1 00:00:00,060 --> 00:00:08,080 Welcome, everyone. I'm Calypso Nicolaides and on behalf of the amazing Princess represented here by Frederic, 2 00:00:08,550 --> 00:00:18,540 who's the director of the MFO and the History Department and the this very European centre, I'd like to welcome you. 3 00:00:18,540 --> 00:00:28,769 And on behalf of these institutions, I have the great pleasure and privilege to welcome back among us Jacques similar who certainly, 4 00:00:28,770 --> 00:00:38,490 as I think everyone in this room knows, one of the very most prominent historian of France and French historian of the issues that occupy us today. 5 00:00:38,850 --> 00:00:45,690 And as you all know, Jacques Simla is now emeritus professor at some school. 6 00:00:45,700 --> 00:00:55,919 Sara City has had an illustrious international career and has published several books, both in the issue, 7 00:00:55,920 --> 00:01:02,040 starting with the issue of civil resistance, unarmed against Hitler, a civilian resistance in Europe. 8 00:01:02,430 --> 00:01:10,319 3945 And his last book before was purifying Destroy the Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide, 9 00:01:10,320 --> 00:01:14,550 which he presented them, which we launched in this very room a few years ago. 10 00:01:15,540 --> 00:01:23,040 And indeed, we are here today to meet, to celebrate and discuss his very last book, 11 00:01:23,040 --> 00:01:27,000 which was published five years ago in France and is just now published in English. 12 00:01:27,360 --> 00:01:30,810 The Survival of Jews in France during World War Two. 13 00:01:31,560 --> 00:01:39,360 Now, I'm not going to say much about the book at all simply to say that, as you will hear in our conversation, 14 00:01:40,080 --> 00:01:48,690 this book is not only a remarkable foray in historical investigation and scholarship, 15 00:01:49,350 --> 00:01:56,100 but I would say it's also really a kind of philosophical tale about the rays of light 16 00:01:56,610 --> 00:02:01,470 in the middle of the darkest darkness that really defined our human predicament. 17 00:02:02,250 --> 00:02:09,060 So it's a book about the light and the about that together. And we owe you an amazing sum. 18 00:02:09,960 --> 00:02:16,590 And it is going to be our pleasure to have as discussants for the book today, as we always do for book launch, 19 00:02:17,100 --> 00:02:22,080 our two wonderful colleagues from the History Department, Ruth Harris and Robert Gilder, 20 00:02:22,470 --> 00:02:28,770 who are both very prominent, obviously historians of France, inter alia, 21 00:02:29,130 --> 00:02:39,390 and both spent a lot of time thinking about these issues upstream historically roots, including with her book on the Dreyfus affair, 22 00:02:39,600 --> 00:02:47,639 then kind of downstream historically Robert with his work on the post-war and and the sixties and his latest book, 23 00:02:47,640 --> 00:02:51,270 Empire of the Mind on the Legacies of Colonialism. 24 00:02:51,300 --> 00:02:55,170 So we're very much looking forward to hearing both of you. 25 00:02:55,500 --> 00:03:00,420 But before I pass the floor on to Jacques, let me just say one personal word. 26 00:03:00,420 --> 00:03:10,260 Here I am, Jacques. And I spend a lot of time talking together about these issues in 2016 when the book had come out in France. 27 00:03:10,260 --> 00:03:19,979 But we were talking about I was staying at City where he was emeritus is emeritus professor and we talked about all sorts of things, 28 00:03:19,980 --> 00:03:26,100 including how you deal with how you cope with the onset of blindness when you're a historian and 29 00:03:26,100 --> 00:03:32,310 an intellectual and the fate of France and the history and the comparison between our countries. 30 00:03:32,580 --> 00:03:39,780 But we also talked about our dear common friend, Stanley Hoffman, who plays have played a very important role in both our lives. 31 00:03:40,470 --> 00:03:44,520 And in fact, you will see that the book is in part dedicated to Stanley. 32 00:03:45,390 --> 00:03:53,610 And we remembered the story of Stanley during World War Two, which I captured on film, actually, in a documentary. 33 00:03:54,180 --> 00:04:03,060 And it's a story where Stanley recounts and it's kind of a little microcosm of what your book is all about. 34 00:04:03,600 --> 00:04:09,830 When Stanley, as a young adolescent with his mother, flew to this small French village in the south of France, 35 00:04:09,880 --> 00:04:14,070 lament labour, and he was hiding in plain sight, as it were. 36 00:04:14,370 --> 00:04:23,339 You'll hear more. The villagers kind of knew there were Jews in hiding, and they helped them in many different ways. 37 00:04:23,340 --> 00:04:25,830 But there were German, young German occupants, 38 00:04:26,280 --> 00:04:32,640 and Stanley and his mom were the only ones who understood German because they had come originally from Austria. 39 00:04:33,270 --> 00:04:40,379 And he tells the story of how they would kind of listen in from these young German soldiers who were 40 00:04:40,380 --> 00:04:48,480 16 year old and would get these letters from home about how everything was blowing up and stand. 41 00:04:48,630 --> 00:04:54,570 And his mother had so much empathy and were so sad for these boys who were terrified that 42 00:04:54,570 --> 00:04:59,580 they relayed the content of these letters that they heard to the machi in the mountain. 43 00:05:00,220 --> 00:05:08,170 And for this reason, he thinks in that area of France, the market didn't shoot when these boys left the village at the end of the war. 44 00:05:08,590 --> 00:05:16,930 There was a kind of seed of a strange empathy mediated by this mom and Stanley. 45 00:05:17,290 --> 00:05:20,860 And this was a kind of a very beautiful story that we shared. 46 00:05:22,180 --> 00:05:26,139 And on this note, I'd like to passed on the floor to you. 47 00:05:26,140 --> 00:05:33,820 Jackson's thanking you for bringing to us this amazing and remarkable book that you've written in sync. 48 00:05:33,970 --> 00:05:42,970 Thank you, Calypso, for your invitation and for all of you for your invitation and wish actually to to 49 00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:53,380 dedicate this talking memory to sons of men who encouraged me to undertake this research. 50 00:05:54,220 --> 00:06:04,080 Stanley wrote the two prefaces made from a book and subsequently slur and three and destroyed. 51 00:06:04,690 --> 00:06:15,010 And I'm sure that he would have done something for this new one if he would not have left us too soon. 52 00:06:17,260 --> 00:06:30,490 The idea of this book came to me exactly in 2006 when I, you know, in an international conference I co-organized in Singapore, in Paris, 53 00:06:30,610 --> 00:06:43,020 about rescue practices in genocidal situations, actually, and became a book Resisting Genocide, 54 00:06:43,040 --> 00:06:47,650 A Form of Rescues, published by Hearst and Oxford University Press. 55 00:06:49,380 --> 00:07:01,420 We already knew that 75% of Jews survived in France, so to say blaspheme, that was an abstraction. 56 00:07:02,260 --> 00:07:13,780 And during this conference, I just realised that there was no thorough historical research on this incredible fact, actually. 57 00:07:14,500 --> 00:07:30,760 And quite striking because, you know, in Western Europe, 75% of Jews in the Netherlands were in the media and 45, 50% of Jews in Belgium as well. 58 00:07:32,170 --> 00:07:38,830 So what happened in France, considering the fact that, you know, 59 00:07:39,370 --> 00:07:49,420 the Nazi plan to exterminate all the Jews in Europe at least, and the collaboration of the Vichy government. 60 00:07:50,170 --> 00:07:57,510 So in any case, it was not, of course, to avoid, to talk to, 61 00:07:57,600 --> 00:08:07,570 to forget all the Jews who were exterminated from France, which is about 25%, 6 to 6000 Jews. 62 00:08:08,020 --> 00:08:20,310 But this new reality, this new approach for me was at that time of use, I should work one day on that topic. 63 00:08:21,340 --> 00:08:34,059 And the book now is a revised, deeply revised, updated and abridged version of my film. 64 00:08:34,060 --> 00:08:48,400 A book based on Train on a Philosophy published in 2013 was named 904 pages, two kilos, 300 and. 65 00:08:48,640 --> 00:08:52,600 Okay. So I guess this one is much more reasonable. 66 00:08:52,990 --> 00:08:57,490 I hope so. How do you do work? 67 00:08:58,360 --> 00:09:06,880 First, I gathered a quantitative and qualitative data. 68 00:09:07,660 --> 00:09:14,130 My first concern was to transform this abstraction of the 75% in figure. 69 00:09:15,070 --> 00:09:25,840 One can estimate that at least 200,000 Jews are still in France in 1944, perhaps more 227,000. 70 00:09:26,140 --> 00:09:31,360 But I prefer to keep this lowest figure. 71 00:09:31,390 --> 00:09:38,360 Now, can you explain this? Is it because sank of the Jews to the wall of Jews? 72 00:09:38,380 --> 00:09:48,130 You know, the writers writer's imagination. We are they are approximately 4000 today in France. 73 00:09:48,130 --> 00:09:59,860 So you cannot explain the survival of at least 200,000 people by the action of force alone event which is an admirable. 74 00:10:01,540 --> 00:10:12,520 Is it, thanks to the commitment of rescue organisation, a Jewish organisation or a Christian organisation as well? 75 00:10:13,510 --> 00:10:26,079 Difficult to estimate, but probably less than 10,000 Jews, mainly children, have been were saved by this rescue organisation. 