Renée Poznanski, To Be a Jew in France 1939-1945 (Hebrew), translated from the French by Ada Paldor, Yad Vashem: Jerusalem, 2000, 752 pp.
Fifty years of research and scholarship have laid the groundwork for understanding and interpreting the fate of French Jews during World War II. In general the contours of that catastrophe are well known and historians have covered many of the major crucial problems of the period. The goals of the Vichy government and the policies of the National-Socialist regime vis-à-vis the Jews have been extensively debated, and since the 1970s, the prevailing assumptions that dominated French scholarship until that time have been significantly shaken. Although no general agreement exists on the fundamental question of Vichy’s policies, all serious discussion must take into consideration the new trend in scholarship that emerged as a result of the classic work by Robert Paxton. The attitude of French society toward the Jews has been described in numerous studies, although far from comprehensive, leaving this issue still deserving of research. Jewish organizations have also been the focus of many different studies, as have specific questions relating to such broad issues as the Jewish underground, the rescue of children, detention camps, universities, etc. In addition, a fair number of important studies have been conducted on specific French cities or regions during the war, almost all of which devote attention to the Jewish population and its fate. Recent years have also seen an increase in the publication of memoirs and testimonies by both Jews and non-Jews, significantly contributing to the documentary evidence of the period.
With this extensive historiographical treatment of Vichy and the Jews in mind, one does not expect that a new book about French Jewry during the war to contain dramatic revelations that challenge the foundations of received wisdom or disclose unknown chapters in French-Jewish history. However, based on this broad scholarly infrastructure, current historical research can now allow itself to pursue new horizons and introduce original perspectives and innovative approaches, placing themes or subjects extensively studied into sharper focus while opening windows to experiences and worlds of a different nature.
This is in essence what Renée Poznanski’s study offers the reader. Her book rests on the foundations laid by her predecessors, accepts in general the framework of the period and its central problems, and does not endeavor to challenge accepted conventions. Rather it turns the spotlight on Alltagsgeschichte (daily life) in the spirit of the Annales school of historians. This is total history, from the bottom up, a history that enables multiple voices to be heard – be it the voice of a fourteen-year old girl who, in April 1942, chose the figure of Queen Esther as a role model (pp. 218-220), or be it the voice of Claude Vigée, a Jewish writer with deep French roots, who sought the company of other humiliated Jews like himself: “Despite the great overcrowding, in order to be in contact with miserable, persecuted Jewish refugees” (p. 201).
No single voice is considered more important than any other. No distinction is made between rich and poor, the sophisticated and the unworldly, the educated and the unschooled, those active in Jewish organizations and those unaffiliated with Jewish society. Thus, throughout this very personal book, in which the inner voice of the author is clearly evident – at times angry and mocking, at others cynical and ironic, but always humane and empathetic (see, e.g. pp. 261-262) – a respectful place is reserved for the voice of the victims and their tribulations. And this voice always reveals something of the human world whose end is unknown, while drawing us in, impelling us to want to know more about the fate of that world. The author is not only concerned with writing the history of the daily life of Jews in France during the war, but is also driven by another motivation. She subtly encourages us to reflect again and yet again on the very real human lives hidden behind the general term “French Jewry,” to ponder the dilemmas and decisions they faced, their illusions and hopes, disappointments and pain.
The turn to historical studies of the Holocaust from the vantage point of “everyday life” has sometimes been accompanied by the fear that this new historical trend, commonly applied to the study of other historical periods, might dwarf the fateful dimension of the war years. Some historians were reluctant to examine “simple” processes and individuals, preferring to investigate the decisions and actions of central figures and developments. Others feared that the concentration on daily life would impede historians from penetrating the true meaning of those momentous times. Today, such voices have been almost entirely silenced, though occasional criticism can still be heard with regard to the validity of gender studies as a viable category for understanding the “apparently” different experiences of men and women during the war. In fact, various studies on the daily life of Jews in different countries have largely shown these fears to be unfounded, and they have provided yet further insight into the evolution of Jewish life in different countries and situations. Moreover, in many cases, the engagement with the mundane details of the lives of individuals who did not “make history,” validated, or alternately, balanced, the generalizations current in scholarship. Thus, the methodological orientation of Poznanski’s book, first published in France in 1994, did not emanate from a vacuum in historical research, but rather joined a growing number of studies dealing with daily life in that fateful period.
