In many letters written during WWII Cousteau wishes to get rid of "youtres" which is a derogatory word for Jews much worse than the N word in English.
The defense of Commandant Cousteau's anti-Semite private writings usually goes along the lines of "okay, but everybody did the same at the time". But this is not true. Most people did not actively call for the physical extermination of Jews in occupied France. They did nothing to prevent it -- but rejoicing and calling for more is on another level.
His brother was a frequent contributor to "Je suis partout" during WWII and was sentenced to death for his writings at the end of the war (later commuted to life in prison).
And yes, Cousteau is not his brother. Yet -- not a good family.
So far you and others here have only shown one example of a letter where he is calling for jewish (and muslim) people to be kicked out. I have seen nothing about extermination etc.
Even more so- what the hell is this "not a good family" business all about? Seriously? The whole family? Because of one member? This is just mud-slinging.
Cousteau probably didn't realise _exactly_ what was likely to happen to Jewish people who were 'kicked out' to make room for important filmmakers; this was the year before the Wannsee Conference. But one would have had to be extremely naive to think that anything good was happening to the Jewish populations the Nazis were then deporting across their empire.
By "family" I meant Cousteau's family during the war, not all his descendants of course. Sorry if that was unclear.
But he was a Nazi sympathizer and was protected by the Germans during the war. Then he falsely claimed to have been a member of the Resistance. This is all documented in his biography.
Once more, I have to ask you, if you do not mean to implicate Cousteau's entire family, all the way up to his great-great grandchildren, for Cousteau's antisemitism, then why are you bringing his antisemitism up in a discussion about his grandson?
Why is what you are doing here any different than reminding everyone of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis everytime someone talks about modern Germany, or Angela Merkel?
The defense of Commandant Cousteau's anti-Semite private writings usually goes along the lines of "okay, but everybody did the same at the time". But this is not true. Most people did not actively call for the physical extermination of Jews in occupied France. They did nothing to prevent it -- but rejoicing and calling for more is on another level.
His brother was a frequent contributor to "Je suis partout" during WWII and was sentenced to death for his writings at the end of the war (later commuted to life in prison).
And yes, Cousteau is not his brother. Yet -- not a good family.