76 00:10:26,080 --> 00:10:29,920 And I guess this figure is overestimated. 77 00:10:31,630 --> 00:10:40,420 So it's not possible as well. Way to explain the survival of 200,000 people through this organisation. 78 00:10:40,430 --> 00:10:56,230 So it tends to my mind this obvious consequence, you know, Jews try to manage on their own to survive and mostly they did. 79 00:10:57,160 --> 00:11:11,350 So at that point I wanted to collect qualitative data, I mean, of personal diaries, post-war memoirs, 80 00:11:12,580 --> 00:11:22,900 etc., etc. about Jews with this basic question, if they lost their job, what did they do to survive? 81 00:11:25,360 --> 00:11:30,790 Do French Jews? Did French Jews or French Jews behave in the same way? 82 00:11:32,590 --> 00:11:38,970 What do did they move around or very little or stay at home? 83 00:11:41,350 --> 00:11:49,000 What did they do with their children when, you know, children were threatened as well? 84 00:11:49,210 --> 00:12:00,110 So you have plenty of pragmatic question, you know, and I try to collect different stories, some unknown such. 85 00:12:00,180 --> 00:12:08,560 So, you know, and and bear sounds self would lend their study of many, many others. 86 00:12:09,400 --> 00:12:12,930 Some are famous and not other. 87 00:12:12,940 --> 00:12:21,610 Not at all. And that was the beginning at the beginning of the book, you know, 88 00:12:22,360 --> 00:12:34,840 and I discovered that if you look at the story of the Jews, you are looking doing a research on migration. 89 00:12:36,580 --> 00:12:44,350 And I would like to present now to my map, to my opinion for major contribution of this book. 90 00:12:45,850 --> 00:12:49,560 This the first one is about geography. 91 00:12:49,870 --> 00:12:57,580 I propose a geographic and demographic approach of the dispersal of Jews in France. 92 00:13:01,270 --> 00:13:10,270 So it means that it goes it looks mainly to to the south and in the centre of France. 93 00:13:11,320 --> 00:13:21,610 And if you want to understand this, you need to have a historian approach, or at least the coming back to the 1920s, 94 00:13:22,120 --> 00:13:31,690 1930s, when Jews came to France from all over Europe to escape poverty, anti-Semitism and so on and so forth. 95 00:13:32,080 --> 00:13:37,020 But you have also to take an account, a false migration. 96 00:13:37,030 --> 00:13:46,269 I mean, after the Declaration of war in 1939, I don't know if you remember, 97 00:13:46,270 --> 00:14:04,989 but and the French government forced mosaics since six and a thousand tons of as a small Moselle to go to Paris go to old Vienne and etc. Of course, 98 00:14:04,990 --> 00:14:15,700 among them there are some Jews, a city like Goole, where literally emptied of the old population within three days. 99 00:14:17,590 --> 00:14:20,290 But of course they are not only Jews, they are other people. 100 00:14:20,560 --> 00:14:36,220 And then came this terrible event of the military defeat of France in 1947 to a union of people running to the south. 101 00:14:36,490 --> 00:14:38,110 You know what we call the exodus. 102 00:14:38,110 --> 00:14:50,470 I just I cannot imagine that kind of terrible event, you know, in during which France lost definitively lost its rank of first world power took over. 103 00:14:51,610 --> 00:14:56,310 And among all of these people, there are some Jews, of course, finally. 104 00:14:57,040 --> 00:14:59,620 And if we want to have an idea of. 105 00:14:59,740 --> 00:15:11,470 What people experienced at that time, the sense that the number of people here read it in Switzerland says Buy Able to ski, 106 00:15:11,890 --> 00:15:18,280 which is an extraordinary novel to understand what the French experience did at that time. 107 00:15:18,820 --> 00:15:31,720 Finally, it came to the armistice ends of the formation of the regime, Vichy regime, and then this evolution. 108 00:15:32,950 --> 00:15:38,500 I'm going to have heavy consequences on the Jews destiny. 109 00:15:38,860 --> 00:15:50,680 Not only is that because you have to look at the French territory, the so-called French territory after the armistice. 110 00:15:51,220 --> 00:15:54,580 I would like to make quickly three remarks. 111 00:15:55,120 --> 00:16:06,640 First, Berlin got this French territory to shoot its own indirect strategy in Syria. 112 00:16:06,850 --> 00:16:10,780 Of course, the two notes department. 113 00:16:10,780 --> 00:16:21,490 No, and but they are integrated to, you know, our and the German command in Brussels. 114 00:16:22,930 --> 00:16:26,560 The zone is the forbidden zone. 115 00:16:26,740 --> 00:16:35,560 You know what Alsace Moselle is called like that because it's for welcoming German settlers. 116 00:16:36,160 --> 00:16:49,390 You are the big one, the occupying zone, which the German army is committing it in Paris, the so-called free zone that we used this year. 117 00:16:49,960 --> 00:17:01,930 And we forgot this tiny Italian zone in the south east, which are going to be larger in 1943. 118 00:17:02,110 --> 00:17:05,610 So instead of two zones we are with you, think about that. 119 00:17:06,550 --> 00:17:07,870 There are five zone. 120 00:17:08,860 --> 00:17:23,290 And just imagine that this French territory was built almost over more than ten centuries in to two months is completely destroyed. 121 00:17:23,530 --> 00:17:33,280 Dismantled. The second remark is this expression Vichy France, which is used for about four decades, 122 00:17:33,580 --> 00:17:41,080 seems very misguiding because you can look at the reality of this French territory. 123 00:17:41,710 --> 00:17:55,150 It is completely broken up. And so remark and this is why I would to introduce this point, it depends where you live, 124 00:17:55,750 --> 00:18:00,130 because your destiny is morally linked to the place where you are. 125 00:18:01,720 --> 00:18:09,040 Let's say, for example, the Jews who lived in Montpellier or Toulouse, 126 00:18:09,760 --> 00:18:19,510 a better chance of survival than the Jews were living in Ira's last Lille in the north of France. 127 00:18:20,470 --> 00:18:25,780 The same for, uh, for the occupied zone compared to the free zone. 128 00:18:27,790 --> 00:18:35,320 I couldn't give many example of that. And this leads me to a concluding remark about this slide. 129 00:18:35,590 --> 00:18:40,360 You see already the difference between survival and rescue. 130 00:18:41,290 --> 00:18:47,770 Rescue means intentional act or safe rescue by the Jews himself, 131 00:18:48,310 --> 00:19:02,170 but survival relies on the geographical and political status of the territory where you are now. 132 00:19:03,580 --> 00:19:13,600 Basically, the Jews and the general movement is to go to the countryside. 133 00:19:13,600 --> 00:19:18,130 This is my picture. Yeah, I know. This is a big circle. 134 00:19:18,900 --> 00:19:22,600 With which road map? Yeah. Sorry. 135 00:19:22,600 --> 00:19:28,180 I come back to my first question. You know, where are they in 1943, 44. 136 00:19:28,450 --> 00:19:34,240 So I have the idea to make maps based on Vichy archives. 137 00:19:35,470 --> 00:19:39,970 You will discover two in the book, one in 41 and this one in 43. 138 00:19:40,720 --> 00:19:58,360 And this is based on archives because in December 1942, Jews were forced to have a G on their I.D. after the invasion of the three zone by the German. 139 00:19:59,890 --> 00:20:08,200 And so we have these figures. And if you look at the map in 1941, 43. 140 00:20:08,590 --> 00:20:19,600 Yeah, four years for you know, before you can see an increase that the number of Jews increased in the south part of France, 141 00:20:20,020 --> 00:20:26,470 it goes from 110000 to 143000. 142 00:20:27,310 --> 00:20:31,180 So this is the main tendency of this period. 143 00:20:31,600 --> 00:20:41,710 You can estimate that more or less two thirds of the Jews in France are now living in just in this part of the country, 144 00:20:41,920 --> 00:20:50,190 which is completely new because they were basically based in Paris in as well as Bordeaux in Marseilles. 145 00:20:50,200 --> 00:20:53,200 But this is a big transformation. 146 00:20:54,190 --> 00:21:07,750 But don't forget that at the same time, almost between 40,050 thousand Jews are still living in Paris, which is unique in Europe. 147 00:21:08,350 --> 00:21:15,980 You know, in the show, no need to say that zero was already completely exterminated in them. 148 00:21:16,230 --> 00:21:25,150 Is more or less the same. Why? How can we explain the fact that so many Jews are still in in Paris? 149 00:21:25,480 --> 00:21:31,780 So general movement to the South, general movement to the countryside. 150 00:21:33,340 --> 00:21:37,810 And France is a rural country. 151 00:21:38,890 --> 00:21:50,110 And most of many Jews want to go to the countryside to be, let's say, their friends as possible to the German firms of German. 152 00:21:52,390 --> 00:21:59,410 And the fact that at that time, France, as a needs as a railways network, 153 00:21:59,710 --> 00:22:10,180 much more extensive than today with best connection to go to, you know, small villages in remote areas. 154 00:22:11,290 --> 00:22:12,850 Explain this phenomenon. 155 00:22:13,750 --> 00:22:25,900 So here this is the cover of the English version, you know, and it's a picture of the Landau family, you know, the famous actor that's on and on. 156 00:22:26,950 --> 00:22:31,600 Of course, he was not yet born. But you can see this little girl. 157 00:22:31,610 --> 00:22:36,250 It's it's it's anti alien. 