Anne Darquier

Anne Darquier (1930–September 1970), a psychiatrist, was the daughter of the French fascist Louis Darquier de Pellepoix and his Tasmanian wife, Myrtle Jones.

Shortly after her birth in London, Darquier was handed over to the care of an English nanny, Elsie Lightfoot. She grew up in Oxfordshire, unaware of her father's role in the murder of French Jews in World War II. After clinical training at London's Saint Bartholomew's Hospital, she accquired her professional role in the early 1960s. During the late 1950s, she discovered the truth about the wartime Vichy France anti-Semitic atrocities that her father, Louis Darquier de Pellepoix had participated in, and became permanently estranged from him, much as she already had from her mother, Myrtle Jones. In 1970, she died of alcohol and barbiturates, not exactly a suicide but, as Carmen Callil wrote, "there are slow ways of trying to kill yourself not given that label." [Callil, quoted in David A. Bell, " [http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061211/bell The Collaborator] ", "The Nation", posted November 22, 2006 (December 11, 2006 issue, p. 28–36). p. 35.]

Notes

References

* Carmen Callil, "Bad Faith: A Forgotten History of Family, Fatherland and Vichy France", London: Cape (2006). ISBN 0375411313
* Kathy Brewis, [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2099-2075698,00.html The villain of Vichy France] , "Sunday Times", 19 March 2006. (Includes a photograph of Anne Darquier as a child.)
* Peter Conrad, [http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1739632,00.html Vile days in Vichy] , "The Observer", 26 March 2006.