CATEGORIES: Concentration camp deportees were classified into categories depending on the reason they were arrested. Each category was symbolized by a different-coloured triangle. Jews arrested for other than racial reasons also had to wear a yellow triangle. Deportees who tried to escape and were caught had to wear a target on their backs allowing guards to spot them more easily from atop their watchtowers.

CDL : Comité Départemental de Libération. These committees were created in the second half of 1943 or early 1944 and modeled on the Conseil National de la Résistance, reflecting the political and trade union tendancies in each department. Their legalisation was sometimes fraught with conflict; they had to deal with the new authorities put into place by the Provisional Government of the French Republic. The committees did not outlast the municipal and cantonal elections of April-May 1945.

CFL: Corps francs de la Libération. In May 1944 the AS and the maquis groups belonging to the MUR merged to form the CFL. On the ground, this reorganisation foreshadowed the structural dependence of many maquis units on the local AS. The official merger seemed to restart the efforts of those calling for more direct action by maquis groups before D-Day.

CFLN: The CFLN (French National Liberation Committee). the heir to the Comité national français that General de Gaulle created in London, was set up in Algiers on 3 June 1943. It was co-directed by Generals Giraud and de Gaulle. From spring 1944, de Gaulle alone directed it.

CGE: Comité général d'études. Jean Moulin created the CGE (General Studies Committee) in April 1942 to study steps to take after the Liberation and to propose political, economic and administrative reform plans and projects. It depended on the representative in France of the Comité national français. One of its best-known members was Professor François de Menthon, who in 1945 was appointed the French general prosecutor at the international military tribunal in Nuremberg.

CLL: Comité local de liberation (Local Liberation Committee). These committees were appointed the same way as the Departmental Liberation Committees. They played the  same role on the local level and did not outlive the first postwar local elections in April-May 1945.

CNR: Conseil National de la Résistance (National Resistance Council. The first meeting of the CNR took place in Paris on 27 May 1943 under the chairmanship of Jean Moulin. Representatives from the eight resistance movements (three from the northern zone and five from the southern zone), six political parties and two of the main trade unions attended.  After Moulin was arrested in Caluire in June 1943, Georges Bidault, representative of the Popular Democratic Party in the CNR, succeeded him as chairman.

The CNR’s programme, adopted in March 1944, detailed the actions to take at the Liberation and sketched out a postwar political charter, a veritable programme of reforms to carry out in order to found a new republic and democracy on more just economic and social foundations.

COLLABORATOR: Person who cooperated with the Nazi occupiers, without necessarily advocating all their ideas.

COLLABORATIONIST: Person who actively co-operated with the Nazi occupiers, shared their ideas and wanted them to win the war.

COMITE NATIONAL FRANÇAIS: The status of the CNF (French National Committee) was comparable to that of a government: due to the circumstances, it had executive and legislative powers. It was made up of eight national commissioners with the same attributes as ministers. Appointed by General de Gaulle, the head of France Libre, they reported to him. The Comité français de libération national (CFLN, or French Committee of National Liberation) and, later the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF) took over afterwards.

COMMISSIONERS OF THE REPUBLIC : The CFLN appointed the first 20 commissioners on 3 October 1943, before the ordinance of 10 January 1944 on the creation of regional commissioners was even drafted. It was not published until July. At the time, the Allies were trying to impose a military government of the “occupied territories”. The first one appointed was François Coulet in Normandy, who took office immediately after D-Day on 6 June 1944. The commissioners, whose powers were greater than those of a prefect, were abolished in March 1946.

COMPAGNON DE LA LIBERATION : General de Gaulle created the Order of the Liberation on l6 November 1940. Its members bear the title of Companion of the Liberation. Altogether,1,036 physical persons, 18 military units and five French towns received the Companion of the Liberation Cross. The decoration’s ribbon, made up of a Lorraine cross on a sword, is black, the symbol of grief-stricken France in 1940, and green, the symbol of hope in the motherland. The decoration was given to the men and six women whose actions stood out for the liberation of France and its empire.

CONCENTRATION CAMPS: The Nazis sent political opponents, common-law criminals, Jews, homosexuals and Russian prisoners to the concentration camps, which were called “slow death camps” because the deportees were worked to death in them.

CONDOR LEGION: headed by the aviator Galland, the Condor Legion was sent to to Spain to support the insurgents against the Republicans. On 26 April 1937 it dropped 500-kilo bombs, a size that had never been used before, on the town of Guernica, which became the symbol of Spain’s martyrdom. Picasso immortalized the 1,800 people killed in the air raid in his painting of the same name. Nationality?

CORPS DES VOLONTAIRES FRANCAISES: General de Gaulle created the Frenchwomen’s volunteer corps on 7 November 1940, when it had 26 members. Hélène Terré, the first female captain in the French army, headed the corps from late 1941.

The corps, whose membership had grown to 500 by 1943, provided auxiliaries to the three arms (FFL, FNFL and FAFL). By 1944 there were over 3,000 of them. In Algiers, the corps gave birth to the Armée féminine dans l'armée de terre (AFAT). Captains Dupont and Dumesnil were assigned to commanding the women’s volunteers on the sea and in the air.

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