To be a Jew in France (my emphasis - RIC) in the spirit of French existentialism means to hear the multiple voices of human beings and the entire array of their feelings and desires in a world of diminished humanity. “To be,” in the spirit of Albert Camus’s 1942 essay, The Myth of Sisyphus, implies that one is dealing with the raw sense of the absurd. As Camus put it:
In a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity.
In deciding to write the history of the period through the prism of “normality,” Poznanski preferred to maintain the logic of the chronological historical evolution, without abandoning the absurd, existential world described by Camus.
Poznanski makes no mention of Camus, the existential world, or the absurd. But her allusions evoke the absurd. It is constantly there – a kind of mise en scène – in the background, as her historical style involves the juxtaposition of what happened to the Jews on a particular day with what transpired with ordinary people – in this case, the French. Thus, alongside the first deportations from Drancy, we read of a church memorial service in honor of two volunteers, and how “The shortage of drinks concerned the group of wine merchants, because now there was talk of closing the cafés two or three days a week,” and of the diminished flow of customers at the Samaritaine department store, but of the “greater than normal activity” at the Printemps department store (p. 290). In another place, in a description of the events of the summer of 1942, the tragic days of the arrested Jews in the winter stadium, which followed the mass roundup of the Jews of Paris and its environs, Poznanski writes:
This is what the hell of the winter stadium looked like, a fabric of torment that lasted three days for some of the prisoners, and six for others. On July 22, the stadium was emptied of the last of its temporary residents and restored to its original purpose. Less than two months later, Parisian cinema goers could enjoy the exciting pictures filmed in the winter stadium – the acts of courage of the glorious matadors facing their inflamed bulls in the corridas organized there. (p. 338)
The day-to-day life of the Jews cannot be understood unless it is seen side by side the ordinary lives of those who were not subject to the same threat and decrees. In this way, the author succeeded in transmitting to the reader the sense of the absurd – the individual is suddenly dispossessed of the scenery to which he or she had become accustomed.
Portrayal of daily life requires attention to numerous minute details on the one hand and to well-known places on the other hand. When describing a place significant to an author, he or she cannot remain disinterested and devoid of emotion. Poznanski writes extensively of Paris, offering the reader a tangible sense of the city’s atmosphere and ambience, albeit not at its finest hour, and after it was “divested of illusions and lights.” Thus, after being forced to wear the yellow star in 1941, she relates how two Jews walked from the Opera House to the Place de la République in an attempt to demonstrate that the decree would not vanquish them. The author’s selection of this detail, naming specific places where these Jews walked, was not mere chance. She wants us to sense their insult, individuals so closely attached to those Parisian sites, and to reflect on the sense of belonging - to their country - of which they were robbed. I would go so far as to say that, in doing so, the author is also expressing her anger at the fact that the French and the Germans contaminated those very places, that symbolize the glory of French culture. Memory will no longer allow one to visit those places without recalling those who stood there in their hour of humiliation. This type of history cannot leave the reader unmoved.
The author is aware of the tension that exists between historical writing that aspires to be sine ira et studio and historical writing that is engagé. She is also aware that at a time when post-modernist approaches have granted the individual voice center stage and increased legitimacy, it is all the more difficult to maintain a proper balance. And this tension may be especially great where the Holocaust period is concerned, because the danger in overly personalized writing lies in a potential loss of proportions and a return to the emotional and unexacting history that characterized the study of the Holocaust for many years. The names of the twelve chapters of the book demonstrate how Poznanski carefully walks this thin line. There are neutral names, such as “The Occupation Establishes Itself,” alongside somewhat ironic names, such as “Living in the Camp – Working in the Foreign Workers’ Brigade.” But at the same time, she maintains a clear framework and adheres to the accepted chronology that the events dictated, a chronology that Paxton set in his groundbreaking work and expanded upon in the definitive study coauthored with Michael Marrus.
