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WWII’s French Serial Killer Doctor and Other Forgotten Monsters From History

Khalid Elhassan January 27, 2020 32 min

34. Dr. Petiot in Occupied France

German officers relaxing in a Parisian cafe, 1940. The Telegraph

After France was conquered by Germany in 1940, French citizens were drafted to toil in Germany as forced laborers. Dr. Petiot helped labor draft evaders by furnishing them with fake medical disability documents. He also treated workers who were sent back from Germany, broken down and in poor health. That was his good side – the Dr. Jekyll part – during the war. Unfortunately, it was eclipsed by the doctor’s evil Mr. Hyde side.

Dr. Petiot also claimed to have been a member of the French Resistance, developing secret weapons that killed Germans without leaving a trace, planting booby traps, meeting Allied commanders, and working with an imaginary cell of anti-fascists. It was all bunk. What was not bunk was his diabolical scheme to profit from the Holocaust by murdering dozens of Jews in order to steal from them.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.