France - Nazi occupation

Pétain's furniture put on auction block

Article published on the 2009-10-16 Latest update 2009-10-19 07:27 TU

Marshal Pétain's furniture up for auction.
(Photo: Reuters)

A desk, a chair and two bookshelves. But not just any office furniture. These items belonged to occupied France's collaborationist leader, Marshal Philippe Pétain, and they're being auctioned off after almost 70 years in the possession of the Jewish family who reclaimed them after the liberation.

After signing an armistice with the Nazis in 1940, which left the north and west of the country in German hands, Pétain moved the capital of unoccupied France to Vichy, where he quickly had to set up an administration.

Officials scoured the region in the south of France, and requisitioned all sorts of objects of value, including these pieces of furniture from the late 19th Century, made in a neo-Egyptian style.

The furniture belonged to an aristocratic Jewish family, who owned a summer house in the area. Marshall Pétain used the furniture in his office until 1942, when the Vichy government was moved to Germany.

After the war, the original owners of the furniture reclaimed it. The pieces stayed in the family home until now.

"The grandfather and the father worked on the furniture. But the grandchildren developped a real aversion to the pieces," said auctioneer Anne Morel. These grandchildren were the ones who decided to sell the furniture once and for all.

Following the war, Pétain was tried and sentenced to death for treason, a punishment that was commuted to life-imprisonment on the Ile d'Yeu off the Atlantic coast, where he died in 1951.

Pétain's furniture is expected to fetch more than 10,000 euros when it is auctioned off on Sunday in Saint-Dié.