Trudy Gold
Rescue and Resistance in France, Both Jewish and Non-Jewish, Part 1
Trudy Gold - Rescue and Resistance in France, Both Jewish and Non-Jewish, Part 1
- But in the summer of 1940, there were over 700,000 Jews living in France itself or in French controlled territory. Don’t forget the 400,000 Jews in Algeria and also in the protectant of Tunisia and Morocco. Now, France itself had a population of about 300,000 Jews, of whom 200,000 were in Paris. It also had a large population of Jews who had fled persecution in Germany and Austria. I was doing some work for another presentation that I’m going to be giving you on the film industry. And, of course, characters like Billy Wilder came to Paris. And between ‘33 and '39, the French film industry was so deeply enriched by those brilliant characters who come over from Austria and from from Germany. And I should also mention a very brilliant, a very, very brilliant French director, a man called Max Ophuls whose son, of course, makes that wonderful film, “The Sorrow and the Pity”, which was about the sorrow, a documentary, which, of course, made the French come to terms or begin to come to terms with the past. But going onto the population, that has increased the population to about 330,000. But then with the occupation of Belgium and Holland, a new wave. So we can talk about 340,000 Jews in France at the time of the fall of France. Bearing in mind the population of France, about 38 million, so they’re less than 1% of the population, but the largest Jewish population in Western Europe. Now, even though France is going to be occupied for four and a half years, and, of course, have the Vichy fascist regime, I’m bearing in mind everything I said about collaboration of Vichy. Nevertheless, it had one of the highest survival rates in Europe with approximately 80% of Jews surviving the war. And if you think about it, that’s what makes France in many ways such a complicated, tragic, and yet exhilarating story because France, to me, is still completely split down the middle.
To me, it’s still the France of the revolution, the rights of man, the revolution, of course, before the terror, the ideas of the Enlightenment. But, of course, as we’ve illustrated in the past few months, it’s also the France of the Dreyfus affair and the split. And tragically, more often than not, Jews were at the centre. And William, of course, this evening brilliantly talked about the fear of communism. And it’s important to remember that to the conservative Catholic world, communism was seen as a Jewish disease. I can speak until I’m blue in the face, the majority of Jews were not communists. But the point is, a disproportionate number of the leadership of communists were of Jewish birth. And it didn’t really matter that they could say, “We’ve thrown away religion. Religion is the opium of the people.” Nevertheless, they were seen as Jews. So for the conservative element in French society, for the deeply Catholic element in French society, think who is on the papal throne, Pius XII, one of the most conservative popes of the modern period. You have this absolute fear of communism and also it’s tainting with Jews. Now, despite, as I said, despite the Vichy collaborationists, despite those appalling Nazis I talked about the other week, the survival rate, and we must remember this, is due to elaborate rescue networks, dozens of organisations, and many extraordinary individuals who risked their lives often to save people they didn’t know, and having looked at the darkness.
And I find it very difficult when as a creature who used to believe so passionately in the Enlightenment, I find it very difficult to believe how people who had such a high level of education can so easily go to the dark. And what it’s made me realise is that education per se is nothing. It’s about empathy. It’s about understanding people. And what fascinates me is what actually motivated the rescuers. We know that some sympathised, some were anti-Semitic, but they still, as the persecutions increased and the deportations began in earnest, many of them realised what was going on and they would not murder. Some, of course, were bound by ties of friendship. Others helped total strangers. Some were compelled by religious views, some were compelled by political views, and some did it just out of good old fashioned human decency. Now, what difference did it make? Well, I think the fact that France is a big country, that it has mountainous regions, and we’re going to see there were many rescue networks of all sorts of different people. It meant it was possible to move people around, particularly children. And consequently, when you’re looking at Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, nine out of 10 Jews were murdered. That is not true in France. And I don’t want to go as far as to say that France was in any way less collaborationist because that would make a huge debate. We’ve got to discuss that. But what I will say that Vichy, there were many people in Vichy who hated the regime, they were prepared to help. And in the north, as the situation exacerbated, there were many who were prepared to risk their lives. And also, please don’t forget that because the Nazis, it’s like they swallowed the manual on how to be evil.
One of the first acts when they arrive in France in Paris is to centralise the Jewish community to create an almost Judenrat situation. There was no register of Jews in France because even though I’ve talked about Catholic France, the republic was secular. So there’s no mention of religious affiliation in any official documents. There’s no distinction in the school system. And later on when the Germans insisted that Jews wear the yellow star, that absolutely shocked teachers. And that is going to lead to a huge network of teachers who are going to pass Jewish children from group to group to group in hiding to try and get them out of France into either neutral Spain or into Switzerland. And French Jews were not organised in any real framework. As I’ve mentioned before, the new immigrants had their landsmanshaftn, which is a federation. There was also a very strong Zionist group that I’m going to talk about. And also, there was a very big bundhist group that I’m going to talk about later. The only leader of the confederation who remained in Paris, and I’m going to keep on giving you names because we have to honour, was a man called David Rappaport, and I haven’t been able to find a picture of him. He was an elderly man, yet he opened a soup kitchen and a medical clinic. This is approved by the authorities, remember this is 1940, and his group actually had its offices in the Rue Amelot and it’s known as the Amelot Group after the street where it was located. Now what they also did, more and more people joined this organisation. It was under the auspices of CRIF, which was the central Jewish organisation the Germans are now using. And one of the things they did was to provide forged documents. And why did they need to forge documents?
