Jews of the Somme
Être Juif dans la Somme
Commissaires gerants (for businesses) and administrateurs provisoire (for residences) were charged with carrying out the various procedures involved in the transfer Jewish owned properties to non-Jews. Their backgrounds were diverse. Their services with some apparent exceptions were compensated. There is an 11-page transcript of a meeting held at the Prefecture on January 10, 1941 in which the commissaries gerants assigned to various Jewish businesses were assembled at the prefecture in the presence of the German authority Dr. Bauch, to resolve certain technical questions related to their missions. The rationale for the policy is never questioned or discussed. Before a property could be sold it had to be appraised by an expert. This was the job of the architects Maurice Thorel and Z. Carpentier. We can plot the course of aryanisation in Amiens and throughout the department by checking the dates of their expert reports (“rapports d’expertise”)