158 00:22:38,080 --> 00:22:51,240 And the man is his grandfather, Ramo Ramo Landau, which was a junior in Paris and the former mayor of Ecuador. 159 00:22:52,660 --> 00:22:59,020 So they stayed there in this small village in Massif Central until the end of the war. 160 00:23:01,000 --> 00:23:06,730 Now, let's go to the second contribution of hope of this world. 161 00:23:07,300 --> 00:23:15,610 I tried to elaborate what I call a repertoire of avoidance and coping. 162 00:23:16,180 --> 00:23:22,690 Uh, strategies. Just touches. So that's the main part of the book. 163 00:23:23,260 --> 00:23:26,770 Book three, chapter out of four. 164 00:23:27,160 --> 00:23:35,910 And I cannot go into detail because there's many, many moving stories in this part, in these chapters. 165 00:23:36,520 --> 00:23:45,760 And I just try here to as the question is, is it possible to identify key variables, 166 00:23:45,880 --> 00:23:59,440 key factors which explain, let's say, Jewish Jewish avoidance strategies, Jewish survival, tragic. 167 00:24:01,450 --> 00:24:05,990 At this I can find five. First one is citizenship. 168 00:24:06,570 --> 00:24:16,030 This was a rediscovery of my research and I cannot believe it when I realised that to stick to statistics, 169 00:24:16,030 --> 00:24:25,600 to struggle almost 90% of the Jews or of the French Jews survived the Holocaust in France. 170 00:24:26,320 --> 00:24:32,379 Can you imagine that? Of course, it's less for the French Jews, which are the main target. 171 00:24:32,380 --> 00:24:36,340 You know, 60% of the French Jews survived the Holocaust. 172 00:24:36,790 --> 00:24:44,140 But even this figure is, you know, incredible considering the lost in the other countries. 173 00:24:44,950 --> 00:24:50,020 So, again, you explain this, at least this high rate of survival for the French Jews. 174 00:24:50,500 --> 00:24:59,290 According to me, it's back to history. The history, it's the French Revolution in 19 1717. 175 00:24:59,320 --> 00:25:13,630 91, which emancipate the Jews for the first time in Europe, and they came from different part of Europe to take profit of this situation in France. 176 00:25:14,320 --> 00:25:27,370 And some of them saw in the through the 19th century, assimilated a country as a nation and move up even in the elites of this nation. 177 00:25:28,840 --> 00:25:38,680 That's why this it's the Vichy statue of October 3rd is perceived by them as a betrayal of political retirement, 178 00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:55,120 betrayal of their commitment for the nation. However, um, facing persecution, uh, they have some social resources to face, you know, to, to use, 179 00:25:55,540 --> 00:26:00,750 for example, they have a relative means of freedom so they can send their children by example. 180 00:26:01,390 --> 00:26:05,440 If perhaps you friend in the name of piano ha more great historian. 181 00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:11,320 But that's the case of no family as they send their children in the south in the free zone. 182 00:26:11,530 --> 00:26:12,780 Same for young people. 183 00:26:12,780 --> 00:26:25,090 We are lucky you have many, many example and in their neighbourhood, in their, you know, of colleagues as well, some of them are ready to help them, 184 00:26:25,330 --> 00:26:34,540 that there are social resources on the contrary for in Jews that don't they don't look at the story of Friedlander. 185 00:26:35,350 --> 00:26:37,810 They were quite well established in Prague. 186 00:26:38,050 --> 00:26:49,080 And when they came to France and then the something, you know, was virtually a drop in the social structures. 187 00:26:49,300 --> 00:26:53,350 They cannot they don't have anything on almost. So they are much more vulnerable. 188 00:26:53,710 --> 00:27:00,460 And all these Jews who arrived in France in the 1970s, they do not speak really France and the French, 189 00:27:01,210 --> 00:27:09,910 they don't have any connection with the country, of course, are going to be the first target of the Nazi energy collaboration. 190 00:27:10,240 --> 00:27:13,480 Now, I'm going to be fast for these other factors. 191 00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:18,070 Solidarity, of course. I'm talking about the rescue organisations there. 192 00:27:18,400 --> 00:27:22,900 You have also the financial resources which are so important. 193 00:27:22,900 --> 00:27:33,100 You know, it is stealing. When you have some steal some money, it's easier to pay to to get a room to sleep or to pay a people smuggler. 194 00:27:34,300 --> 00:27:43,540 Then also the age factor related to age, the older elderly people and the young children are certainly the most vulnerable. 195 00:27:44,260 --> 00:27:48,190 And also the family situation. 196 00:27:50,050 --> 00:28:02,080 The larger the family, the more difficult to move for this family, you know, and of course, they are much more vulnerable for this reason. 197 00:28:03,010 --> 00:28:11,770 Now, another contribution to the contribution of this book and who helps them and how and when. 198 00:28:12,580 --> 00:28:16,720 Now, again, to the question of anti-Semitism in this country. 199 00:28:17,260 --> 00:28:20,590 I have known that in the UK, but not only in the UK. 200 00:28:20,980 --> 00:28:25,810 The general feeling is French, strongly anti-Semitic. 201 00:28:26,350 --> 00:28:30,670 At least it's a cliche perhaps. I would like to discuss about that. 202 00:28:32,230 --> 00:28:39,850 And no doubt that anti-Semitic anti-Semitism was a rarity in France since the 19th century onwards, 203 00:28:40,330 --> 00:28:45,970 although it's difficult to distinguish between anti-Semitism and xenophobia. 204 00:28:46,510 --> 00:28:55,510 As, for example, Janet Jackson put it, at least in the 1970s, France was one of the years, 205 00:28:55,900 --> 00:29:03,040 one or two years, even the earliest rate of immigration, including the Spanish people. 206 00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:06,550 In any event, you know, 207 00:29:06,970 --> 00:29:22,630 the formation of the Vichy regime was a political and uncanny assertion of state anti-Semitism at the worst moment that is under Nazi ises, 208 00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:31,060 however, does it mean that all the French people were became anti-Semitic? 209 00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:38,319 That's a matter, of course, a discussion, you know, Maurice Paxton Same. 210 00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:42,910 So but there have been, you know, 211 00:29:42,910 --> 00:29:51,610 discussed by other historians such as Chatelain or many people about he was was a the need 212 00:29:51,610 --> 00:29:59,230 almost no best historian in terms of public opinion on the Vichy who strongly contested. 213 00:29:59,380 --> 00:30:03,340 Maris in facts, don't you? Let's listen. 214 00:30:03,370 --> 00:30:15,540 I don't want to be engaged in this discussion, although, of course, I'm quite inclined to think that polyamory work is much more articulate. 215 00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:21,970 My answer is, again, as historian and then talking about chronology. 216 00:30:24,010 --> 00:30:37,890 When Oak cured the mass deportation in 1942, meaning all these elderly people and children picked up by French police and friends and family, 217 00:30:38,230 --> 00:30:43,570 people were moved, even shocked by what they saw. 218 00:30:45,130 --> 00:30:51,760 And this was an important movement in the French opinion. 219 00:30:52,900 --> 00:31:03,160 And you can notice this already when the yellow star was introduced in Occupy Zone, it was never introduced in the free zone. 220 00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:15,560 If you read the Ellen's diary, you see sign of compassion of Catholic men who came to her and so on. 221 00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:22,120 Yet you have also here the notes by Jack Belinsky, which are quite extraordinary. 222 00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:27,610 Interesting. So the issue is of Believe Roundup. 223 00:31:28,450 --> 00:31:30,640 This is my slogan. Okay. 224 00:31:30,910 --> 00:31:41,350 So here I rely on the new book of my colleague Rosalie, which wrote the incredible chapter in this new book about the did roundup. 225 00:31:42,310 --> 00:31:49,660 As you see, Nancy. And she wanted to do catch 27, 20,000, approximately 20,000 people. 226 00:31:49,990 --> 00:31:58,390 Finally, they got so many men and women so good in any study in. 227 00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:05,140 Sure. The reason for which this video roundup did not work very well. 228 00:32:05,980 --> 00:32:09,280 First, leaks from the French police forms the perfect tool, 229 00:32:09,290 --> 00:32:23,950 the police warning for Jews to a communist leaflet a few few days before go to hiding that the men understood that they go to ending, 230 00:32:24,130 --> 00:32:32,020 but not the woman or the children, because so far they did not arrest women and children. 231 00:32:32,590 --> 00:32:41,139 Three acts of spontaneous act of of solidarity, of protection, conscientious, 232 00:32:41,140 --> 00:32:51,190 of passer by and then which is quite very interesting, the reaction of a zoo district, the commissioner of police. 