Moreover, Poznanski’s book does not endeavor to present a different perspective on the major events as related to the Jews. The reader will not find a substantially original treatment of the decrees against the Jews, a basically new understanding of the Vichy regime, or even of the German and Italian authorities. The accounts of the major figures involved in the “Jewish Question” are similar to those presented by Marrus and Paxton, while the description of the behavior of the Jewish leaders does not vary considerably from what has appeared in various scholarly works. However trends and leading figures take on a new depth in Renée Poznanski’s book as they are presented from an original perspective. They are seen here as part of the extensive mosaic that she has created. Poznanski has described the history of the Jews of France (although not the history of the Jews under French rule in North Africa [!]) from the beginning of the war until after the liberation, bringing evidence from many districts and regions, without privileging or overlooking any single Jewish element – including Jews who sought to prove their lack of association with the Jewish religion and those whose Jewish identity was unknown.
The desire to touch on all the feelings and to hear all the voices presents the better-known ones in a new and enlightening context, yet it inhibits hasty generalizations and unequivocal conclusions. As a result, the author herself feels sometimes helpless when attempting to create a synthesis. For example, after presenting a series of reactions by Jews to the decree requiring them to wear the yellow star, Poznanski writes: “In any case, it would appear that the attitude of the Jews towards the yellow star could not be viewed as one of submission or rebellion. Any attempt to find logic in the differing positions would be futile” (p. 313). Or, after illustrating the attitude of Parisian society to the Jews in connection with the same decree she concludes: “Therefore, it is not easy to gauge exactly what Parisian society’s position was. Indeed, such a concept is difficult to define” (p. 321). However, despite the formidable difficulty involved, Poznanski’s book makes an enormous effort to trace the state of mind of “Jews and Jews of the Mosaic Religion” throughout the war and to show how they influenced contemporary Jewish leadership.
As Poznanski uses material from every available source she takes us to places readers rarely visit when reading about French Jewry. A researcher seeking to describe all the various strata of Jewish society can call on a huge reservoir of sources, and Poznanski makes use of every type of source. She is not concerned in her work with the possible debate over the preference of one historical source over another. Reports by contemporaries, letters from a son to a father, diaries kept by Jews and non-Jews of the period, memoirs, etc., are all grist for her mill. The mélange might confound those unable to discern the significance embodied in the shreds of information. The author, however, always maintains a general picture of the period. Unlike Manfred Herbst in Agnon’s Shira, she weaves the bits and pieces of information with a skilled hand and is unwilling to relinquish anyone of the different voices, as they are all the voices of human beings. The excerpts selected from the extensive material she examined often underscore the human aspect, so that even an incriminating bureaucratic order handed down in the occupied area by the general prefect of police, Jean Leguay (on August 3, 1942), is revealed in all its evil (p. 341). After quoting the order, Poznanski comments, “This then was the background set by Jean Leguay for the coming separation scenes” (ibid.) of parents from their children.
Even when the author discusses the subject of public opinion in France, she does not choose the well-known sources from the professional literature. She opts rather for those texts in which the personal tone is dominant, such as the letter from a female resident of Saint-Girons to Marshal Pétain in late August 1942 (p. 377). Furthermore, she does not omit descriptions that historians often skip over, because, for her, the minutest details – which seemingly have no historical value – contain the existential significance of the period. Thus, for example, she relates the following story from I Didn't Say Goodbye by Claudine Vegh (1984), which describes the escape of Parisian Jews:
Madeleine, who was a child at the time, recalls that her mother dressed her in a heavy coat, two jackets, two dresses and a skirt, explaining that she had to keep the coat buttoned up, with a shawl over her shoulders to conceal the star. She was to walk in front of her, but if anything happened to her, if she was arrested along the way, she was to carry on walking whatever happened, without looking round.(p. 348)
Human acts of every nature are noted and recorded. People gave their children patriotic French names even when the war was at its height. Poznanski mentions such details, which only rarely merit the attention of historians, often without comment, as if to say – their words say everything. After portraying Jews that investigated their family trees, she comments that this inquiry enabled people to “draw reassurance from this encounter with the roots of their identity” (p. 126). She connects the phenomenon of the preparation of monographs on well-known Jewish figures to exhortations by the members of the Consistoire Générale – French Jewry’s umbrella organization, established under Napoleon – to act with obedience, pride, and modesty. She adds:
A contemporary scholar cannot but shudder at the fact that the Jews placed honor and nobility at the top of their reactions to their persecution, a persecution that of course culminated in the death camps. But in those days, this was a very widespread approach, and from this respect, the Consistoire Générale seems to have been of one mind with the atmosphere current at the time among French citizens of the Mosaic faith (p. 129).
