members of collaborationist parties or members of the French State services and the documents of their trials help to establish their responsibilities in the implementation of the policy of the Vichy government. We can thus find in this collection files of people who belonged to the General Commissariat for Jewish Affairs but who had a less important role within this structure. The collection contains 33 ledgers with notations relating to the defendant of each trial, the crime for which he is accused, and whether he was convicted or acquitted. The accused were tried for the following délits (criminal offences): for belongind to the government instituted after June 16, 1940, fo r taking a position in the directorate of one of the government’s propaganda agencies or the Commissariat général aux questions juives, for being a member of one of the collaborationists groups (the Milice, various far-right parties such as the Parti franciste or Parti populaire français), for publishing articles or pamphlets in favor of collaboration (with the Nazis). There is no alphabetical list of those accused, only a list of ledgers by date. These leaders do not constitue judicial files, they are only the summaries of the final decisions " les arrêts."
System of Arrangement
Organized by a file number, a name of a defendant, and chronologically: The selected call numbers are Z/5/448 – 480, dated January 2, 1945 to January 23, 1951. The ledgers, handwritten or typed, are organized chronologically, with a summary of the trial proceedings for those accused of collaboratiotion. Each entry gives the number of the civic chamber, the date the case was heard, the number of the judgement or ruling, the file number, the name and first name of the accused, the date the defendant starts his sentence or is incarcerated, and the final sentence. There is no alphabetical list of those accused, Note: This is not the entire collection, which constitues 49 linear meters and consists of 367 articles. (See the on-line description of Z5 provided by the Archives nationales.)
Conditions Governing Reproduction
Copyright Holder: Archives nationales (France)
Corporate Bodies
- Vichy Regime
Subjects
- Trials (Crimes against humanity)--France--History--20th century.
- France--Politics and government--20th century.
- Crime and criminals--France--History--20th century.
- Collaborationists--France--History--20th century.
- France--History--German occupation, 1940-1945.
- Holocaust, Jewish--1939-1945.
- World War, 1939-1945--Atrocities--France.
- Criminal investigation--France--History--20th century.
- Vichy (France)--Politics and government.
Genre
- Court records.
- Testimonies.
- Document
- Registers.