Because they are going to be giving gentile names and gentile documents to Jewish families. And also they would create food coupons so that people would have more to eat. And in their medical centre, they also provided help for wounded partisans. Unfortunately, of course, the brave Rappaport, when he was an elderly man, he was arrested and deported even though his friends tried to save him, and he died in the death camps. So what was Jewish resistance to the Nazis? Now up until 1942, it’s mainly underground activities, assistance for refugees. Now, who are the refugees? Those who have come in from Belgium and Holland, concealment, smuggling mainly of children down to the south of France to cities like Marseilles to Lyon. The further down you could get them, the better. The organisation, as I’ve said, has been established in the Rue Amelot, and they have access to the official body of French Jews, so this is important. So at first, it was soup kitchens, clubs, smuggling documents. But by the summer of '42, when you begin to have the wave of detentions, remember when did Germany change policy on the Jews? And this is such a difficult, painful subject. Hitler wanted a Reich. Never forget that Eichmann actually opened up an immigration bureau in Vienna in December '38 and in Berlin in January '39. They wanted to rob them blind, mistreat them, but the aim was to get them out of the German sphere of influence. And in France, they haven’t yet made up their mind what they’re going to do. Both Vichy and in the German part, the Jews are being totally mistreated. I’ve talked about the Statut des Juifs, but nevertheless, nobody really knows what’s going to happen. And the murders begin with the invasion of Russia because as I explained last time, when the Nazis go for global war, that means there can be no Reich.
So the first killings, of course, are in Eastern Europe, beginning with Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of Russia. Now, it was at Wannsee in January the 17th, 1942 that they wrote down the final solution. It was actually happening. And that is when they began to prepare the appalling chambers of death. They created an industry of death. And that is when French Jewry is totally under threat. And by the summer of 1942, as we’ve already discussed, waves of detentions, et cetera, et cetera. And so what happens is the Rue Amelot goes underground and their aim is to smuggle as many people out of the camps. You could still bribe and get people out of the camps and move them south with the help of forged documents. Many children were placed in children’s homes around Paris. As the situation deteriorated, there were only 400 beds. They have to move them south. And it also has to be said that at this stage, many children were moved into non-Jewish frameworks. The National Movement Against Racism provided the children with Arian documents, new identities. Many adopted families were paid, but more families took the children for nothing. And the child was usually saved because of kindness. And this is a comment from a Jewish woman. “In July, I was,” this is July 1942, “I was present when the police cruelly dragged Jewish families away. I knew almost all of them superficially. And one woman said to me, 'Madam, please take my daughter. She won’t be afraid if she is with you. I have a feeling we are going to our death.’ The little girl came home with me. I did what seemed obvious.” And, of course, that little girl lost her family, but her life was saved.
Now, by November 1942, they had received news, the organisation received news that 11,000 Jews had now been exterminated at Auschwitz, and information actually came from a Polish communist. And a lot of help at this stage is going to be given by Huguenots. In fact, next session, I’m going to talk about a whole village, a whole Hugo Huguenot who saved Jews. Now, important to remember that this implementation of Wannsee, the Vichy agreed to cooperate. Rene Bousquet, who I mentioned to you last time, agreed to work hand in hand with the Germans between March 1942 and July ‘44. Don’t forget, the allies invaded in June 1944, right up until the end, they are deporting Jews. There are over a hundred deportation trains. Now, I also said something that I had so many comments on as though you found it totally shocking, but I’m going to stand by my comment. Towards the end of the war, if the Nazis were fighting two wars, a war against the allies and a war against the Jews, if they couldn’t win one, they were determined to win another. And the last trains go almost at the end is absolutely extraordinary. We know that 70,000 French Jews were murdered at Auschwitz and another 7,000 were murdered in Majdanek and at Sobibor. I’m going to break the figures down. It’s heartbreaking, but we have to remember, 8,700 were over 60.
6,000 were under 13. 2,000 were under six. So George Steiner, in one of his interesting books, he said, “The trouble with the Jewish parent is they’re going to hold their children far too close for all the children who couldn’t be held close.” Now, as far as finding a place to hide, the move was down to Marseilles. And until the autumn of 1942, it’s under Vichy control. It’s the main exit point for Jews, for partisans. Don’t forget, many Spanish partisans had fled after Franco had taken power in Spain. It was very close to the Spanish-French border. It had port facilities and easy access to the Italian border. Jews also had a large presence in Toulouse, Lyon, Nice, Grenoble, Limoges, Perigord. These are the main centres where Jews are and are hiding. Now, please don’t forget that America does not enter the war until Pearl Harbour, December 1941. So you have the joint, you have HIAS, they had huge relief organisations in Marseilles. You have a lot of committees. For example, the American Red Cross, the Emergency Rescue Committee, the American Federation of Labour, the YMCA, the Quakers, a lot of people, very helpful in trying to save Jews, trying to save partisans, and also trying to save allied air airmen. The Quakers were particularly extraordinary. And, of course, it was in Marseilles that we have the extraordinary Varian Fry who decided his job was to save the intellectuals. And he brought out 3,000 of the most famous of European intellectuals. We’ve already had a session from Patrick on that. But suffice to say, he rescued people like Hannah Arendt. He rescued people like Marc Chagall, Walter Benjamin, Alma Mahler came out, of course, with some of the most important scores, and also with her new husband, whose name has eluded me, but I will remember. It’s also important to remember that there were diplomats, and I’m going to be talking about them either this time or next, who also did a lot to help.
