The Jews of Paris and the Final Solution: Communal Response and Internal Conflicts, 1940-1944 (Studies in Jewish History) [Hardcover]

Jacques Adler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 17, 1987 | ISBN-10: 0195043057 | ISBN-13: 978-0195043051 | Edition: First

In this work, a former member of the French resistance asks: "Are people powerless when confronted with a State determined to destroy them? Why didn't more Jews survive? How did we survive? Did we, the survivors, do all that we could, at the time, to help more people survive?" In answering these questions, Adler examines the diverse Jewish organizations that existed in Paris during the German occupation from 1940 to 1944. The first part of the book analyzes the national composition of the Jewish population, its expropriation and its daily life. The remaining chapters discuss the roles, activities, and policies of various Jewish organizations as they attempted to support Jews in their search for survival, alert the non-Jewish population to the terrible threat faced by every Jewish family, and act as representatives of the Jewish people--a role that ultimately lead to inevitable administrative cooperation with the Nazis and Vichy. Jacques Adler covers a broad range of Jewish organizations, made up of people whose determination was born of the pain and anger that came from the loss of loved ones, whose political ideology sustained them even when they faced the threat of starvation and the loneliness of clandestine existence, and whose anguish was all the more intense because they belonged to that community in Paris which was selected as fodder for the "Final Solution." Showing how they combatted gradual anti-Jewish measures, he presents an important portrait of communal solidarity and communal conflict, of both heroes and those whose courage failed.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

During the Nazi occupation of France, the French Jewish establishment tried to buy time with the collaborationist Vichy government. Franco-Jewish leaders viewed the large numbers of Jewish immigrants in France as a political liability. Many Jewish organizations publicly accepted Vichy press reports of Jewish "settlements" in Eastern Europe, knowing that refugees were being deported to death camps. Through public silence, French Judaism abandoned foreign-born Jews to a fate which, in the end, the native French Jews themselves shared. This important, courageous book unflinchingly examines a dark chapter in Jewish and world history. Adler, who fought in the Jewish underground resistance, argues that immigrant Jews were, in fact, the pacesetters in solidifying French Jews' resistance. The Nazis' slow, gradual enforcement of anti-Jewish measures confused and paralyzed a disunified Jewish leadership. Adler teaches at the University of Melbourne in Australia.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"The product of a rare combination of qualifications on the part of its author: the indelible experience of personal involvement during youth, and the dispassionate professionalism of an academic scholar....Carefully researched and comprehensive in its treatment of what happened inside a community under siege, Adler's work will be of interest to all scholars of French and Jewish affairs."--History: Reviews of New Books

"The special contribution of Adler's work is its examination of the array of responses by the Jewish community to such hitherto unsurpassed barbarity in France....Adler's book is both a primary and a secondary source, and the scholarship on which its rests is impressive."--Choice

"A timely and distinguished addition to the immense body of Holocaust literature."--Los Angeles Times

"A profoundly scholarly and moving book....Does full justice to the evils of Nazism and the human frailties of its victims."--History

"A scholarly and perceptive study."--Booklist

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 334 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; First edition (September 17, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195043057
• ISBN-13: 978-0195043051
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,073,420 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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