The Special Sections (Sections spéciales) were tribunals set up in Vichy France, one for each Court of Appeal, charged with judging Communists and anarchists. They were organised by the Vichy authorities during the German reprisals for the assassination on the métro Barbès by Pierre Georges on 21 August 1941. They feature in the 1975 film Section spéciale.
Famous quotes containing the words special and/or sections:
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“That we can come here today and in the presence of thousands and tens of thousands of the survivors of the gallant army of Northern Virginia and their descendants, establish such an enduring monument by their hospitable welcome and acclaim, is conclusive proof of the uniting of the sections, and a universal confession that all that was done was well done, that the battle had to be fought, that the sections had to be tried, but that in the end, the result has inured to the common benefit of all.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)