They included the Mexican console, the Brazilian console. There’s about 10 that I want to bring to our attention. Many have been awarded medals by Yad Vashem and other characters who got themselves into terrible trouble with their own governments, but actually decided to issue visas against the will of their own governments. After the Germans occupied Vichy, several Jewish refugees, because by this time after Vichy is occupied, the French are really beginning to turn, the ordinary folk are beginning more and more angry. And that’s when you have more and more help for Jews. And in 1940, in late '43, the Nazis actually blew up the old port region of Marseilles because they felt that too many people were hiding there. Now, this is what Varian Fry said. He was a member of, remember, the Emergency Refugee Committee. He had to get out. The Americans ordered him out. “Caught in the concentration camps of Southern France or congregated in the larger cities, refugees lived in an agony of fear, believed that every ring, every step on the stair, every knock might be the police. They sought hysterically for some means of a state, pray to every act of swindler, incessantly pounding their hearts on fantastic horror stories.” And he also reports how many suicides. Now, there was also a large group of French Jewish partisans. In fact, Jews made up 20% of all the partisan groups. 90% of the immigrant movement was Jewish. Many of them were in the communist group.
And it has to be said, when resistance finally takes off, the communist groups are the most active. And, of course, William talked about that today, didn’t he? It’s fascinating because one of the reasons de Gaulle was given so much support by Eisenhower is the allies were terrified that the communists might take control, and never forget the division in French society. And frankly, it was the communists who were the most active in resisting. And not only that, there was something called the Armee Juive. But before I come onto the Armee Juive, I need to talk a little bit about the Maquis because the French resistance was known as the Maquis. It means the bush, the thicket, it’s a Corsican name. And basically it begins with rural guerilla bands of French and Belgium resistance fighters, mainly young men who’d escaped to the mountains to avoid conscription. Don’t forget that Vichy was providing the Germans with a huge labour force, forced labour, nearly two million Frenchmen. And that’s another reason that Vichy was becoming more and more unpopular with the French people. Gradually, they become more organised. By the autumn of 1943, there’s 40,000 members. By June '44, there’s a 100,000 members. Once the allies secured a foothold, there was an attempt to actually bring them all together because there were three separate groups, the French communists who were by far the largest group taking their orders from Stalin. And remember, he starts to work with them after the Nazis break the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact and invade Russia. The Secret Army, which is led by French officers, and the Organisation of Army Resistance, which is semi-official, very much tied to the French government in exile.
Of course, both Vichy and the German occupation forces regarded them as terrorist organisations. And, of course, they operated mainly, it’s guerilla warfare, mainly in the mountainous regions of Brittany and in the south of France, the Alps, . Guerrilla tactics to harass the Milice and the Germans. And also they provided escape routes for allied airmen, for Jews. And, of course, you can imagine how much cooperation they relied on from the local population. And when William today talked about that terrible, that terrible massacre, it was really to stop the French villagers helping the Marquis. And there was another one in and another one . So this was the Nazi terror tactics. The Germans were brilliant at that. If you think to what happened with Lidice, think what happened in Kristallnacht. One act of rebellion by a Jew led to Kristallnacht. That’s how the Nazis did it. They imposed terror. So the first fight, and I must really consolidate that they’re the communists, the socialists, and the anarchists. And what de Gaulle wanted was a more consolidated effort. So he actually sends in the great hero of the French resistance, a man called Jean Moulin. Can we come onto the slides now, please? Can we see Jean Moulin? Now, he is one of the greatest heroes of France. He was born in Beziers. He was in the first World War. He had studied law. He didn’t fight in the first World War. He was too young, but he saw the horrors of war. He was involved in burying the dead.
And remember, France suffered so terribly in the first World war. I’m very interested in the psychology of these characters. He went back to university to study law and also he’s very interested in politics. He began to publish. He becomes a journalist. He publishes political cartoons. He also illustrated books. He’s very left wing. He works in the air ministry and it enabled him to deliver. He goes into politics, he works in the air ministry, and he’s delivering planes to the Spanish Republicans. When, in January '39, he’s based in Chartres, Vichy wouldn’t have anything to do with him because he was seen as too much of a radical. So he goes underground, he moves to Marseilles to join up with other resistors, and he goes to London in September 1941, passing through Spain and Portugal, trying to rally support. On 24th of October in London, he meets de Gaulle, who writes of Moulin, a great man, great in every way. He was a very charismatic individual. He’s very left wing. And de Gaulle, remember, he was terrified that the resistance was far too communist. And he believed that Jean Moulin, who was a great patriot, could try and unite the various resistance. So he asked him to go back into France knowing, I mean, Moulin knew the dangers he was facing.
I think he had one of those reckless personalities that often goes with the kind of characters who win the Victoria Cross. They are brave. He was that kind of man. And he was parachuted back into France. He spends a year trying to unify the groups. And because he was left wing and he was admired by the communist, he did manage to create contacts with the various organisations. It’s becoming more and more effective because they didn’t want to accept, obviously they didn’t want to accept de Gaulle as their leader. And he tried to work on something for a programme of the National Council of the Resistance. However, in a meeting in Lyon on June 21st, 1943, he was betrayed and he was arrested with other resistance leaders in a suburb of Lyon. He was, of course, taken into Gestapo headquarters where he is himself brutally tortured by Klaus Barbie. And he was tortured until he was in a coma. And, of course, he was violently murdered. And when Klaus Barbie was later brought to justice by the Klarsfelds, his lawyer, Verges, tried very much to muddy the waters by trying to prove that Moulin, who was the great hero of France, had actually been betrayed by the communists and he very much fueled conspiracy theories. I don’t think it was taken too seriously because this man kind of stood above the herd. He was a great hero of France. And now I want to turn to a specifically Jewish group, the Armee Juive. And can we please see the next slide, please? Yes, now this interesting group, they are Zionists. When they join, this is their oath of allegiance. “I swear fidelity to the Jewish Army, and obedience to its leaders. May my people live again. May the land of Israel be reborn. Liberty or death.”
