In 1940 marshal petain was known as a first world war hero the victor of the battle of verdunas the last premier of the third republic being a reactionary by inclination he blamed the third republics democracy for frances sudden defeat by germany. The holocaust also known as the shoah was the world war ii genocide of the european jewsbetween 1941 and 1945 across german occupied europe nazi germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million jews around two thirds of europes jewish population. He set up a paternalistic authoritarian regime that actively collaborated with germany vichys official neutrality notwithstanding.