233 00:32:51,220 --> 00:32:57,160 So some of full of zeal and other and dragged their feet. 234 00:32:57,460 --> 00:33:07,960 For example if you know the devil got a name because we have to is quite well known this year and next year will go to their parents. 235 00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:14,740 Where? In Paris? In their apartment. So zoo could have been taken by this very deep roundup. 236 00:33:15,100 --> 00:33:18,910 And the police knock at the door like that. 237 00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:22,540 But they did not ask the instruction to destroy the door. 238 00:33:23,500 --> 00:33:26,710 So this this policeman did not do so. 239 00:33:27,520 --> 00:33:32,720 And this family were saved. You know, you have plenty you have to give, for example, like that. 240 00:33:33,070 --> 00:33:36,820 So it's quite it's quite a myth. 241 00:33:37,090 --> 00:33:48,430 Bye bye. I think it's most of the Syrian agree on this that this is a turning point as the summer 1940 flu. 242 00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:55,660 And the first sign of this is the protests of different different Catholic bishops. 243 00:33:55,840 --> 00:34:05,290 The most well known is by Jews. So, yes, on August 23, 1942, Jews. 244 00:34:05,290 --> 00:34:11,440 How many Jews are women? Is this are men and women not discussing feminist revolt against them? 245 00:34:11,770 --> 00:34:16,760 Just a word about Syria. Syria is quite normal, actually. 246 00:34:16,820 --> 00:34:26,650 Yes, 72. So I don't I don't know if we can say today when you have since 72 you are an old man, but at that time could be considered like that. 247 00:34:26,830 --> 00:34:32,470 Okay. But in addition in addition, she sees a disabled person. 248 00:34:33,490 --> 00:34:36,730 He has aphasia. He cannot speak anymore. 249 00:34:37,120 --> 00:34:52,570 Almost anymore. So what I found fascinating is that this man, almost death, generated this courageous and so crucial speech contest. 250 00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:58,950 And you said to look at the worst failure of France of protesting against the. 251 00:34:59,190 --> 00:35:11,340 Mass deportation of Jews in 1942. The others are also known, but I don't know if you knew the new mental ball. 252 00:35:12,060 --> 00:35:21,840 It's it's to us is protest is much more, you know, modern, so to speak, from today. 253 00:35:22,030 --> 00:35:30,300 Okay. But it's much more intellectual. And so, yes, as you know, very simple words to touch the people. 254 00:35:31,470 --> 00:35:38,710 And of course, it's read over the BBC when one week after, you know, and what they discovered. 255 00:35:38,740 --> 00:35:42,870 But we could use by the New York Times September 12, I guess. 256 00:35:43,350 --> 00:35:49,290 And you have Aziz Jadallah in Marseilles and Jorginho and Moussa. 257 00:35:49,620 --> 00:35:53,099 That is our view. But it has an impact on U.S. policy. 258 00:35:53,100 --> 00:35:57,100 I wouldn't show you just after. Okay. 259 00:35:57,120 --> 00:36:03,600 So that's this is a first it's the second sign is what happened at the bottom of the psyche of the society. 260 00:36:04,110 --> 00:36:09,480 It's now well documented. And I, I made some efforts on that direction. 261 00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:17,070 You know, you can identify what I call small gestures of protection, but, you know, 262 00:36:17,080 --> 00:36:22,200 opposition to escape arrest, because when you are Jews is a French foray. 263 00:36:22,470 --> 00:36:29,670 You cannot avoid persecution. But what is at stake is to avoid arrest every session. 264 00:36:30,390 --> 00:36:34,560 So these small gestures are crucial for this. 265 00:36:34,650 --> 00:36:37,830 So what what what do I mean by small gestures? 266 00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:44,580 It's coming from strangers very of some sometime. 267 00:36:44,580 --> 00:36:53,100 Very often it's a word. It's an act which could help you to get arrested, just like in the street. 268 00:36:53,460 --> 00:36:58,350 But go and don't go home or just turn right. 269 00:36:59,040 --> 00:37:09,989 Because the police at the court, at the opposite corner you have they in they appeared they appeared in a count 270 00:37:09,990 --> 00:37:15,479 testimonies and they Jewish account testimonies in this period in the period. 271 00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:26,280 And also, uh, of course in post-war Jewish memories, you have four characters that I didn't define in this account. 272 00:37:26,280 --> 00:37:41,430 You know, the guardian angel warn of the danger, the oysters, of course, we shelters, uh, views of forger, uh, in all sorts of smuggling. 273 00:37:42,630 --> 00:37:50,750 If you were, if you read or if you are never read, never read the book of Joseph Jerusalem, 274 00:37:51,450 --> 00:37:58,830 a bag of marbles, which is an extraordinary story of these two Jewish young boys. 275 00:37:59,070 --> 00:38:06,240 You will find these four characters. So I could I could develop this, although I'm sure I'm going to be too long. 276 00:38:07,740 --> 00:38:12,780 You don't just mean. Yeah, and I mean. I mean. You mean it's something to do. 277 00:38:13,170 --> 00:38:16,570 Well, okay, so, um. 278 00:38:16,950 --> 00:38:26,310 But the villain. So I'm not. I'm not pretending this is resistance, you know, as a Judas, for example, study, 279 00:38:26,760 --> 00:38:36,840 uh, I propose a new notion is social activity to to to describe that phenomenon. 280 00:38:37,830 --> 00:38:43,550 I'm not pretending this is before a French exceptionalism, okay? 281 00:38:45,930 --> 00:38:52,560 Because I think that's that kind of small gestures, what I call social activity, um, 282 00:38:53,160 --> 00:38:59,280 appear as well in, in, uh, you know, in, in Belgium, you know, in Denmark and Google. 283 00:38:59,280 --> 00:39:11,639 Yeah. And so on and so, so but what I would defend, what we would argue it's to say that, uh, France had the experience of, you know, 284 00:39:11,640 --> 00:39:22,230 important moment of social activity, mainly between 42 and 43, 44, because before the French were mainly indifferent to the fate of Jews. 285 00:39:24,180 --> 00:39:33,329 Uh, the turning point is this summer, 1942, and when I mean by social relativity this moment, 286 00:39:33,330 --> 00:39:45,180 or in which when, when, you know, um, uh, individuals without any instruction, 287 00:39:45,750 --> 00:39:53,280 without knowing each other, are going to help other individuals that they don't know, 288 00:39:53,550 --> 00:39:58,650 who they not know as well, that they perceive their are in a difficult. 289 00:39:59,620 --> 00:40:03,420 Situation or situation, great variability. 290 00:40:04,330 --> 00:40:08,920 Also, this notion of sexual activity does not want to be artistic, you know. 291 00:40:08,950 --> 00:40:16,090 At the same time, some French people are still indifferent to the sort of the fate of the Jews. 292 00:40:16,390 --> 00:40:19,900 They are taking profit of them. They are taking their apartments. 293 00:40:20,650 --> 00:40:24,070 All the bad things or denunciation and so on and so forth. 294 00:40:24,310 --> 00:40:38,980 So I am not idealistic in that regard, but I just argue that this, you know, complicity and formal complicity helped Jews to survive. 295 00:40:39,700 --> 00:40:48,130 And most of the most of the Jewish rescue organiser organisers recognise that. 296 00:40:48,730 --> 00:40:52,600 So Poland is not France in that regard in terms of anti-Semitism. 297 00:40:53,020 --> 00:41:05,710 Now I want to present you just this to a glance, I would say to this wonderful movie, The Old Man and the Child with Michel Seymour, 298 00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:12,220 which tells the story of a young Jewish boy growing very which can become a famous 299 00:41:12,850 --> 00:41:22,959 filmmaker to pay gratitude to this old couple in the growing global region. 300 00:41:22,960 --> 00:41:26,470 He knew wonderful vision and contractors would take care of him. 301 00:41:27,970 --> 00:41:39,520 Then let's not forget the real politic. So I'm going to speed up, you know, the real politic means of politics as the goals of the Nazi in Europe. 302 00:41:39,970 --> 00:41:44,260 So I come back to my former book, Announce Against Hitler, 303 00:41:44,260 --> 00:41:52,240 where there was some distinction between the countries which are directly and German control. 304 00:41:53,020 --> 00:41:58,120 So zero is in the rate of Holocaust is very high. 305 00:41:58,360 --> 00:42:06,550 And as a country where the in governments ends, it was the case of France. 306 00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:18,910 So I agree with Paxton at that point of Vichy has a margin of manoeuvre not only before 22, after 22, also before. 307 00:42:19,240 --> 00:42:29,260 And you can show this through this as this life, this new slide has been discovered, 308 00:42:29,950 --> 00:42:38,920 this German minute of the means of meeting with the world when it was there, you know, 309 00:42:40,300 --> 00:42:49,060 as a protest of the church in the level do not want to say openly was reluctant to 310 00:42:49,960 --> 00:42:56,470 fully cooperate with the deportation of the its can be the basis of the figures. 311 00:42:57,710 --> 00:43:06,420 42 is the worst period for the Jews in France, meaning it's more or less 40,000 Jews were exterminated. 