Now, the Armee Juive was established quite early on, and it was established as a Jewish Zionist fighting group. And let’s have a look at some of the characters who were involved in the creation of this wonderful fighting force. Can we move on, please? There you see Abraham Polonski, he was an electrical engineer. He came from Toulouse. He was the founder of this organisation. He’d already created an organisation called The Strong Hand in 1940, and he is absolutely at the centre of creating the Armee Juive in 1942. He pulled together people from the Zionist youth movements and also from the Jewish scouts who are going to be very involved in saving. The Armee Juive was not only involved in sabotage, what they really were involved in doing was helping as many Jews as possible escaped to Spain and to Palestine. They were involved in the liberation, and they were funded to a large extent by the joint and by the Jewish agency. We don’t know when he died, but we do know he survived the war. He made it to Palestine where he became a Haganah commander, first in France and then in North Africa, and he did make it to Palestine. An incredible man. Can we go on, please? Here you see Lucien Lublin. He was an electrical engineer. He was a socialist Zionist. After the war, he survived.
These were young, passionate people who believed passionately in the state of Israel. And after the war, he created a society for protecting Jewish children. Remember, so many of these children have lost their parents and he took them to Israel and he made his life in Israel. Can we go on, please? These are the characters. Now, this is Dovid Nut and Ariadna Scriabina. Now, she is the daughter of Scriabin, the musician, absolutely fascinating characters. Now, Dovid Knut. Now, who was Dovid Knut? Well, he was an Eastern European immigrant. And he had been one of the founders of the Armee Juive. And this is the public manifesto, which he wrote. He was a writer and a poet. “The Jewish people are facing a danger unlike anything it has faced in its long history. Antisemitism has become stronger over the past 50 years to the point that in our day, it has become an international movement, scientifically organised, and armed beyond all others. Its plan to annihilate the Jewish people is already in the stages of implementation.” It’s very much similar to that of Abba Kovner. It’s based on logic, it’s based on poetic licence. He had been very active in Jewish politics. He was a revisionist. He was a supporter of Jabotinsky, working with the Jewish scouts and the Jewish organisation. This organisation, they actually, they created over 2,000 operations, sabotage, blowing up bridges, 175 operations against the Germans, killing over 1,000 of the enemy. They brought seven aircrafts to the ground. They destroyed 285 trips and over two million litres of oil.
So these are real activists, many of them were captured and tragically were tortured and killed. Now, going on with Dovid Knut, Dovid Knut had moved up, he moved to Toulouse, and then he was pursued by the Gestapo. He escaped to Switzerland. And meanwhile, before the war, he had married Ariadna. Now, she is a fascinating character. She was the eldest daughter of Scriabin. And after the death of her parents, look at her dates, the communist revolution. After the death of her parents, she was exiled to Paris. So you can imagine she was part of the Russian emigre circles, most of whom were violently anti-Semitic because, of course, they saw the revolution as a communist affair. She was also part of the Russian literary diaspora. Never forget the other side of Paris. The Paris in the '20s and '30s culturally must have been an extraordinary place. If you go to some of the great cafes of Paris, you will see pictures on the wall of many of the great writers and artists who were there in the '20s and '30s. Tragically, so many of them were of Jewish birth and were murdered or had to get out. But the point is, it doesn’t stop one remembering what a vibrant life it was. Anyway, she’d already been married twice when she met Dovid Knut. He must have been a very charismatic character. Now, this daughter of a great Russian composer converts to Judaism.
She takes the name Sarah and she becomes a revisionist. And in fact, in 1939, she attended the Last Zionist Congress in Geneva. Can you imagine what that must have been like, in August 1939, there was a Zionist Congress. Can you imagine how Bangorian and Weizmann felt when they addressed the delegates? Because they knew what was going. Nobody could predict the show up. But August 1939, the British have more or less closed the gates to Palestine. It was a terrible dark time. And she was there. She took the nickname Regine. And what happened to her is that there was a meeting for the Armee Juive in her apartment. Remember, her husband has escaped. In May 1943, she’d given birth to a son, Yosi. She was actually ambushed and murdered by the Milice while holding a meeting of the Armee Juive at her apartment two weeks before the city was liberated. Now, Knut returned to Paris after the war. He found his son. He worked at the Jewish Documentation Centre and he remarried and he wrote a very substantial volume of poetry. He left for Tel Aviv and taught in an ulpan. And I really wanted to introduce you to these characters because I think they are brave, they’re important. Can we go on, please? Now, this is Kolenu. This is in June 1943. This is the Journal of Jewish Resistance. “Every Jew in France clearly understands that the only thing that can ensure the Jewish people’s salvation is the life and death struggle between us and the Hitlerians. This alone will ensure the survival of the Jewish people. We will attack the enemy wherever it be found. We will embitter its life.” Can we go on, please? Now, let me point out, unfortunately, I’ve had to choose, I’ve had to make decisions because I just wanted to bring some of these characters back to life. And there were hundreds and hundreds of people like this.
