Customer Reviews

The Holocaust, the French, and the Jews

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an indispensable book for anyone interested in this subject. For all of us who think of the holocaust as a fast, furious and random event, Zucotti corrects us in showing a no less devilish but organized, punctilious horror. I am truly in awe of my grandparents, people who always respected the law and wouldn't think of not responding to a summonce, for having the wits and the luck to escape anihilation in occupied france.

"The Holocaust, The French, and The Jews" is a book full of stories that we should never forget because they are filled with teachings for all of us.

The powerful capacity that we, human beings, have to bring pain and or sorrow on other human beings is astonishing. The hardships that the Jews had to endure while Hitler was in power was a vivid proof of that. But I don't believe that their suffering was in vain. And I want to learn from their past. I want to remember the ones who died and honor the ones who survived. To learn from their past, I have to know their past and the writer of this book, Susan Zuccotti, helped me do so.

To understand their past, I would have to imagine what it could be to breathe the heavy and dreadful air as the profound anguish rose with the German ordinance that dictated that all Jews must wear the David's star. I supposed that Hitler figured out that if he was going to slaughter the shepperd's sheep, what a better way but to mark them?

To learn about the Jews, I would have to imagine exactly what it could be to be an eight-year-old boy who went home beaten up every day because on the upper left side of his shirt, a six-pronged yellow star with the word "Juif" in the center had been sewn. And to wonder how many people thought that the boy was a dirty "youpine" (foreign Jew). To understand I would have to know what it could be to leave one's childhood at the edge of a bench as one watch a flock of children, women and old people carrying bundles of cloth while being herded to a dark destiny. To hear the sound of their cries reaching all the way to heaven with "All the human pain that both life and death provide"

I would have to know or experience seeing the young worker's face--the one who carried in his wallet the false identity cards and baptismal certificates of his wife and child-- at the news that his family had gotten caught up in a massive roundup at the other side of the city.

"The Holocaust, The French and The Jews" is a book filled with downcast stories like those. In most of these stories, the main character did not live two months after the incident occurred. These stories have helped me understand what it was to be a Jew and what consequences this brought into their lives, the lives of others and the making of history. It has also helped me see, had I been there, that just as during the holocaust each person took a place in history, so I could have taken mine. I could have taken the place of the policeman, the traitor, the helper, the accuser, the guilty, the damned, the indifferent, the youpine or the "Friend of the Jews", the dictator, the orphan, the lost, the hungry, the powerful, the widow, the blind, the hopeless, the saint. And now should another holocaust occur, and after reading this book, I can choose more freely the place I want to take.

This is for Ellen, the last person to post a comment. I would recommend the film "the shame and the sorrow," a great documentary chronicling French participation in the Holocaust. Unfortunately, the French Catholic church not only was complacent when French Jews were being rounded up, many among them actively encouraged it. Some started sermons with the "Heil Hitler" salute. The author did not create the Catholic problem, the Catholic church did. The Church's history of perpetuating the deicide myth, blood libel and its insistence that Jews deserved eternal condemnation and punishment throughout history, played directly into Nazi ideology. Denying history will not improve the Catholic Church's image; active denunciation of past hateful preaching will!

This book is a balanced study of the French efforts to save Jews during the Shoah, but it seems to have a Catholic problem. One of the strongest groups defending the Jews and hiding Jews was the French Catholic conference of bishops. The author seems to have a problem admitting this. She blithely ignores the pastoral letters denouncing racism and anti-Semitism. She also ignores the turning point in the relationship between the Vichy regime and the bishops. It was precisely the anti-Semitic laws of 1942 which moved the bulk of French bishops from cautious support of the Vichy regime to clear opposition to a racist government which they found appalling. The author's Catholic problem mars all of her work in this area.