The Holocaust, The French And The Jews

Many recent books and movies have documented the collaboration of the French authorities with the anti-Jewish German policies of World War II. Yet about 76 percent of France's Jews survived - more than in almost any other country in Western Europe. How do we explain this phenomenon? Certainly not by looking at official French policy, for the Vichy government began preparing racial laws even before any had been decreed by the German occupiers. To provide a full answer to the question of what kept more than 250,000 Jews alive, Susan Zuccotti examines the response to the Holocaust of the French people. Drawing on memoirs, government documents, and personal interviews with survivors, she tells the stories of ordinary and extraordinary French men and women, Jewish as well as non-Jewish. Here are stories of ambiguity and betrayal as well as courageous protection. They range from Pierre Laval, prime minister of the Vichy government who authorized roundups and deportation of foreign Jews while waffling on persecutions of the native-born, to Pastor Andre Trocme, who inspired the 3,000 residents around Le Chambon-sur-Lignon to save 5,000 Jews. The book also examines when and how the Jews understood their danger, and how they responded. From Denise Caraco Siekierski, a Jewish university student who became a leader in the Service Andre, a Jewish Resistance network that saved a thousand people, to Marc Chagall, who turned down an early invitation from New York's Museum of Modern Art to emigrate to the United States but finally fled to Spain, the stories depict men and women acting, erring, and risking their lives daily. Many factors conspired to save the Jews, Zuccotti concludes, including France'smountainous terrain, the proximity to two neutral countries, and the existence of an Italian occupation zone. These factors bought time for the Jews, and time allowed the French people to learn what was happening. But ultimately what saved lives, Zuccotti writes, was the passive support of the majority of average French men and women - shopkeepers, innkeepers, bus drivers, train conductors, village residents - who could tell that a customer or newcomer was different and probably a fugitive yet chose to remain silent. "A compliment for silence or benign neglect is faint praise indeed", she writes. "But in the historical reality of the Holocaust in France, especially as it applied to native Jews, silence was perhaps the most important factor in survival". Correcting the historical record, Zuccotti argues that the French reaction to the Holocaust, when judged by the awful standards of the rest of the world, was not as reprehensible as it has been portrayed.