And the Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris Read Online Free PDF

however, was to wear a jaunty hat. Photographs taken by André Zucca in the streets of central Paris suggest that red and black were the preferred colors. In fact, whether designed by professionals or improvised at home, hats—of all colors, sizes and angles—became the most distinctive fashion emblem of the occupation. They also offered the most imaginative displays of French craftsmanship: there were hats variously made with celluloid, thin slices of wood and newspapers. Nowhere were hats more spectacular than at the races at the Hippodrome de Longchamp and the Hippodrome d’Auteuil, in the Bois de Boulogne. In contrast to the smaller hats for daily use, here they were extravagantly large, often topped by an immense feather or two. Collaborationist newspapers made a point of photographing the most inventive designs as a way of showing Parisians happily at play—alongside smart German army uniforms. The implicit message was that if Parisians could afford to spend an afternoon betting on horses, surely life was much as before. Evidently, these same papers paid little attention to the growing struggle of the majority of Parisians to keep warm and adequately fed.
    That money continued to divide Parisians was well illustrated in the restaurant life of the city. Most people could afford to eat only at home. What they acquired with ration cards was supplemented by extras bought on the black market and, for those with generous relatives in the countryside, by an occasional shipment of a chicken or a leg of lamb. But many family-run bistros stayed open, with some willing to risk fines or closure by offering two menus: one official, the other black market; one cheap, the other pricey. So even in seemingly modest establishments, like Picasso’s regular haunt, Le Catalan, on the rue des Grands-Augustins, on some days it was possible to have oysters followed by gigot d’agneau . (There were even moments when oysters were so plentiful that their shells were used for fuel.)More elegant restaurants favored by the German military elite and the wealthy of Paris did not bother with such fictions. At establishments like Maxim’s, La Tour d’Argent, Prunier, Drouant, Laurent, Le Pavillon de l’Élysée and Fouquet’s, everything was available at the right price, starting with the best champagne and ending with vintage cognacs. Of these, Maxim’s, a few steps from the place de la Concorde, had the most loyal German clientele, including Göring on his frequent art-raiding visits to Paris. It was also at Maxim’s that German officers could be seen hosting leading collaborators, like the newspaper editor Jean Luchaire and such celebrities as Sacha Guitry.
    Could the nightlife of Paris have been any different? It was, of course, the Germans who decided how it should be; they wanted to be entertained and they wanted Parisians to be distracted. And since music halls, cabarets, brothels and restaurants were closely monitored, Paris by night posed neither a political nor a security threat to the occupiers. But Parisians also wanted this nightlife to continue: it was part of the city’s identity, it provided a sense of normality and it gave jobs to many thousands of actors, singers, dancers and strippers, as well as to seamstresses, furriers, cooks and waiters. True, the sight of Parisians enjoying themselves during the occupation never ceased to surprise outsiders, whether they were visitors from the provinces or Gaullist agents on secret missions from London. But for many Parisians, having suffered the humiliation of defeat, this was one way of demonstrating to themselves—and perhaps also to the Germans—that all was not lost.
* One story, endlessly repeated although never confirmed by Baker, is that she fell ill after a private dinner with Göring during which he tried to poison her for belonging to the resistance by putting cyanide in her wine. The unlikely story even has Baker escaping through a laundry hatch and being rescued by her