During the Nazi Occupation a series of unprecedented events unfolded, which transformed France and its empire.
The years of Occupation, 1940 to 1944, when France was led by an authoritarian government located in the spa town of Vichy, are the most traumatic and controversial period of French modern French history. Nowhere is this controversy more evident than when examining Vichy’s role in the Holocaust.
After the war, a myth was created that the majority of the French population had 'resisted' the Germans but more recent research uncovered the extent of French collaboration. It took decades for it to come to light that 75,000 Jews were deported and killed with the complicity of the French authorities. Across North Africa, Jews were also subject to Vichy’s discriminatory laws and decrees. The Algeria Jewish swimmer Alfred Nakache, who represented France at the 1936 Olympics, and continued to win medals well into 1942, was deported in 1943. These are some of the themes and issues examined in this session.
After exploring the origins of this persecution, taking into account the long history of antisemitism in France from the Dreyfus Affair to the antisemitic revival of the 1930s, we will turn to an examination of life for Jews in Vichy France. Through engaging with some extraordinary sources written by Jews later deported to Auschwitz – including Hélène Berr and Irène Némirovsky – we will see the consequences of Vichy antisemitism in France and beyond. Crucially, we will learn that being French and serving France did not spare Jews from deportation.
Dr Daniel Lee is a historian of the Second World War and a specialist in the history of Jews in France and North Africa during the Holocaust. He is a Senior Lecturer in modern history at Queen Mary, University of London, and the author of Pétain's Jewish Children (2014) and The SS Officer's Armchair: Uncovering the Hidden Life of a Nazi (2020). As a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Thinker, Daniel is a regular broadcaster on radio.
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