Thinking about a debate I had with my family over breakfast. My dad was watching a movie about Nazi occupation of France. My mother said "oh it's a holocaust movie" while my father said, "no, it's a World War II movie." What separates actions made by the Nazis in the theater of war and their actions in carrying out the Holocaust?
The Holocaust and World War II were very deeply connected, especially through the usage of forces like the Einsatzgruppen, even though this was of course more prevelant on the eastern front.
Your parents are arguing whether a thing includes apples or whether it includes fruit. The Holocaust is a deeply engrained in World War II, with most of the killing happening during the war, even though of course early concentration camps like Dachau existed before it. Every Holocaust move is a World War II movie, but not every World War II movie is necessarily a Holocaust movie.
Alright, let's get to your main question. Which by the way is not entirely clear.
The title says:
Would you qualify the Nazi occupation of France as an act of World War II or an act of The Holocaust?
and the end of your description says
What separates actions made by the Nazis in the theater of war and their actions in carrying out the Holocaust?
And you know what? I'll answer them both!... somewhat. The second one is pretty generic.
So, Number 1.
Would you qualify the Nazi occupation of France as an act of World War II or an act of The Holocaust?
The occupation of France is very clearly a military operation of World War II, called Fall Rot (Case Red). The Vichy Regime in the south, established in 1940 and somewhat (not really) independent up until 1942 was also part of World War II, as they fought the allies in French colonies in North Africa. The subsequent occupation of southern France after Fall Anton (Case Anton) was also part of World War II, as there were direct allied landings in southern France, the most famous of which probably being Operation Dragoon.
But then again, 90,000+ French Jews were systematically murdered, first by the Germans in the northern zone, then by the Germans (without major Italian aid though) in the southern zone - but not after France themselves under the Petain regime had introduced Nuremberg-esque racial policies, condemning communists, Jews, freemasons and immigrants as "Anti-French".
The first convoy of the previously rounded-up Jews left on March 27th, 1942, and it headed for Auschwitz-Birkenau.
After Italy collapsed in 1943, the Italian occupation zone of France came under German control, and Holocaust measures were enacted there as well, beginning arrests and deportations.
The last convoy of Jewish prisoners left France on July 31st, 1944.
So, yeah. You cannot really give an answer to this question. It is both an act of World War II and the Holocaust. It would be disrespectful to the victims of one of these proceedings to put it merely as part of the other.
Number 2.
What separates actions made by the Nazis in the theater of war and their actions in carrying out the Holocaust?
This is a very general question that I cannot really answer all by myself. Maybe /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov can lend us some of his amazing detail about the eastern front and especially about the already mentioned Einsatzgruppen.
The reason why I cannot really answer the question to its full extent was because the western front, which I focus on, was very much the smaller brother of the eastern front when it comes to the Holocaust.
As I said, 90,000+ French people were murdered. Add to that 25,000 Belgians, 106,000 Dutch, 2,000 Luxembourgers and maybe let's throw in the 130,000 Germans and 7,500 Italians as well (these numbers can differ from source to source depending on the definitions and estimations applied; all of these numbers taken from the Anne Frank Guide), if we want to include them with western Europe. Overall, that sums up to 360,000 dead. An absolutely horrifying number, but a number that pales in the face of 2.9 million dead in Poland, 270,000 in Romania, 71,000 in Slovakia, 450,000 in Hungary, 80,000 in Bohemia and Moravia and 500,000 in the USSR.
You get the idea. This question, as you state it, kind of blows the frame of France.
Unless you mean "What separates actions made by the Nazis in the theater of war and their actions in carrying out the Holocaust... in France?".
In which case, well. The theater of war was just that, a theater of war. Tens of thousands of dead on both sides while the Germans punched the allied lines. Clear borders (mostly), clear objectives.
During their occupation (and the Holocaust), groups like the French Resistance engaged in massive guerilla warfare to disable German-held industrial areas. This led to the main cause of death being ambushes and executions rather than often field combat.
Sources:
Housden, Martyn: "Hans Frank: Lebensraum and the Holocaust", 2003
Mazower, Mark: "Hitler's Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe", 2008
Piekalkiewicz, Janusz: "Der Zweite Weltkrieg", 1984
Rousso, Henry: "Frankreich und die 'dunklen Jahre'. Das Regime von Vichy in Geschichte und Gegenwart", 2010
Schreiber, Gerhard: "Der Zweite Weltkrieg", 2002
Weinberg, Gerhard: "Germany, Hitler, and World War II: Essays in Modern German and World History", 1995
Wucher, Albert: "Marksteine der Deutschen Zeitgeschichte: 1914-1945", 1991
Zentner, Christian: "Der Zweite Weltkrieg", 1987