So let’s talk now about Jacques Lazarus, who lived a long life 'til he was 98 years old. He was a career officer. He was forced out of the military by the Statut des Juifs. Can you imagine? He joined the Armee Juive and what he did was he started out training Jewish scouts in the Grenoble region in military skills. Then he became head of the Armee Juive and worked with the Marquis guerillas in the Tarn region. Following the betrayal by a man called Karl Rehbein who was also responsible for murdering young resistance fighters, he was arrested by the French police and sent to Drancy. Now, Alois Brunner, who I’ve already mentioned, one of Hitler’s real monsters, Eichmann’s right hand man, sent him and others of the organisation on the last train to leave the camp for Auschwitz. This is August 17th, 1944. Remember where the allies are? There were 27 prisoners including Lazarus and they escaped. They managed to get off the train. Remember, he’s a fit soldier. And after the war, he relocated to Algeria. He became the director of the World Jewish Congress for Africa and founded the Periodical Jewish Reformation. And after the Algerian independence in 1962, he relocated to Paris. So another great hero, George Loinger. Can we go on, please? Yes. Another man who lived a very long life, he was born in Strasbourg, Zionist Youth Movement. He was captured in 1940. He was fighting in the war. He escaped, he joined the resistance. He was involved in the rescue of about 350 children, helping them escape to Switzerland.
And I’m going to talk more about this in the second session when I talk about those villages the near the Swiss border who themselves were hiding Jews and helping, and also the church people who were also involved and that was what he was involved with. And until September '43, when the frontier was guarded by the Italians, it was much, much easier. A lot of the Italian soldiers turned a blind eye to Jewish children because it’s Jewish children who are being brought over the border to Switzerland. The Swiss authorities don’t like this. And these are individual Swiss and Swiss rescue organisations who are helping. After the German occupation, it becomes much, much harder. He was a physical education teacher. To try and put the kids at ease, he used the techniques such as we’re playing soccer, particularly in Annemasse, which is a village on the Geneva border, where the mayor was unbelievable helpful and helped them run and run and run 'til they crossed the border so they didn’t feel so threatened. He was awarded the Resistance Medal, the Croix de Guerre, and the Legion of Honour. And in March 2013, in a very important ceremony, he was made chairman of the Jewish Resistance in France. It took the French, for all the reasons that William talked about, it took the French a long time to come to terms with their record. He’s an honorary citizen of Strasbourg. He was given in 2016 the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
He died in Paris, age 108. He had a cousin who he brought into the resistance and that was a man called Marcel Marceau. Shall we see him Now? Now, of course, the famous Marcel Marceau, Bip the Clown, one of the most famous mime artists in the whole of the world. Again, born in Strasbourg. His father was a kosher butcher originally from Poland. His mother was from the Ukraine. These were the Austrian who fled into France because of the persecutions in Eastern Europe after the collapse of czarist empire. When he was four, his family moved to Lille. And after the invasion, he flees with his family south to Limoges. And he’s recruited to the resistance by his cousin who was a commander, remember, of the secret unit, part of the Jewish Relief Group that is smuggling Jewish children out of France. So his mission was to evacuate the Jewish children, hiding them in an orphanage, getting them to the French border, which also gives you a notion of the number of organisations that were evolved in helping these children. It’s going to be church people, it’s convents, it’s monasteries, it’s ordinary families, it’s orphanages, people having to take children on the journey all the way to the border and to get them over the border. And his secret weapon, he already had a training as a mime artist and this is what his cousin wrote of him. He’d already been doing performance at the orphanage to keep the children happy. In the orphanages, he would make mimes for them. Remember, these are the children who have been separated from their parents.
Many of them are never going to see their parents again. And this brilliant man, he hones his talent helping these children. Georges Loinger said he was miming for his life. He also often posed as a scout leader to trick the authorities because he’s taking children. Remember, these children have forced documents, they have Arian documents, and his job was to take them to the Swiss border, and this is a story that he told. “I was in uniform and took 24 kids also in scout uniform through the forest to the border when someone else would take them into Switzerland.” And he record, “Unexpectedly, we ran into a group of German soldiers.” It’s very near the end of the war and he pretended he was a member of the French army and demanded they surrender and all 30 of them did. And we know that Marceau saved at least 70 children. And also he was forging identity papers and documents to make these Jewish children look younger so that they would avoid deportation. So consequently, another hero. And, of course, after the war, he absolutely skyrockets to fame. Patrick’s going to be talking about entertainment in France in the war and post-war. And it’s fascinating when the French go after the dark period, when the resistance, the war is over, and, of course, those accused of collaboration, it becomes a very, very hot issue. And what is collaboration?
I’ve talked often with Anita Lasker-Wallfisch about this. And obviously, we know what collaboration is, when you actually persecute, but what about people, women who went out with German soldiers to save their children or to get food and performers who performed for the Germans so that they could eat, is that real collaboration? That’s another tale that I’m going to leave to Patrick to tell. We get into such a morality on what is right and what is wrong, but with some of these characters, I think today I wanted to give you a taste of goodness. Now, his father tragically was murdered at Auschwitz. And can we go on to one more? This is Lucien Lazare. Born in 1924. He’s still with us. He was born in Strasbourg and he escaped to Lyon. Now, his route was in through the Jewish scouts. And as a result of that, he’s also going to be involved in rescue operations. Again, it’s the forging of identity papers, food stamps, and also moving unaccompanied children around. Now whilst this is all going on, believe it or not, there was an underground yeshiva in Limoges and he and his elder brother studied there. They later joined the Maquis. The Maquis had a unit of Jewish scouts working with them. It was guerrilla war. And later, he was in the French after the war, he was in the French Army. In September '45, he was reunited with his mother and sister who’d survived the war. He and his brother then went to Yeshiva in Aix-les-Bains and he later became the director of the Jewish community in Strasbourg. He moved to Israel in 1968 and he devoted himself to historical work on the Jewish underground in France.
