Choice of the Jews under Vichy, The

Adam Rayski, Will Sayers

Description

In The Choice of the Jews under Vichy, Adam Rayski buttresses his analysis of war-era archival materials with his own personal testimony. His research in the archives of the military, the Central Consistory of the Jews of France, the police, and Philippe Pétain demonstrates the Vichy government’s role as a zealous accomplice in the Nazi program of genocide. He documents the efforts and absence of efforts of French Protestant and Catholic groups on behalf of their Jewish countrymen; he also explores the prewar divide between French-born and immigrant Jews, manifested in cultural conflicts and mutual antagonism as well as in varied initial responses to Vichy’s antisemitic edicts and actions. Rayski reveals how these Jewish communities eventually set aside their differences and united to resist the Nazi threat.

Sujets

• 20th Century
• Jewish Studies
• Jewish
• Modern
• Holocaust
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• Nazismo
• Segunda Guerra Mundial
• Jews
• Nazism
• The Holocaust
• Central Consistory
• Modern history
• World War II
• Nazisme
• Obermodern-Zutzendorf
• Occupation
• Translation
• Holocauste
• Seconde Guerre mondiale
• France
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 15 août 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268091835
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE CHOICE of the JEWS UNDER VICHY
Between Submission and Resistance
ADAM RAYSKI
Foreword by François Bédarida
Translated by William Sayers


Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
University of Notre Dame Press • Notre Dame, Indiana
English Language Edition Copyright © 2005 University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
All Rights Reserved
undpress.nd.edu
E-ISBN 978-0-268-09183-5
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail] Paperback edition published in 2015 Manufactured in the United States of America Translated by William Sayers from Adam Rayski, Le choix des Juifs sous Vichy: Entre soumission et résistance, published by Éditions La Découverte, Paris. © Éditions La Découverte, 1992 Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The assertions, arguments, and conclusions contained herein are those of the author or other contributors. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rayski, Adam. [Choix des juifs sous Vichy. English] The choice of the Jews under Vichy : between submission and resistance / Adam Rayski ; forward by François Bédarida ; translated by William Sayers. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 0-268-04021-4 (alk. paper) 1. Jews—Persecutions—France. 2. Jews—France—Politics and government. 3. Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945)—France. 4. World War, 1939–1945—Jewish resistance—France. 5. France—Ethnic relations. I. Title. DS135.f83r3913 005 940.53'18'0944—dc22 2005043066 ∞ This book is printed on acid-free paper. -->
CONTENTS
Foreword François Bédarida
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Prologue
PART ONE . 1940–1942: The Logic of Persecution
CHAPTER ONE . The First Anti-Jewish Measures: Dark Forebodings
“Who Is a Jew?” • Who Went Back to Paris? • A Shattered Community The First Internments • The Question of Final Objective (Endziel)
CHAPTER TWO . The Consistory between Religion and Politics
First Message of Allegiance • Helbronner’s Counter-Proposal How to Manage Misfortune? • Confronting the Second Anti-Jewish Law The Census and the Honor of Being Jewish • The Experience of the Belgian Consistory Pétain and the “Huge Jewish Fortune” • De Gaulle to Cassin: “You’ve come at just the right time”
CHAPTER THREE . Preliminaries to a Massacre
A Ghetto without Walls • First Refusal of the Directive • Nazi Propaganda Exploits Address Lists Concentrate and Isolate • Social Assistance and Resistance Protests by the Wives of the Interned • The Appeal from Moscow
CHAPTER FOUR . The Creation of the UGIF, the “Compulsory Community”
Vallat’s “Worst Case Scenario”: Blackmail • Marc Bloch and the Letter of the Twenty-Nine Must We Break with Pétain? • “They are ruining the Jews” • How to Save Honor?
CHAPTER FIVE . The Yellow Star: Stigmatize, Humiliate, and Isolate the Jews
“Support the wearers of the yellow badge!” • Protestants and Catholics Begin to Question Reactions and Exemptions • Deport 1,000 to 5,000 Jews per Month The Eve of the Great Roundup
CHAPTER SIX . July 1942: The Great Roundup and the First Acts of Resistance
A Difficult Secret • Resonance of the Appeal against the Raids Communications from Headquarters • The Hidden Face of the Raids • Röthke’s Deficient Numbers A Double Turning Point • A Letter to the Marshal from a Jewish Child
CHAPTER SEVEN . The Inhuman Hunt in the Southern Zone
Collecting the Trash • Playing the American Card • “Shades of Melancholy” in the Skies of France Rabbi Hirschler in the Field • The Law of Numbers, or “Screening” The Perverse Effects of Social Action • Laval Washes His Hands File under “Vichy, Responsibility of” • Bishops’ Crosses Are Raised The Secret Letter from de Gaulle to Saliège • The Children of Vénissieux
CHAPTER EIGHT . Drancy: The Last Circle before Hell
The Lawyers Take Charge • “News” from Drancy • A Life That Was Vanishing A Bundle of Yellowed Letters • The Spiral of Anguish • Escape: The Tunnel The Jewish Administration • Attack the Convoys of Deportees? The “Reserves” in the Camp Annexes
PART TWO . 1942–1944: To Resist or Submit?
CHAPTER NINE . “Night and Fog”: The Battle against Silence
Evidence from the Red Cross • The Consistory Knew, But . . . • The Chief Rabbi’s About-Face Revelations of a German Industrialist • Should We Talk about the Gas Chambers? To Know: A Moral Obligation • Writing: The Beginning of Memory In Gestapo and Vichy Archives
CHAPTER TEN . People of the Shadows
Clandestinity: The Condition of Survival • The Hidden Face of Daily Life An Unknown Page from the Life of Isaac Schneerson The Void around Legal Organizations • The Strange Underground Universe of Children Keeping the Faith • Real and False Baptisms
CHAPTER ELEVEN . Do Not Forget the Children
The Inevitable Turning Point • Formal Notice by Vaad Hatsala • Memories of . . . Childhood The Protestant Plateau • A Sanctuary for the Persecuted? Other Rescue Organizations • An Assessment of the War on Children
CHAPTER TWELVE . “Intermezzo,” or the Italian Reprieve
From Refuge into Trap • Berlin and Vichy Take Aim at Count Ciano Twenty Thousand Jews To Be Evacuated • The Brunner Commando in Action The Agencies Caught Unprepared • Jewish Youth React Testimony of the First Escapee from Auschwitz
CHAPTER THIRTEEN . Jewish Perceptions of the War
A Jewish State without Territory • A “Greater Israel” with the Aid of Nazi Germany Vichy and the Zionist Cause • For a “Christian Antisemitism” Polemics on the Nature of the War • Translating Perceptions into Strategy
CHAPTER FOURTEEN . 1943: By the Light of Flames from the Ghetto
The Raid on Rue Sainte-Catherine in Lyon • The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Uprisings in Jewish History • Reorganization of the “Jewish Section” The UGIF: To Be or Not to Be • Recognition of Failure • Vichy’s Last Hope: The Milice New Methods for Jew-Hunting • Himmler: Put an End to the “Foreign Jewish Resistance” From the Perspective of the End of the War • The Marcel Langer Brigade • Combat Groups in Lyon
CHAPTER FIFTEEN . Jews, French and Resistant
Vichy’s Intentional Ambivalence • Abandoned by Their Brothers? • From Mistrust to Resistance Lucien Vidal-Naquet: A Bourgeois Republican • The Jewish Identity of Marc Bloch Georges Friedmann: The Shock of October 1940 • “Israelite” and Jew: Denise Baumann and Other Rebels The MOI: A Hand Outstretched to French Jews • How Vichy Is Ruining French Jews Days of Joy and Sadness in Algiers • History’s Lesson
CHAPTER SIXTEEN . The Jewish Scouts Take Up Arms
The Origins of the Jewish Army • The “Blue and White” Squadron • “Cooperate and Infiltrate” The Visionaries of the Jewish Army • The Collapse of the MLN • Why Go to London?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN . The Jewish Resistance in All Its Variety
The Common Ground of the Jewish Resistance • Rewriting the History of the Resistance? The Various Functions of Armed Struggle • The Weight of the Past Portrait of a Jew in the Resistance: Vladimir Jankélévitch
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN . CRIF: Constructing the Future in the Shadow of Death
Vichy Does Not Respond • Orders from Berlin: Arrest Helbronner The Outline of the Postwar Community • Seven Versions of the “Charter” The Transformation of Israelite into Jew • The New Face of the Community
CHAPTER NINETEEN . A Time for All Fears and All Hopes
The Crime at Rillieux • The Massacre at Guerry • The Testament of Samy Klein The Charnel Pits of Bron • In Paris, Brunner Liquidates the UGIF Children’s Centers Inquest into the Drama • Suicidal Behavior • The End: “Remove your stars!”
C ONCLUSION . The Weight of the Present and of the Future
A FTERWORD . The Twenty-First Century
Interviews and Testimony
Acronyms of Agencies, Organizations, and Movements
Notes Index 375 -->
FOREWORD
It would be an overstatement to assert that the history of the Jews of France has been obscured or repressed for years, but it is true that it was long relegated to the second rank of historical inquiry and that there is a striking contrast with the eminent place it occupies today. Testifying to this ubiquity—which reflects the fluctuations and ongoing questioning of the French conscience—is the abundance of books and studies devoted to persecution and genocide, and the constant media attention focused on the tragic past.
In fact, the present situation is above all the result of two phenomena. The first—and by far the more interesting—is the revival of Jewish memory that has been in progress for the past quarter century. The affirmation of Jewish identity that accompanies this revival has led to a process of reconquering history and of reinterpreting the destiny of a people dispersed and scattered over the centuries. Yet, how can we not accord a privileged position to an exceptional era, that of the Shoah, marked by a brutal rupture in the continuity of Jewish life under the effects of an implacable policy of extermination, in order to follow the unfolding of Jewish history and understand its significance—all the more so in that this recent past marked a decisive turning point in a bimillennial history?
The second phenomenon, more conjectural, relates to dates. Between 1990 and 1995 we had a round of fiftieth anniversaries, and one commemoration