312 00:43:07,570 --> 00:43:20,710 You see a drop in in 1943 go between decreased to 17, but increase again in 1944 at the time of Vichy, the almost dying. 313 00:43:20,730 --> 00:43:29,350 It's becoming a mini state. And this figure is only for the six months of 1944. 314 00:43:29,620 --> 00:43:37,450 So fortunately, the Allied landing in June 94 was successful. 315 00:43:37,990 --> 00:43:41,650 Otherwise, the rate of the Holocaust in France would be higher. 316 00:43:42,460 --> 00:43:47,710 And finally, this is my main argument. 317 00:43:47,740 --> 00:44:02,410 But I mean, to this I would say I would not argue that, um, 75% of Jews were saved in France, but which is different. 318 00:44:02,830 --> 00:44:09,220 They survived, meaning different factors. 319 00:44:09,460 --> 00:44:10,690 And then people approach. 320 00:44:11,260 --> 00:44:25,590 And finally, I like also I also like the German cover of the book because it put together it bring together a structural factor. 321 00:44:25,600 --> 00:44:27,720 You see the link line, demarcation line. 322 00:44:27,730 --> 00:44:36,790 It's a, you know, so you see the free zone plus this women who are going to take care of these two Jewish children. 323 00:44:38,260 --> 00:44:51,909 Thank you. Thank you, Jack. And obviously this is such a rich book, you can only touch the tip of the iceberg. 324 00:44:51,910 --> 00:44:56,920 But it's it was a very enlightening presentation, obviously. 325 00:44:56,920 --> 00:45:00,080 And now I would like to turn to Robert Frost. 326 00:45:00,640 --> 00:45:12,940 Thank you so much, Jack. I know the book interested me so much because it made me think about how things have changed since I was a child. 327 00:45:14,170 --> 00:45:20,920 I was raised going to Hebrew school and it was always discussed as. 328 00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:25,750 The Holocaust being absolutely unique and unspeakable horror. 329 00:45:26,560 --> 00:45:30,680 That meant that in a sense, you could not compare it to anything else. 330 00:45:30,790 --> 00:45:37,000 And this notion of the uniqueness of the Holocaust was with us until the early 1990s. 331 00:45:37,570 --> 00:45:45,100 And I remember having my young colleague, Dan Stone, he came, he wanted to write on this historiography, 332 00:45:45,430 --> 00:45:50,980 and actually they tried to kick him out of the history faculty as it wasn't really history 333 00:45:51,190 --> 00:45:56,650 because it was historiography and also the even then it was considered so outrageous. 334 00:45:58,180 --> 00:46:05,590 So this notion of uniqueness while seeking to give justice to the Holocaust is a very extreme form of horror. 335 00:46:06,280 --> 00:46:11,050 Also had the unfortunate kala of setting Nazi extermination apart. 336 00:46:11,980 --> 00:46:16,600 And it made comparative analysis impossible with other genocides. 337 00:46:17,200 --> 00:46:26,650 So that we had this thing of Judaism being and Jews as the particular groups and the only group that was persecuted. 338 00:46:27,340 --> 00:46:31,540 And it also tended to suggest a certain Jewish victimology. 339 00:46:32,020 --> 00:46:43,180 And it went along with somebody like me who grew up in the States with a certain unselfconscious Zionism at the time that was almost dogmatic. 340 00:46:44,710 --> 00:46:48,310 This notion of the Jewish victim, this victimology, 341 00:46:48,640 --> 00:46:54,610 made it difficult to assess and investigate the role of Jews in resisting and defending themselves as well. 342 00:46:55,240 --> 00:47:00,580 They were seen as one undifferentiated mass that went to the gas chambers. 343 00:47:01,450 --> 00:47:10,030 So what's remarkable about this book is that it's moving us even further down the road of comparison and making us think about France, 344 00:47:10,300 --> 00:47:18,250 not just Denmark or Belgium or Bulgaria, as a case in its own with its own context. 345 00:47:18,250 --> 00:47:27,280 And for that, I'm deeply grateful. The other thing I wanted to speak about just briefly was some of the stories that you told. 346 00:47:27,280 --> 00:47:31,239 And I keep on thinking about what you said about people taking over people's 347 00:47:31,240 --> 00:47:38,710 apartments and jobs and the denunciations and why it was that so many non-Jews, 348 00:47:38,860 --> 00:47:47,800 secular and Catholic, felt such a sense of entitlement about taking property in positions of influence and employment from Jews. 349 00:47:49,690 --> 00:48:01,630 And then how it changes when 1942 and I couldn't help but think of Yann Gross's quite remarkable book called Neighbours, 350 00:48:02,560 --> 00:48:09,760 where he describes the intense desire on the part of the Christian neighbours to have the Jewish property as their own. 351 00:48:13,060 --> 00:48:17,830 And what is interesting is that in the Polish case, of course, 352 00:48:18,370 --> 00:48:27,370 they were stood by and they were literally content to let the Jews be murdered in a bonfire, in a in a in a barn. 353 00:48:27,970 --> 00:48:34,540 But this something shifts after 1942, and that's no longer the case. 354 00:48:34,960 --> 00:48:41,110 And the question is, again, why? Nonetheless, 355 00:48:41,110 --> 00:48:51,490 I'd like to say that it's very interesting how widespread this view of taking back jobs and positions was amongst the non-Jewish population. 356 00:48:52,000 --> 00:48:56,470 I find it very clearly in my work on the Dreyfuss affair. 357 00:48:57,760 --> 00:49:08,890 It's very interesting Dreyfuss life, the meritocratic whoops, that he had to get up the ranks precisely because it was proof of his achievement. 358 00:49:09,820 --> 00:49:15,360 But this meritocratic approach was precisely what enraged his military colleagues. 359 00:49:15,370 --> 00:49:23,440 The more as he sought to sidestep the network of patronage and common values they had invested so much time in cultivating. 360 00:49:23,980 --> 00:49:31,720 So what we think of as that conclusion, as the French Way was also considered by many not to be the French way, 361 00:49:31,930 --> 00:49:41,920 and it depended on what side you were on when you were assessing whether this was French or a foreign intrusion. 362 00:49:45,700 --> 00:49:54,819 I'm also wondering, as I was reading, if there was an instructive parallel here between the contemporary refugee crisis in America and the family 363 00:49:54,820 --> 00:50:04,050 separations that so upset people at the border in Mexico and what the public witnessed during and after Valdivia, 364 00:50:04,930 --> 00:50:15,310 the belief in America. The public may feel that there is an immigration problem, but they cringe when seeing children separated from their families. 365 00:50:16,180 --> 00:50:21,090 So there is a whole sort of moral renegotiation going on there. 366 00:50:21,860 --> 00:50:28,400 And I'm wondering, was this similar in France? Did people feel that there was indeed a Jewish problem? 367 00:50:28,880 --> 00:50:31,970 But they were uncomfortable with the roundup against families, 368 00:50:31,970 --> 00:50:37,430 especially the women and children that they were forced to witness for the very reasons that you suggest men. 369 00:50:37,440 --> 00:50:42,560 Okay. But isn't there something here that really goes against transgressing something deeper? 370 00:50:44,090 --> 00:50:53,549 It's very hard to tell if people revise their anti-Semitic views after 1942 or merely so the resistance 371 00:50:53,550 --> 00:51:00,210 to this lack of humanity as a part of an increasing resistance to not Nazi occupation and Vichy rule. 372 00:51:00,230 --> 00:51:10,190 And this is a question that you that you raise. As you say, the French were indifferent, but in many ways, as you explained because of the episode, 373 00:51:10,550 --> 00:51:14,750 it's everybody's known in the early act after the defeat. 374 00:51:14,760 --> 00:51:20,810 It takes a long time, and then they're witnessing things that become harder to accept. 375 00:51:22,310 --> 00:51:30,580 Now, the one part where I was worried about your book was, was the way you too readily threw away psychological explanation. 376 00:51:31,250 --> 00:51:33,950 And you said you were trained as a psychologist. 377 00:51:35,150 --> 00:51:45,440 And I saw in a former life in a former life that you asserted, and in my view, quite rightly, that notions of an altruistic or for that matter, 378 00:51:45,440 --> 00:51:56,809 an authoritarian personality are too clichéd and rigid to account for the variety of actors and motivations that underpin both resistance and rescue, 379 00:51:56,810 --> 00:52:01,370 depending on what you're talking about, let alone survival. Because there's other things going on there, too. 380 00:52:02,360 --> 00:52:09,470 And of course, I would agree with you that any sophisticated view of motivation itself, a difficult term, 381 00:52:10,100 --> 00:52:13,880 necessarily deals with the shifting dynamics of subjectivity, 382 00:52:14,690 --> 00:52:20,569 the shadow and substance of every gesture, and especially the gestures of the kind that you describe, 383 00:52:20,570 --> 00:52:26,990 which were spur of the moment decisions which took place in ways that are difficult to account for this so much 384 00:52:26,990 --> 00:52:36,440 a lamp harvest that I think that spontaneity which which begs the question about how we begin to explain it. 385 00:52:36,440 --> 00:52:42,170 And I understand why you use the term reactivity, because it gives that sense of reaction. 