He becomes a great historian and he becomes the principal of the Rene Cassin High School. He’s also on the board of the Yad Vashem Commission for the Righteous. He’s written an awful lot on the Shoah, including the biography of a man I’m going to be talking about Abbe Glasberg who was a priest of Jewish origin who saved Jews. Now, the last person I’m going to be able to talk about today is Rene Cassin, who is really one of my personal heroes. But let’s now talk about Rene Cassin because he had the most extraordinary career. He was born in Bayonne. His father was a merchant. An intellectually brilliant family. He studied the humanities in Aix, and then law, first place in the law faculty. He did his doctorate in judicial, economic, and political sciences. And he began a brilliant legal career in Paris. 1914, he was in the First World War He was wounded, survived because his mother persuaded the doctors to try and perform surgery. 1916, he’s a professor of law at law at Lille 'til 1920. And then he is going to be a professor at the University of Paris until 1960. After the war, he founded a pacifist organisation for veterans. He was the French delegate to the League of Nations between 1924 and 1928. He pressed for progress on disarmament and on developing institutions to resolve conflicts. He is a real hero. He was the man in charge of the organisation that persuaded Einstein and Freud to go into correspondence on the need for war. He went with the free French government into exile, survived the war, of course, in exile. He spoke out against the war.
He spoke out against Nazism. 1944 to '59, he’s a member of the Council of State. He was seconded to the UN Commission on Human Rights. And in 1946, responsible for the first declaration, Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Now, it’s fascinating, and I’m going to say something personal here. Considering the number of resolutions passed against the democratic state of Israel, when the Declaration of Human Rights was in the main put together, and also Crimes Against Humanity was put together by Lauterpacht and Lemkin and people like Cassin working at the UN, the fact that there are more resolutions passed against the Jewish state than any other nation, I think gives us cause to pause and consider what on Earth is going on in this crazy world of ours. He won the Nobel Prize in 1968. It was the the United Nations Human Rights Prize. He was elected to the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences. He was a president of the European Court of Human Rights. In 1945, de Gaulle suggested that Cassin had done so much for the French people, he should now turn to the Jews. He becomes president of the Alliance, and he developed a network to support Jewish rights, to support human rights from a Jewish perspective.
Now, he had a Jewish education as a boy to satisfy his mother, but he married a Catholic and also had a liaison with another Catholic. He didn’t marry her until he was 88 years old in 1975. In fact, three months before his death. Up to the '30s, he believed in assimilation. But from the '40s onwards, he had a very strong commitment to Jewish school causes. He liked the Judaism of the prophets. He liked the Judaism or the Jewishness, the ethical Jewishness of what he called the non-Jewish Jews. He chaired on the Jewish question, of course, that David Pina was lecturing on that, and this is how he introduced that session. The catastrophe of the war, which led to the extermination of 2/3 of European Jewry can provide amongst the survivors two attitudes. One towards forgetting which is normal, or the vow not to forget, to uncover the sources of the disaster, which is the more dignified response. He didn’t endorse Sartre’s view that it was the anti-Semite who defines the Jew. And that’s one of the big debates today. What defines the Jew? We should be defined by who we think we are. So although he’s not a religious Jew, he very much is inspired by characters like Spinoza, by Freud. And as president of the Alliance, he was a great Jewish statesman and he worked a lot with Edmond Fleg, who I’ve already introduced you, one of the greatest writers that I know of on Jewish subjects, and this is his draught. “The Alliance, while committed to the complete incorporation of Jews in the countries in which they live, have never ceased to participate in the mutual Jewish effort in favour of the Holy Land.
For them, it is more than a refuge. It is the centre of spiritual warmth, the only one in which they are waiting impatiently, and for which one day perhaps the truths of Israel will shine forth once more.” So he is totally committed to the Jewish state. This is the 9th of June 1947. This is a note that Cassin sent to the Secretary General of the UN. “After the Shoah, expediting Jewish immigration to Palestine is the first duty of the international community. The survivors of Israel in Central and Eastern Europe desire by a large majority to build a new life in Palestine. To the Alliance, this is a right humanity cannot refuse them. We believe that the democratic spirit of the Near East can only but prosper through the influence of Jewish accomplishment in Palestine.” I want to repeat this because I think one of the problems with the teaching of the Holocaust is that nobody mentions the connection between the Shoah and the state of Israel. And I can’t think of better words than the words of Cassin who saw what happened to his people. After the Shoah, expediting Jewish immigration to Palestine is the first duty of the international community. The survivors of Israel in Central and Eastern Europe desire by a large majority to build a new life in Palestine. To the Alliance, this is a right humanity cannot refuse them. We believe that the democratic spirit of the Near East can only but prosper through the influence of Jewish accomplishments in Palestine.
