Pierre Caron facing the exodus — the archivist and his post
Summer 1939: , Director of the National Archives since 1937, put into effect a protection plan prepared well in advance. Some of the most valuable holdings were evacuated to provincial châteaux (Loire, Haute-Loire); the rest remained in the Paris depositories, too vast to be moved.
In June 1940, the rout accelerated. The government abandoned Paris for Bordeaux, millions of civilians took to the roads of the exodus, and the German army entered the capital on 14 June. Caron had to make a decision for himself and his institution.
Staying exposed the director and the Paris holdings to the occupier; leaving left the depositories without anyone in charge at the very moment they were most vulnerable. No clear order reached him from a state in full collapse.
In June 1940, as the government left Paris for Bordeaux and the Wehrmacht drew near, what did the Director of the National Archives decide?
chose to remain at his post in Paris to watch over the collections and the institution, even as the government withdrew to Bordeaux. He ensured the administrative continuity of the National Archives under the Occupation. As early as mid-June 1940, Captain Plassmann, attached to the German embassy, contacted him; then a German archive-protection service (Archivschutz), led by , set up at the Hôtel de Rohan in August 1940 and obtained the return to Paris of most of the holdings evacuated in 1939. Caron headed the Archives until 1941.
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