386 00:52:43,430 --> 00:52:49,370 And yet, does this notion of social reactivity in which people, for example, 387 00:52:49,400 --> 00:53:01,190 did not like Jews but came to hate the Nazis or the collaborators more were essential in leaving shifts in mentality, the implications of prejudice. 388 00:53:01,730 --> 00:53:11,420 I mean, we many we have all kinds of prejudicial ideas, but they become clearer in life and death circumstances which the Nazi empire imposed. 389 00:53:11,990 --> 00:53:19,220 I'll give you an extraordinary example, if you don't mind another anecdote, because we can't help but tell our stories and we should tell stories. 390 00:53:19,910 --> 00:53:28,370 I have an old friend who's dead now, per Moche. He was an assumption priest and he worked for the newspaper La Cour. 391 00:53:29,840 --> 00:53:34,160 He was he grew up in a tri confessional village in Alsace. 392 00:53:34,610 --> 00:53:41,089 And he had he and his Palestinian mates made fun of the Jews when he returned 393 00:53:41,090 --> 00:53:45,020 after the war and found that all his Jewish neighbours had been decimated. 394 00:53:45,800 --> 00:53:55,400 He was devastated and he repented by learning Hebrew and reciting the Psalms in the scriptural language every day, which I find I found remarkable. 395 00:53:56,210 --> 00:54:09,110 This was his penitence. But he also told me with pride that he had converted three Jews in 1993, and for him, Catholicism remained the one true faith. 396 00:54:09,980 --> 00:54:14,900 And he he really did not think of himself as anti-Semitic. 397 00:54:15,590 --> 00:54:19,550 But I was horrified when he told me the tale of conversion. 398 00:54:20,750 --> 00:54:26,010 All like all I could think of was why did he not want the world to keep the few Jews who were left? 399 00:54:26,060 --> 00:54:28,310 And, you know, I was thinking of myself, of the bubble. 400 00:54:28,310 --> 00:54:35,930 And of course, he was the archivist who had shown me all the papers of the anti-Semitism of the assumption is fearlessly. 401 00:54:36,590 --> 00:54:40,669 And he had done more for me than anybody else, but I was really struck. 402 00:54:40,670 --> 00:54:49,970 That was his bottom line belief. And I think it's that kind of of tenacity that we have to think of when we discuss what happens to people. 403 00:54:51,800 --> 00:54:58,700 Such a vision of subjectivity allows us to accept the reality of very profound contradictions 404 00:54:59,030 --> 00:55:06,200 within people's psyches and to understand better the competing impulses that underpin prejudice. 405 00:55:07,640 --> 00:55:12,110 Now I just want to step back and talk a bit about the larger arguments of the work. 406 00:55:13,880 --> 00:55:21,080 Most important is your view that there's a disjunction between the draconian nature of Vichy anti-Semitic legislation. 407 00:55:21,350 --> 00:55:22,820 And the reality on the ground. 408 00:55:23,240 --> 00:55:35,420 So you talk about Morris Marris and Paxton, how it may be significant for a tiny layer at the top of Vichy of the Vichy power play. 409 00:55:35,810 --> 00:55:40,310 But as you've explained in your talk library, it paints a very different picture. 410 00:55:41,030 --> 00:55:47,330 And it's much more of a mosaic where the importance of the real world and the peasants is underscored. 411 00:55:48,080 --> 00:55:55,310 And I think that one thing that the book for me, the most moving thing about the book is despite all this people in Paris, 412 00:55:55,910 --> 00:56:01,430 the people who saved Jews were peasants and poor rural people and their working class 413 00:56:01,430 --> 00:56:06,070 people who had little places in the countryside and who were able to do something, 414 00:56:06,110 --> 00:56:11,900 something because of the enormity of France's underpopulated rural regions. 415 00:56:13,010 --> 00:56:19,840 And they were particularly willing to help children. And we cannot deny the importance of funds in this process. 416 00:56:19,850 --> 00:56:27,980 They were often paid. But does this mean that we can deny their sacrifice or misunderstand the meaning of this? 417 00:56:28,580 --> 00:56:32,300 They were poor. I mean, they're coming out of the Depression and then they have this. 418 00:56:32,810 --> 00:56:37,220 They've been poor for so long and they're just getting poorer. 419 00:56:39,170 --> 00:56:45,410 So they couldn't have survived in the countryside if they hadn't been able to have some camouflage amongst the populace. 420 00:56:45,440 --> 00:56:52,520 But it's not. It's not. There's no doubt that some of these Jewish children were exploited for labour and treated badly. 421 00:56:52,940 --> 00:56:56,780 Then there are other examples where the bonds were forever. 422 00:56:56,960 --> 00:57:06,950 And you have that moving case of the of the of the the court case where the rural woman wants to keep the child and. 423 00:57:06,960 --> 00:57:13,580 Oh, yes, yes. And it's it's heartbreaking story. And the child wants to stay with the adopted mother. 424 00:57:14,900 --> 00:57:23,750 Now, this is when I talk about religion, because I think religion matters, but not religion in any narrow sense. 425 00:57:24,620 --> 00:57:27,950 It matters that Sally Age protested. 426 00:57:29,360 --> 00:57:32,840 I wish he had done it earlier. And again. 427 00:57:32,990 --> 00:57:41,780 Then leave is what changes it. If the German bishops had protested Protestants and Catholics, we might have had a different story. 428 00:57:43,610 --> 00:57:48,889 And I'm interested in the various forms of Christian thought, whether it was inchoate, 429 00:57:48,890 --> 00:57:57,050 personal ism that feeds so much into the resistance or the Protestant humanism that we see in the villages and this event. 430 00:57:57,530 --> 00:58:06,920 And I wonder, even in the zone where Stanley Hoffman is in the Italians, that some that Catholicism of some kind doesn't play a role there. 431 00:58:07,160 --> 00:58:08,510 But we don't know exactly. 432 00:58:09,560 --> 00:58:17,750 And the latter traditions of in this event, in the Protestant places, the traditions of resisting persecution are long and memorialised. 433 00:58:19,280 --> 00:58:29,340 But we can't also deny the importance of the life affirming absolutism as a means of arresting genocide. 434 00:58:29,360 --> 00:58:40,790 I mean, even in Germany in the 1930s, German social workers in southern and western Germany resisted the policies of euthanasia in Catholic Germany. 435 00:58:40,790 --> 00:58:49,489 And they they really dragged their feet. And we can't you know, it it's it's true that it's just for Catholics. 436 00:58:49,490 --> 00:58:57,380 This kind of stuff is so difficult. And yet the church is also a tremendous contributor to anti-Semitism. 437 00:58:57,410 --> 00:59:05,180 I mean, we've had I've had some friends from abroad who saw Saint John's passion as a concert. 438 00:59:05,180 --> 00:59:10,940 And there's all that discussion in in the music about the perfidious Jews and these. 439 00:59:10,970 --> 00:59:15,830 So it's it's this to these to these two poles that we have to see. 440 00:59:15,830 --> 00:59:19,400 And I'm quoting your quote from Maguire. Oh, yeah. 441 00:59:20,120 --> 00:59:23,690 Where he talks of this kind of civilizational Christianity. 442 00:59:24,200 --> 00:59:31,490 And in my view, he says it all when he remarked, At what moment in history did penal colonies become prisons for the innocent? 443 00:59:32,240 --> 00:59:36,530 And what other era have children been torn from their mothers and piles into cattle trucks, 444 00:59:36,920 --> 00:59:41,150 as I witness this morning, this dark morning at Austerlitz Station. 445 00:59:42,050 --> 00:59:51,050 And I think that those people who protested against the family separations in and in the border in Mexico, you know, those pictures, 446 00:59:51,050 --> 00:59:59,030 even though some of them were not actually of children being separated from their mothers, but there was a reality of children being separated. 447 00:59:59,540 --> 01:00:07,070 If you if I read The Washington Post every night because because since Trump, I've been American again, because I get upset by what's going on there. 448 01:00:07,400 --> 01:00:17,600 But then they made a list of the number of pulping people who got up after the family separation and protested that in America. 449 01:00:17,630 --> 01:00:20,870 I was across the board rabbis. 450 01:00:21,660 --> 01:00:25,140 Priests and ministers. 451 01:00:26,460 --> 01:00:31,800 And now I would just like to probe more deeply. I'm almost done, actually. 452 01:00:32,280 --> 01:00:38,489 Okay. So would you argue that a pillory society like Belgium, as in Holland, 453 01:00:38,490 --> 01:00:43,960 cancels out the Catholicism and muted its effects because Catholics lived among Catholics? 454 01:00:43,980 --> 01:00:55,590 Was it harder to see the need to see Jews as other human beings, or was it more because of the vastness of the French countryside? 455 01:00:57,300 --> 01:01:06,540 That's something I just was wondering about. I'm also interested in these rescue missions because they help the foreign Jews, 456 01:01:06,540 --> 01:01:12,540 because this issue of foreign and French still is so hard to come to terms with. 457 01:01:13,350 --> 01:01:23,280 Young. GROSS Again, in a lecture that I heard more than I'd say 35 years ago, said that even in the Polish resistance, 458 01:01:23,550 --> 01:01:33,330 the Poles never saw that the Jews as fellow Poles and with their ghettoisation and popularisation, the Gulf was only enlarged. 