History teaches us
The German and collaborationist authorities wanted to show life under occupation as a renewed everyday life: pubs are open, the radio is playing, halls are full, people are laughing. While Jews and Roma were taken away and killed, and hostages, real and would-be communists were shot, newspapers wrote about "cheerfulness", "optimism" and crowded auditoriums. Laughter could become a backdrop to a normality that was not there
