In May of 1939 Paris was the center of the world.  For nearly two decades, the City of Lights had been the city of culture, of art, of humanities.  The universities of France were among the world's greatest.  In Paris the stage shows and cabarets never ended.  Every fine thing and every vice of humanity could be found in Paris.  It was a mecca for dance, for jazz, for swing, and for fashion.  Coco Chanel, Josephine Baker, and Maurice Chevalier.  Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein.  The greatest writers, actors, dancers, singers, and scholars came to Paris between the wars. 

Tonight will be the last night before the lights go out forever.

By June 13, 1940, it was clear that the French Army would not risk defending the exposed city of Paris.  As troops were evacuated, it was inevitable that Nazi forces would enter the city by morning of the 14th.  The panic and hysteria were mostly over - on the 10th and 11th millions had fled the city, leaving it a near-deserted ghost town.  Those that remained had either a purpose, or no direction at all. 
 
Most businesses were closed, but a few limped along.  At the Crillion Hotel one of the former elevator boys was Maitre D'Hotel.  Before the war, the Hotel Hampton, catered mostly to English and American tourists.  The nightclub across the street which burned down in the bombing on June 3rd, and it has reopened in the casino of the Hampton, with an irregular lineup of acts - jazz, crooning, and swing.  Now an eclectic group of internationals and locals gather here at the only bar and restaurant in the neighborhood that remains open.  Neutral American tourists wait nervously for the occupying forces.  The French wait, some with resignation, some with admiration for the Nazis and bitter hatred of the fallen Third Republic.  Some scramble to be on the passenger train which departs the Gare D'Orsay at midnight - probably the last to depart Paris. Some have agendas - some have ennui, but all face the inevitability of occupation.

Fifty-nine years ago, on June 13,  the city of Paris France fell to Adolf Hitler's troops and was occupied by Nazi Germany.

In Spring of 1940, Paris was the major metropolitan center of a great, modern, world power.  Today, we get used to seeing lines of fleeing refugees in the third world, and are perhaps a little hardened to it.  After all, those people, of different skin color or race, are not like us.  We tell ourselves that they could never be in the situation they are in.  We live in a world of peace, sophistication, and tolerance.  Those unfortunates who have lost their homes, their careers, their lives, they could never be ourselves. 

Paris was the most civilized city in the world.  It had more automobiles than any other city - the average middle class family owned one.  All of the modern conveniences we think of today - telephone, radio, even television, were available to Parisians of 1940.  France was a world leader in science, and had already produced heavy water, one of the keys to the atom bomb. 

Electric appliances lined the kitchens, and the middle class Parisian worked a 9 to 5 office job, and took his family out on Sunday.   The French lived behind the security of the Maginot Line, the most formidable defensive structure ever constructed by a major military power - a fortification that even by today's standards would be virtually unassailable. 

In June of 1940 these fashionable middle class people choked the roads of France in one of the greatest traffic jams in history as they fled the City of Lights, sleeping in ditches or on the road.  Most eventually returned to live under Nazi occupation for half a decade.  Others ardently participated in the travesty of the Vichy Government. 

This is not a story of the remote past.  In all probability, your mother or father was alive in 1940, though fairly young.  This happened less than one full generation ago.  You may well live in a house that was standing then, and you almost certainly own furniture made before that time.  In historical terms, the fall of Paris was yesterday, and only the enormity of the Second World War separates it from our concept of "modern times." 

In April of 1940, the modern Parisian felt secure in his government's ability to defeat Hitler.  It would take the cooperation of the rest of the world, and five years of the most fierce mortal combat in history to win the Second World War, and France would never fully recover her stature as a world power. 

Paris was liberated in 1944 by Allied Troops and French Partisans.  The Allies withheld support from Parisian Partisans until nearly the end, because of fear that they would mount a Communist rebellion. 

This is a story about some people and their adventures in a difficult time.  It has no specific moral, and no specific message.  But it exists against a backdrop that conveys a message basic to all human history. 

We always live in uncertain times.