459 01:01:33,480 --> 01:01:35,760 They looked like the beggars and the homeless on the streets. 460 01:01:35,760 --> 01:01:42,630 So there was no there was that that to them there was a dynamic of repulsion and pity, but none of fraternity. 461 01:01:42,900 --> 01:01:48,680 I mean, how does that happen in Poland? Even the Communists had the little fellow feeling for the Jews. 462 01:01:48,690 --> 01:01:55,020 There was no relationship to them. Now I'd like to think more about the Republican tradition. 463 01:01:55,650 --> 01:01:59,220 It's important that they enrol children in school, as in Denmark. 464 01:02:00,060 --> 01:02:04,380 It's important that schoolteachers make connections with saving organisations. 465 01:02:04,950 --> 01:02:09,660 But it still leaves aside this thing about people who are, quote, not French. 466 01:02:10,140 --> 01:02:22,200 The Republic was also responsible for social welfare, and I do believe that the saving of French Jews had some relationship to Republicanism. 467 01:02:22,890 --> 01:02:28,200 If there was the memory, especially of the union sack, which was still powerful, 468 01:02:28,200 --> 01:02:34,620 especially for Jewish servicemen when their bravery was so was recognised. 469 01:02:36,000 --> 01:02:43,980 But I also say that this the way you talk about French Republicanism is is very static and quite monolithic. 470 01:02:44,340 --> 01:02:53,760 Wasn't it also stained by defeat and decadence and the fact that the Jews were much pitied during the revolution? 471 01:02:54,870 --> 01:03:04,740 Yes, but that's a long time ago. And the status of Jews and relationship to Jews is very variable all through the 19th century. 472 01:03:05,850 --> 01:03:13,860 Aren't the subjective motivations for supporting the Republic as multiple as the gradations in the forms of anti-Semitism? 473 01:03:13,920 --> 01:03:22,440 This shifts very, very readily, and this is not so much a criticism as a provocation to thought. 474 01:03:23,370 --> 01:03:32,699 I what I really wanted to conclude with is to say that we by looking at the Holocaust historically, we don't relative ize it. 475 01:03:32,700 --> 01:03:46,950 And I think that that tendency to see it in those in that way has made it very difficult to to think about it and to make it more concrete, 476 01:03:47,040 --> 01:03:51,180 surprisingly. And for me, that's the greatest lesson that the book teaches. 477 01:03:52,230 --> 01:03:58,650 Thank you. Very much. 478 01:03:59,070 --> 01:04:04,020 Robert. Well, thank you very much, Jack, and thank you very much. 479 01:04:04,020 --> 01:04:12,419 Also, Ruth, I'm going to start off by talking about why I think this is a wonderful book that I'm going to talk a bit about sources and then I'm going 480 01:04:12,420 --> 01:04:21,510 to talk finally about what we need to think about in terms of the picture we have or might have of France under the German occupation. 481 01:04:21,510 --> 01:04:29,969 So why is this a great book? I mean, the first thing is that you you you also you tackle a major historical question, 482 01:04:29,970 --> 01:04:34,209 which is why was it that 75% of the Jews of thoughts were saved? 483 01:04:34,210 --> 01:04:37,290 That a really important question and you've tackled it head on. 484 01:04:38,700 --> 01:04:43,409 Secondly, I like your use of sources. You say that you use quantitative and qualitative sources. 485 01:04:43,410 --> 01:04:53,850 I love the maps. I'm great friends for maps, as you know, but I'm also a fan of oral history and I love the way you use witness accounts, 486 01:04:54,840 --> 01:05:01,170 the interviews you've done yourself to trace individual family biographies. 487 01:05:03,000 --> 01:05:10,980 Perhaps most important, you invite us to rewrite or reconsider the dominant narratives of resistance and occupation. 488 01:05:11,550 --> 01:05:16,920 One of the things I say in my book, my recent book on resistance, 489 01:05:16,920 --> 01:05:26,820 is that there's a kind of switch in the late in the 1990s and subsequent income considering from having a rather old fashioned view of resistance, 490 01:05:27,570 --> 01:05:33,990 which is military, masculine and national, which goes back to the girl tapping a much more interested rescue, 491 01:05:34,050 --> 01:05:41,010 which is more which is humanitarian, which involves many more women and which is also more international. 492 01:05:41,010 --> 01:05:45,660 So you you know, I cite that in my book as a contribution that you've made to the debate. 493 01:05:46,290 --> 01:05:54,710 You also ask us to think differently about occupied France, much less about, you know, you know, 494 01:05:54,890 --> 01:05:59,720 to challenge the picture we have in France on the occupation that we've got from the shop and IP chair from. 495 01:06:00,090 --> 01:06:06,090 And and you know, you say that we need to think about sympathy, mutual aid, complicity, 496 01:06:07,110 --> 01:06:15,300 these little gestures you quote, you say you to your interviewees, we felt protected by the local people. 497 01:06:16,170 --> 01:06:22,890 You also and this this this is this is extremely brave, if not foolhardy. 498 01:06:23,370 --> 01:06:26,490 You ask us to reconsider the role of Vichy. 499 01:06:27,420 --> 01:06:31,080 We use this expression administrative schizophrenia. 500 01:06:31,350 --> 01:06:37,680 So you say on the one hand, Vichy was segregated Jews initiated exploitation of Jews. 501 01:06:37,950 --> 01:06:45,299 But you also talk about the way in which officials, some officials, helped Jews or the second nationality to salvage social status. 502 01:06:45,300 --> 01:06:54,720 I mean all are you talked about the white division didn't come off as it but it because of complicity from the police and so on. 503 01:06:54,900 --> 01:07:04,950 So in your story, you know, the recount the the the French would cover that as Republicans, as patriots and as Christians. 504 01:07:05,670 --> 01:07:17,730 However, all the question of sources, your book is very different from things I discovered when I was working on Marion in Chains 20 years ago. 505 01:07:18,510 --> 01:07:22,169 And I just want to cite a few alternative case. 506 01:07:22,170 --> 01:07:25,290 So for example, you cite the case of Stanley Hoffman, which is very powerful, 507 01:07:26,280 --> 01:07:34,170 but he is he's a he is someone who is not, is is or was naturally grateful to those who to hit him and his family. 508 01:07:35,400 --> 01:07:40,830 But there's another case now. This used to be a subtext to the Cold War second year subject. 509 01:07:40,830 --> 01:07:45,899 I don't know which to this Paul Steinberg speech you also which was which came out 510 01:07:45,900 --> 01:07:49,200 in French his chronic diarrhoea which is which you cite in your bibliography. 511 01:07:49,740 --> 01:07:54,390 So he was born in Berlin in 1926. His mother died when he was a child. 512 01:07:54,930 --> 01:07:58,049 His is his father was of Russian Jewish origin. 513 01:07:58,050 --> 01:08:00,660 He talks about being bundled around from country to country. 514 01:08:01,440 --> 01:08:08,639 And then after he says he says after the relative roundups and friend of the family, Madam Lucien, tried to get a present family. 515 01:08:08,640 --> 01:08:12,270 Normally I take him, but three days later they told him not to be seen. 516 01:08:12,600 --> 01:08:17,610 They could not run, quote, they could not run the risk of letting me stay for fear of upsetting the commander until. 517 01:08:18,600 --> 01:08:25,110 So he survived Auschwitz and he returned to that Normandy village in the 1950s, quote, to express his everlasting contempt. 518 01:08:25,110 --> 01:08:29,160 So that's another and that's another that's another study. 519 01:08:29,730 --> 01:08:34,080 But just a few just a few things that I found in the archives when I was working on Marian. 520 01:08:35,760 --> 01:08:41,340 So Ruth talked about how the French, you know, didn't have much compunction about taking back jobs and positions. 521 01:08:43,110 --> 01:08:46,709 A man called Eduardo, the owner of the Cafe de la Ville. 522 01:08:46,710 --> 01:08:56,510 And so Miron wrote to the prefect, the sub prefect of Somalia, on the 55th of November 1942, to say, quote, the Jews now plaza had. 523 01:08:56,580 --> 01:09:00,000 Not yet put up his Jewish business, saw him at his bar hotel. 524 01:09:00,120 --> 01:09:04,109 Quote, he says, I don't want proof that Mr. Chanel is is Jewish. 525 01:09:04,110 --> 01:09:07,530 But when he welcomes Jews, he says they all belong to the great family. 526 01:09:08,160 --> 01:09:13,310 I even told Mr. Share snip that he was a dirty Jew, a socialist, but he did not reply. 527 01:09:16,080 --> 01:09:18,180 One of the things that most struck me you talk about. 528 01:09:18,660 --> 01:09:27,480 So when when Jewish businesses were realised, as they put it, that these local these commissioners were charged with overseeing the sterilisation. 529 01:09:27,810 --> 01:09:36,030 And what struck me was the huge price tag that these people had about people who wanted to buy up Jewish businesses. 