He also had to deal with Jewish schools in Muslim countries, which become the target of anti-Jewish agitation. On the 10th of August 1948, the director of the Alliance School in Damascus wrote to him about a grenade attack in the courtyard of the synagogue where 12 people were killed. He saw himself as a protector of North African Jewry and as a bridge between France and Israel. Don’t forget that France was Israel’s greatest ally up until 1967. It wasn’t America. He wanted French protection for Jews in Tunisia, Morocco, Syria, and Lebanon. He was a diaspora Zionist. And after de Gaulle broke with Israel in 1967, Cassin took him to task over this, but shared with him the work of Libra France because he was both. He was a Frenchman and he was a Jew. Now, his family suffered dreadfully in the war. 26 family members were deported, never to return. Remember though, he was a child of the Dreyfus affair. He was a child of the republic. He had fought in the First World War, but his main mission were human rights. He was a militant Jewish pacifist, a great friend of Israel, but rooted in France. He’s the only Jew buried in the Pantheon and instrumental in the founding of UNESCO. So he had sat out the war in England with de Gaulle, but he screamed out for his people. He screamed up for the freedom of the Jews and for the freedom of France. And I wanted to finish on a man I have huge respect for, but also of all those characters, the diplomats we will look at next time, because as I said, some of them are absolutely extraordinary. But please remember, I’ve only had time to whet your appetite. There are so many of these characters who must never be forgotten because of the greatness of their life effort and what they achieved. Now let’s have a look at the questions.
Q&A and Comments:
Emily. Yes. I’ve already mentioned who was in the OSS. Yes.
Q: Will you or anyone give a talk on the partisans of Poland and Russia?
A: Monica, unfortunately, we already did about two years ago. Depending on what happens with the website, some of the early talks were lost. I gave a talk on the Bielski Brothers because my great friend Jack Kagan was in it. And, of course, that was another great story.
This is from Adrian. And thank you Adrian for your good wishes. Eisenhower never trusted de Gaulle and won’t allow him to be the leader. Yeah, he didn’t. Yeah.
This is from Jacqueline. My mother’s sisters were in hiding in the south of France. They were looked after and helped by a Catholic family who they knew from living in Paris. They are named amongst the Righteous of the Nations in Yad Vashem.
Q: You see, were there any post-war reprisals against Petain?
A: Yes, of course, they were. He was put on trial. I lectured on that about two weeks ago and you can get that lecture, that’s available. Any of the past lectures, you can just send a note to lockdown.
Yes, this is important, Shelly. Rescuers don’t only risk their lives, their family would also be killed. Yes, a very important point. In fact, I have a friend in Holland, Joseph , and he was saved by a man who had children around his age and he said that the chap who never would allow himself to be honoured because he said, “I just did what was natural.” He said to Joseph, “I didn’t want my children to live in a world where you couldn’t.” Where that kind of courage comes from, I cannot get my head around.
Q: Is there any statistics on what percentage of Jews survived in Germany?
A: Yes, you see, German Jews, over 2/3 of them survived because they had between 1933 and 1941 to get out.
Q: You say the death policy began with the invasion of Russia. Didn’t Hitler have a long plan, long-term plan to invade Russia?
A: Look, you’ve got to remember he signed a deal with Stalin in August 1939.
Q: Was murder always in Hitler’s mind?
A: How do we get into that? What I do know, the murders as a policy. Of course, people died in the camps, in the concentration camps. Jews were sent to Dachau. Jews died in the camps, but there wasn’t a policy of genocide until Operation Barbarossa.
Yes, that’s right. That’s what I said. Marceau was involved in moving children, yes. And eventually moved them into Switzerland, yes. This was whole part of that incredible network, incredible how many people were involved in that.
Q: How did the Lubavitcher Rebbe get out of France?
A: We would talk about that. Franz Werfel, thank you,
Joan. Of course, Alma Mahler escaped with Franz Werfel who wrote" The Song of Bernadette.“ Do you remember, they were in Lourdes and Alma insisted on taking all her stuff with her. It’s an extraordinary story. I highly recommend the film "Fanny’s Journey” on Prime Video, true story of French network trying to help students. Take your breath away. Yes, there are a lot of good films. And please look at Prime, and as I’ve said to you before, why don’t you put in Jewish films because I hope Pierre Sauvage film “Triumph of the Spirit,” which is about the shamble, you should be able to get hold of that or on YouTube because when I’m going to talk about the shamble, his family, his parents were saved by the shamble, and this whole village that got together to save the Jews.
Yes, Franz Werfel. Thank you, Yuta.
Walter Gropius was her second husband. She escaped with Franz Werfel though. There’s a wonderful Tom Lehrer song about Alma Mahler, if I can lighten it a little. It’s called “Alma.” He said that when he read her obituary, it was the juiciest spiciest he’d ever read, that she’d either married or slept with the most interesting men in Central Europe. She was married first to Gustav and then to Gropius and then Werfel. Yes, she was married to Gropius, but she finished up with Franz Werfel.
Yes, yes, Virginia Hall, the American amputee spy who founded the French resistance . Thank you, Janet. We all add to everyone’s knowledge. Thank you, Janet.
Academic refugees, Esther Simpson, give me more info on that, please.
Walter Benjamin never reached the West. He committed suicide on the border. Yes, of course, he did.
Monty, what a man he was. Yeah, and that’s what made the Spanish open the border again. It’s a terrible, terrible story.
This is interesting. Esther Simpson was the Secretary of the Academic Assistance Council, a successful organisation. There’s a new building of Leads University in her name. Thank you. Don’t forget how many women were involved in rescue of children and in Resistance movements.
This is from Roselyn. I had a friend who was at school in Carcassonne. He told me that children came and left. No one asked any questions. A friend brought up in Belgium told me that her aunt and uncle who were communists joined the Resistance. On probing further, it was because the communist cells existed before the war and were in a position to resist. Yes, the communists took their orders from Stalin. Remember what William’s said? France so easily could have gone communist.
