Introduction: France, 1940-1944: The Ambiguous Legacy (original) (raw)

In his last work of non-fiction The Drowned and the Saved, Holocaust survivor and renowned autobiographer Primo Levi devotes an entire chapter to what he refers to as "the gray zone." Drawing a parallel with power structures in Nazi extermination camps-where some detainees were forced to work for their captors-Levi describes the hierarchies inside collaborating governments during World War II, where individuals from defeated countries worked in the service of German aggressors. Levi writes that those collaborating individuals and administrations inhabit that "gray zone," which is "where the two camps of masters and servants both diverge and converge" (42).