It could bring into the open an issue particularly painful to the French: to one degree or another, many collaborated in carrying out the Final Solution, and did so with a zeal equaled only in occupied nations (Hungary, Romania) that had already been allied with Germany before the war.
After the German conquest and occupation of the Netherlands, Barbie was assigned to Amsterdam. In 1942 he was sent to Dijon, France in the Occupied Zone. In November of the same year, at the age of 29, he was assigned to Lyon as the head of the local Gestapo.