Yes, Marian’s talking about Jean Moulin’s secretary who survived the war and died in 2020.
Yes, Bernice, there was a list of all the children murdered in France during the war. Serge Klarsfeld posted the list of 11,000 children that lost their lives. Yeah, yeah.
This is Margaret. I saw Marcel Marceau in a show in London. I never knew the backstory.
This is Linda. I had the honour of speaking to the great mime Marcel Marceau in London in '73 when we were stuck in a lift after one of his shows. How extraordinary.
Oh, this is from Carrie. Carrie, please get in touch with me. Thanks, everyone, for your additions. I assume there were many more women involved with rescue resistance, but maybe fewer write-ups and images. Yes, exactly, Carrie, exactly. He writing of women out of history. It is a story. Many of the rescuers were women. Of course, they were.
Shelly, an acquaintance of mine from Shoah was one of those children taken to Switzerland. She always talked about her Swiss family and Swiss officials resented her for taking fruit from real Swiss children.
Michael, in Lyon, there is a memorial museum honouring the children who received the Vel’ d'Hiv in Paris and were separated from their parents who were sent to Auschwitz, yes.
Q: Has anyone written a history of the Armee Juive? Also, I heard of the resistance group led by the Armenian immigrate. I wonder if there are any links between these groups.
A: I don’t the answer to that, but the Armee Juive, I believe that that chap that I mentioned to you, I think Lucien Lazare has written about them. I’ll check that for you.
Jeff, there’s a community health centre in my mother’s mostly Jewish neighbourhood of Montreal called the Rene Cassin. Yeah, isn’t he a wonderful man, Jeff?
Rita’s saying, “Look up women resistance fighters.” Thank you, Rita. There was a woman I interviewed last year on women in the resistance, not in the French resistance, I think more and more is going to be done about women and their role in resistance.
“Hi, Trudy, I hope you get in touch with my friend Jeannette Gerstl Olson who is hidden as a child in France and now speaks in the Holocaust Memorial Centre in Michigan. She’s written a book about her and her parents’ experience. I think it’s called ‘One Day More’.” Perhaps you could send me her email, Paula. Yes.
This is from Shelly. “I saw a very good programme on both the Jewish and non-Jewish sides of Helena Bonham Carter’s family during World War II.” Yeah, and I will be talking about her family when I get to it.
No, I’m going to be talking about him, Marian, when we finally moved to Switzerland. I’ve been sent it.
The book “Nine” by Gwen Strauss chronicles nine women, mostly French resistance workers who find themselves arrested in a labour camp, who band together during a death march to escape, most were not Jewish. Yeah, yeah. The bravery, isn’t it fascinating? We never know how people behave until they are tested.
“My grandfather’s war includes Helen Bonham Carter’s grandfather’s story.” Thank you.
Marcel Marceau Life and Work. Thank you.
Q: Have you ever studied the role of the French Jewish scouts? They’re also involved in the rescue of Jewish people and refugees. I was a young Jewish girl in 1940, evacuated by the scouts from Paris to the south in the south and managed to escape in February through Spain and Portugal to reach England together with my mother and sister. I do not know what fate overtook the children when Bouillie came under full French rule.“
A: Oh, Iza. Wow. Yes, the scouts were incredibly important. Yeah. These were young boys, they were trained, and, of course, the characters that I talked about gave them more training, and they were instrumental, and also because they were young, they were very good with the children.
Q: Will you speak about the joint and other efforts post-war to immigrate Jews and care for Jews that remained in Europe?
A: At some stage, no doubt. I’ve been teaching in the Hampstead area since the late ‘70s and I taught a couple of people who were heavily involved in Youth Aliyah.
Oh my goodness, David, I am going to get a list of books together. Promise.
Q: "How do you think Swiss politicians behaved towards Jewish refugees? I grew up in Switzerland from an observer, but never really got an answer from my parents.”
A: Well, it’s a very complicated story, the Swiss. I mean, I think I’m going to invite a colleague in who’s an expert on the Swiss banks.
Q: Do you know how much Jewish money is in those vaults?
A: Look, Switzerland did not have a good record, but there were some incredible people.
Pierre Sauvage film “Weapons of the Spirit.” Yes, Ted, it is excellent.
“Next session, please tell the story of the village.” Elliot, I’m going to, if I get there. Otherwise I’m going to take a third session because I want to talk about the diplomats and it’s not just shamble. It was the whole area and it really needs to be told and all the people who helped.
Yes, I interviewed Judy Batalion. Thank you, Judith. Isn’t it ridiculous? I interviewed her. She’s amazing. Yes, Jewish women in the resistance, yes. Not only have I heard of it, I’ve read it, and I had the privilege of interviewing her.
“Rene Cassin is named after a doctor.” Yes, he was. He was a doctor of law.
Q: Will there be a talk about Jews in Romania?
A: Yes, there will be and it will be quite soon. Yes, I am. Janice.
Coco Chanel was involved with the Jewish. Coco Chanel was up to her neck with the Nazis. Patrick will be talking about this.
Anyway, Emily, I think that’s it. May I wish you all a pleasant evening, and I tried to finish on an uplifting note because I think that Cassin is an extraordinary character, but also I wanted to kind of bridge the gap between the war and the establishment of the state of Israel, which I think has been so lost now. Anyway, I wish you all a very, very Happy New Year and let’s hope it’s a better one.