530 01:09:36,030 --> 01:09:45,599 And I just shot you cite you one by the Grecia of Paris writes to the the prefect of La Atlantic 20th December 1941, asking him what they had, 531 01:09:45,600 --> 01:09:54,060 the hotels, boarding houses and shops in the in the North Somerset level area because she was quite keen to lay a hands on them. 532 01:09:56,070 --> 01:10:03,030 Now we talked a lot about the change of opinion, the mass deportations, 1942, the fact that people were shocked. 533 01:10:03,630 --> 01:10:14,260 But again, I just want to show you one document. There was a case of 116 Jews being held being held for three days in October 1942, in the coliseum. 534 01:10:14,310 --> 01:10:20,670 Now, also before they were deported to the policy announcements and in the archives, 535 01:10:20,670 --> 01:10:27,610 there's a there's a there's an invoice from a mr. Dupré, who was the manager of the cafe opposite the seminary. 536 01:10:27,630 --> 01:10:36,350 He submitted a bill to the prefect for 12,200 francs for meals he had provided for the inmates as he had a living to make. 537 01:10:36,360 --> 01:10:40,829 So I'm happy that, you know, some people were shocked by the deportations produced. 538 01:10:40,830 --> 01:10:44,430 Other people were, you know, making money out of it. 539 01:10:44,640 --> 01:10:56,549 And last but the last the last point about about religion and the bishops, I you know, these bishops from the southern zone are wonderful. 540 01:10:56,550 --> 01:11:01,320 But in the northern zone, in the desert occupying, they weren't bothered at all. 541 01:11:01,650 --> 01:11:09,960 There was a protest by the bishops in the occupied zone on June day, 9th of April 1943. 542 01:11:10,440 --> 01:11:13,680 But it was a protest against people being sent still. 543 01:11:13,800 --> 01:11:18,090 It wasn't a protest against Jews being deported. 544 01:11:18,090 --> 01:11:22,560 And I think one of the things that you pick up is that there's a sense that, you know, the Jews have got problems, 545 01:11:22,830 --> 01:11:27,450 but everyone else has got very bloody problems with being sent on to go and all the rest of it. 546 01:11:27,910 --> 01:11:37,110 So what picture do we have of the occupation? I mean, your story, you know, gives us this gives us I mean, what I wrote my own in chains. 547 01:11:37,110 --> 01:11:40,610 I said, well, you know, there are there are three kinds of French people in the literature. 548 01:11:40,620 --> 01:11:44,640 There's the good French, the bad French and the poor French. 549 01:11:45,000 --> 01:11:48,720 And I wanted to write about the poor French, the people in the middle. 550 01:11:49,560 --> 01:11:58,020 But you're writing very much about about the good French. And it's a story of mutual aid, solidarity, generosity that that we have. 551 01:11:58,470 --> 01:12:04,140 But when I when I sort of rewind to where I where I was when I wrote my in chains, 552 01:12:04,830 --> 01:12:12,320 this to me was what struck me was this was a country suffering from the trauma of defeat and occupation as a result of defeat. 553 01:12:12,330 --> 01:12:15,959 They were they immediately got into scapegoating. Who was responsible for this? 554 01:12:15,960 --> 01:12:19,560 Was it the Jews? Was it the Communists? Was it the Freemasons? Was it the labour movement? 555 01:12:20,640 --> 01:12:24,830 They became very suspicious of and hostile to foreigners and immigrants. 556 01:12:24,870 --> 01:12:30,570 I think this may be a fact of why, as you say, you know, French Jews survived in much, 557 01:12:30,960 --> 01:12:34,650 much greater numbers than foreign Jews because foreign Jews in the end, 558 01:12:34,650 --> 01:12:39,330 with regard to the immigrants, there's a link between antisemitism into the phobia, as you as you say. 559 01:12:39,510 --> 01:12:49,409 One of the things that struck me was under the occupation as a kind of narrowing of the horizons that people can't think about, 560 01:12:49,410 --> 01:12:51,730 you know, the national interest or about what's going on. 561 01:12:51,750 --> 01:12:56,850 Well, you know, they they they their interest shrinks to their job, their family, their community. 562 01:12:57,060 --> 01:13:03,750 It's it's sort of shock. And, of course, what and so that, you know, there are stories of generosity, 563 01:13:03,750 --> 01:13:07,650 but there are also, as you say, stories about in the form of letters of denunciation. 564 01:13:07,680 --> 01:13:09,930 You talk about there was also this question of money. 565 01:13:09,930 --> 01:13:15,389 And I think and I think, you know, you talked about how it helped that Jewish people have financial resources. 566 01:13:15,390 --> 01:13:20,520 As you say, Promontory must not be forgotten. Do you have a section of your material? 567 01:13:20,820 --> 01:13:27,030 But one of the things that strikes me as one of the one of the questions that needs to be asked is, you know, when, for example, 568 01:13:28,410 --> 01:13:36,450 people helped, you know, smugglers helped Jews over the frontier to Spain or to, you know, or to Spain, Spain, Austria. 569 01:13:36,450 --> 01:13:41,099 And what you did, they do this out of the out of the goodness of their hearts, or were they, 570 01:13:41,100 --> 01:13:47,370 in effect, people traffickers who were who were cashing in on the on the on the Jews predicament? 571 01:13:47,820 --> 01:13:55,680 On the last point, I suppose this is your your your your your main argument. 572 01:13:55,680 --> 01:13:57,709 And I think it's. It's very important. 573 01:13:57,710 --> 01:14:09,740 We need to consider this is how the survival of the Jews depends on every day, every day French people lending them a helping hand from time to time. 574 01:14:10,550 --> 01:14:20,410 But I suppose there are two things. One is. To what extent were the Jews protected and to what extent did they protect themselves? 575 01:14:20,890 --> 01:14:25,510 So there are these Jewish organisations, the OSI, the Jewish Scouts. 576 01:14:26,240 --> 01:14:31,930 So the days of the caravan of adage of the past that you cite. 577 01:14:32,350 --> 01:14:35,200 But again, if we if we if we go back to the Van Diem, you know, 578 01:14:35,200 --> 01:14:43,240 you talked about why the building didn't succeed either because of the communist leverage, because of negotiations, because of the police. 579 01:14:44,470 --> 01:14:52,540 The deputy demo who's who's archive you cite talks about how you know when they got news of this 580 01:14:52,540 --> 01:14:58,929 they had to they had their Yiddish newspaper and with that and with knocking on people's doors, 581 01:14:58,930 --> 01:15:05,589 they alerted them to to to the fact that the police were about to descend so that, you know, 582 01:15:05,590 --> 01:15:09,890 there is a kind of Jewish self-help thing, which is really important when you talk about forgers. 583 01:15:09,910 --> 01:15:19,180 I can't I can't remember the name of of of the young boy of Russian Jewish origin who goes from NIS to the Shlomo in the square. 584 01:15:19,180 --> 01:15:24,819 And he had a Russian origin from originally he died a couple of years ago. 585 01:15:24,820 --> 01:15:33,459 I met him. Becomes a friend of Yaakov. Yeah. So he's he's a young Jewish boy who is is a is a is a super forger. 586 01:15:33,460 --> 01:15:37,840 So, you know, some forgers are area, but many, you know, also forgers are Jewish. 587 01:15:37,840 --> 01:15:43,630 And then also the last point is resistance was also a way of surviving. 588 01:15:43,990 --> 01:15:49,530 Well, resistance. So I'll just give you the example of all. 589 01:15:49,630 --> 01:15:57,370 I mean, so anything that talks about this in her book, home visits are usually fake. 590 01:15:58,180 --> 01:16:03,370 This is still something else communist. You know, there are a lot of she calls them resourceful Jew love. 591 01:16:03,790 --> 01:16:11,260 So a lot of the a lot of the Jewish kids in Paris whose parents were rounded up, they they they make a beeline for the southern zone. 592 01:16:11,590 --> 01:16:13,270 They go to they are they go to movies. 593 01:16:13,270 --> 01:16:24,050 They get involved in resistance organisations, if and Moye groups and, you know, and these groups do provide them with protection as well as them. 594 01:16:24,100 --> 01:16:29,469 So they, so they do resist very often with a great cost to their lives. 595 01:16:29,470 --> 01:16:33,730 But, you know, so I think I think resistance also has to be considered as a as a way of survival. 596 01:16:34,030 --> 01:16:36,849 Now, just I suppose, just to conclude in a sense, 597 01:16:36,850 --> 01:16:44,560 that the debates that we we're having is whether the bottle whether the glass is half empty or half full. 598 01:16:47,920 --> 01:16:54,219 Calypso, when you introduced this, you know, you talk about rays of rays of light, you know, in the darkest darkness. 599 01:16:54,220 --> 01:16:57,340 And I suppose the question is how how bright of these rates of light? 600 01:16:57,580 --> 01:17:04,569 You know, to me, the rays of light are quite, quite weak and projective rays of light of rather a rather powerful. 601 01:17:04,570 --> 01:17:14,290 So I think and and you say you said that you don't want to look at this the occupation through rose coloured spectacles, and neither do I. 602 01:17:14,290 --> 01:17:18,219 So I think the discussion is, you know, where where do we stand on this spectrum? 603 01:17:18,220 --> 01:17:22,780 Because I think you're one of the people at the other end. Where do we you know, where are we going to end up? 604 01:17:23,500 --> 01:17:24,670 Right. Thank you. Record.