The author does not judge any action taken by Jews, whether “patriotic” or selfish –for example, Jews that traded on the black market and perhaps consequently aroused the anger of the French authorities or population. Matters of religion and tradition are also woven naturally into the overall picture, because, for Poznanski, it is important to know not only on what kinds of beds the Jews slept in the Rivesaltes camp, but also what the observant Jews ate, how many religious lessons they received in the camp, whether rabbis permitted greater leniency concerning religious commandments for Jews in the camp, and so on. To this end, she makes extensive use of the memoir literature (like that of Rabbi Shmuel Kappel), and of the diverse material of the military chaplaincy (aumônerie générale) and other collections. As a historian working in the spirit of the Annales school, Poznanski relates to all aspects of the daily lives of the Jews of the period. And like other good Annales researchers, despite her involvement in minute details she never loses sight of the general picture. On the contrary, she maintains historical continuity, discusses the principal events of the period, describes various Jewish activist organizations, their attempts to provide aid and assistance, etc. As already noted, To Be a Jew in France 1939-1945 follows the chronological structure set by its predecessors. Almost half the book deals with the period prior to the arrests of 1942, with the second part examining the extensive roundups until the liberation – “before and after.” Each part treats the interaction among the three basic factors in the tragedy: the policies of the German, French, and Italian authorities; French public opinion (in its component parts); and the Jews – both as part of the organized community and as individuals. No chapter in the book ignores any of these three elements, although the author’s main goal is to describe the day-to-day existence of the Jews. This enables us to view the dilemmas the Jews faced and their difficulty in choosing a particular mode of behavior in a clearer light. This is true for the early chapters of the book, which describe the manner in which the Jews dealt with their ostracization and discrimination, as well as in the later chapters, when they were faced with the danger of arrest and deportation.
Poznanski impressively manages to balance the public events with the more prosaic details of individual lives, such as requests for a food package or a warm blanket, without allowing the individual suffering to be dwarfed by the larger events. And the opposite is no less true. Poznanski documents the antisemitic literature during the war and examines the extent to which it influenced the French people, while at the same time, based on the behavior of individuals, inquires into its inculcation. She also points out how the situation of the Jews influenced the policies and behavior of the various Jewish organizations. Similarly, when discussing the effects of the hard times on the French people, she continually refers to the existential problem of the outcast. In this spirit her comments on page 422, comparing the situation of the Jews of Paris with that of the non-Jews living there, are an attempt to put both worlds into a comparative focus.
Ada Paldor’s Hebrew translation of Poznanski’s book is clear, flowing, and faithful to the original, and the author updated it with recent bibliographical references. This short review cannot present comprehensively the full array of the contents of the book which contains 630 pages of text and dozens of pages of notes. Each chapter endeavors to provide the reader with as broad a picture as possible of the different predicament of the various groups of Jews: the “Frenchmen” as opposed to immigrants from Eastern Europe; members of right-wing political movements as opposed to the communists; those with religious tendencies as opposed to those completely alienated from religion; Jews from the north and south; and so on. Even these categories do not embrace the wide variety of documentation in the book. In each and every chapter the reader encounters ever-more experiences and sentiments of Jews and non-Jews presented from an all-encompassing perspective on their worlds.
In conclusion, aside from the enormous wealth of material offered in this book, which testifies to the indefatigable efforts of the author to reach as many levels as possible of the Jewish experience during the war, and alongside the author’s historical sensitivity – what does this book add to the existing scholarship? Its unique contribution lies in the fact that it focuses more sharply than any previous study on the Jewish fate in all its complexity. As I have noted the author did not endeavor to present a new picture of French policy, French public opinion, or Jewish communal organization. Yet each of these three basic topics is cast in new and insightful light on the basis of previously untapped sources — their actions and decisions often linked to the day-to-day experiences of Jews and the French people. The vignettes from real life presented to the reader prompt him/her to reflect on the great questions of the period, for the mundane events of “ordinary” life are in fact a microcosm of the greater tragedy. Renée Poznanski takes us on a tangled historic journey into the worlds of anonymous and well-known figures and inspires us to rethink the fate of the Jews in the spirit of Camus in Sisyphus, where he extols man’s ability to see the absurd and attempts to overcome it.
Translated from the Hebrew by Ruchie Avital
Source: Yad Vashem Studies, Vol. XXIX, Jerusalem 2001, pp. 393- 404
