Refugee workers in Vichy France

Refugee workers in Vichy France describes the work and lists the expatriates from several countries who assisted refugees in Vichy France during World War II, mostly from 1940 to 1942. As most European countries and British commonwealth countries such as Canada and Australia were engaged in the war, Americans and American humanitarian organizations became prominent in the task of providing aid to refugees fleeing Nazi Germany and German-controlled countries and seeking safety. Prior to the U.S. entry into World War II, "an American passport gave most Americans abroad a reasonably justified sense of invulnerability." Organizations from neutral Switzerland also assisted refugees. The refugee organizations employed or took on volunteers of many nationalities, including French people resident in Vichy.

Many of the international refugee organizations came to France to aid people interned in several refugee camps in southern France. By 1942 the refugee organizations realized that Jews were the most endangered group among the diverse nationalities and ethnicities that made up the refugee population. Refugee workers and organizations became involved in helping refugees escape France. The protection and escape, legal or illegal, of Jewish children became the top priority of many organizations. Six thousand children, mostly Jewish, were sheltered by French families or in group homes and survived the war. Among the people who helped refugees were diplomats of several countries who issued visas, often against the regulations of their home countries, to refugees enabling them to leave France for safety in other countries.

During the same period in which humanitarian organizations in Vichy France were assisting refugees fleeing Nazi Germany, escape and evasion lines, such as the Comet Line and the Pat O'Leary Line, were helping Allied soldiers and downed airmen evade German capture and walk across the Pyrenees into neutral Spain. The British covert agency called the Special Operations Executive also had agents crossing the Spanish border. Vichy France was a mixing bowl of different nationalities and organizations with various, often conflicting, interests and activities.