FRENCH NAZI COLLABORATOR PAPON DIES

French Nazi-Era Collaborator Papon Dies (FOX NEWS)
PARIS — Maurice Papon, a former Cabinet minister who was convicted of complicity in crimes against humanity for his role in deporting Jews during World War II and became a symbol of France's collaboration with the Nazis, died Saturday. He was 96.

Papon, who underwent surgery on his pacemaker at a clinic east of Paris last week, died in his sleep on Saturday, said his lawyer, Francis Vuillemin.

Papon was the highest-ranking Frenchman to be convicted for a role in the pro-Nazi Vichy regime.

The April 2, 1998, guilty verdict was the culmination of a trial that offered a painful look at one of the darkest periods in modern French history.

However, Papon _ who at one point fled France to avoid prison _ lived out his final years a free man, released from Paris' dour La Sante prison on Sept. 18, 2002, because of failing health.

In a February 2001 letter to the justice minister, Papon said he had neither "regrets nor remorse for a crime I did not commit and for which I am in no way an accomplice."

Papon served only three years of a 10-year sentence for ordering the arrest and deportation of 1,690 Jews, including 223 children, from the Bordeaux area to Nazi death camps.

SEE ALSO: Papon Lawyer Vows to Bury Him With Medal (FOX NEWS)
PARIS — A prominent French political figure who ordered hundreds of Jews to Nazi death camps during World War II will be buried wearing his Legion of Honor medal, his lawyer said Sunday, even though the deceased man was stripped of his right to wear the decoration in 1998.

SEE ALSO: A dark-haired little boy by Michel Gurfinkiel (Political Mavens)
The Vichy police sent my brother to Auschwitz in 1942. He was almost nine years old. Maurice Papon, one of the Vichy officials who oversaw the round up of Jews, passed away yesterday near Paris. He was almost ninety seven years old.