Prominent right-wing Quebec nationalists helped shelter war criminals and collaborators after WWII, according to a report this month in the Montreal newspaper Le Devoir.
Quebec university students Jean-Francois Nadeau and Gonzalo Arriaga discovered that the late historian Robert Rumilly led a network that lobbied hard to allow “French political refugees” to live in Canada after 1945.
Among the war criminals Rumilly allegedly protected was Jacques Duge, who was sentenced to death in absentia by a French court in 1947.
Duge, also known as Count Jacques de Bernonville, was the right-hand man of Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo chief of Lyon from 1942 till the city’s liberation in 1944.
In 1987, Barbie, called “the Butcher of Lyon,” was extradited to France from Bolivia, where he had lived for 34 years, to stand trial.
After his conviction, he died in prison of cancer in September 1991.
De Bernonville slipped into Canada from the United States in 1946 dressed as a priest. He remained in Quebec five years, staving off deportation through the help of the Catholic Church and other powerful sectors of Quebec society.
In 1951, when de Bernonville was about to be arrested and extradited to France, Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent gave him warning, and the Vichy collaborator escaped to Brazil.
He was found strangled to death in his Rio de Janeiro apartment in 1972.
Others who found shelter in Quebec, according to Le Devoir, were Count Victor Kayserling, a German SS officer and diplomat who later fled to Haiti; Julien Labedan, who led the Vichy Milice (militia) against partisans; and Dr. Michel-Lucien Seigneur, a French SS veteran.
Help ensure Jewish news remains accessible to all. Your donation to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency powers the trusted journalism that has connected Jewish communities worldwide for more than 100 years. With your help, JTA can continue to deliver vital news and insights. Donate today.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
