The Holocaust in France

“The scene of 12,000 Jews packed into the closed stadium was a horrifying, hellish sight. A sight that seizes you by the throat and makes you unable to scream […] The emotional state is indescribable: people crying hysterically ‘let us go,’ suicide attempts, people approaching us, begging, ‘Kill us, don’t leave us here…’ Not a single German in sight – the cowards left the dirty work to the French! […] When we came out – social workers and nurses – the official in charge told us, ‘Outside, whatever happens, you are forbidden from saying a word about what you have seen here.’”

From: Asher Cohen, The History of the Holocaust – France, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 5756, p. 297 (Hebrew).

This testimony describes the terrible suffering of the Jews imprisoned in the Winter Velodrome in Paris in July 1942. The testimony was published at the time, and tens of thousands of copies were distributed. It reflects the complexity of the persecution and annihilation of the Jews in France.

A variety of factors influenced the Germans’ plan to annihilate all the Jews of France, determining their fate over the four years of German occupation in the country. These factors include the clear distinction between veteran, well-established French-born Jews and foreign Jews who had immigrated to the country between the two world wars; the issue of the collaboration between the French Vichy regime and German interests with regards to the Final Solution of the Jews in France; French public opinion; the help provided to Jews by non-Jewish French citizens during these years; and the extensive underground rescue actions in which French and Jewish individuals were involved. All these make the story of the French Jews during the Second World War a unique chapter in the history of the Holocaust of European Jewry.

This issue of "Teaching the Legacy" - The e-newsletter for Holocaust Educators addresses this subject from several perspectives: A historical review of the Holocaust of the French Jews, and an article about the Jewish resistance, present the highly complex nature of the persecution of the Jews in France during the war; an interview with members of the Alumim association describes the important work of this survivors organization; and another interview with Dora Weinberger, a survivor from France, depicts a personal side of life in occupied France.

The Holocaust of the French Jews – A Historical Review

Liraz Lachmanovich

The history of the Jews in France during the Holocaust and the Second World War constitutes a unique and complex chapter in the history of the Holocaust of European Jewry. Various factors combined to create a different reality than in the other countries under German occupation. These include the internal divisions in the Jewish community between veteran Jews and immigrants; the French Vichy regime and its collaboration with German interests relating to the persecution of the Jews; public opinion among the civilian population; and the underground and rescue actions by Jews and non-Jews. The following...

The Jewish Resistance Movement in France

Bilhah Shilo

“Every Jew in France clearly understands that the only thing that can ensure the Hewish people’s salvation is the manly life-or-death fight between us and the Hitlerians. This alone will ensure the survival of the Jewish people […] We must create more and more combat units of the Communist underground. We will attack the enemy wherever it is to be found; we will embitter its life; we will destroy its means of communication and shut down its war machine. We will participate in the daily fighting that will lead to the national uprising.”1(Kolenu, May-June 1943) The call...

Interview with Dora Weinberger and Shlomo Balsam, members of Alumim

Limor Bar-Ilan

Holocaust Survivors

Alumim is an Israeli association of Jewish children who were hidden in France during the Holocaust. The association was established in 1993 with the goal of preserving the memory of the Holocaust of French Jewry. It collects testimonies from survivors, presents testimonies in schools and to IDF soldiers, and holds various ceremonies. Alumim also encourages the [Israeli] education system to address the history of the Jews of France during the Holocaust. This project is coordinated by Ms. Dora Weinberger. We met with Ms. Weinberger and with Mr. Shlomo Balsam, the chair of the association, in order...

Interview with Holocaust survivor Dora Weinberger

Aviya Salomon-Hovav

Holocaust Survivors

Dora Weinberg (née Weissman) was born in German in 1931 to an Orthodox family. After Hitler came to power in Germany, her family moved to Metz in France. In 1939, when the area was annexed to Germany, Dora’s family and other refugees were relocated to Angoulême in western France. After France was occupied by the Germans in June 1940 and the authorities began to detain Jewish men, the family fled to the Free Zone, where they lived as refugees until the zone was occupied by the Germans. At the beginning of 1943, as the situation for the Jews worsened and fear of detention grew, Dora and her...

Canada and the Holocaust: Survivor Memoirs for Students of All Ages

Richelle Budd Caplan

On November 7, 2018, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a formal apology in the House of Commons in Ottawa regarding the fate of the MS St. Louis and its more than 900 passengers. Trudeau apologized to the passengers, their families, and Jewish communities in Canada and around the world.On May 13, 1939, the MS St. Louis set sail from Hamburg for Havana, carrying mostly Jewish passengers who were desperate to escape persecution in Nazi Germany. Although all the Jewish refugees on board had valid visas, they were denied entry into Cuba. Since the United States and Canada...

"No Jews” - Richelle Budd Caplan

My grandfather was an illegal immigrant who worked his way from being a dishwasher to becoming a hotel clerk in New Hampshire. He and his family left Eastern Europe a few years after the First World War, escaping the anti-Jewish pogroms in his region. Born in 1901, he was a young dreamer who smuggled himself across the Canadian border seeking to build a better life. He eventually became a proud citizen of the United States of America who raised his two children to be "good Americans" who only spoke English.

New Book with Chapter Contribution from Yad Vashem Published

Richelle Budd Caplan, director of the European Department of Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies, and Shulamit Imber, pedagogical director of the International School, contributed a chapter to the book Remembering the Holocaust in Educational Settings. The book was published in 2018 and the chapter addressed the unique challenges involved in commemorating and teaching about the Holocaust in Israel. The chapter particularly emphasized the key role that survivors played in forming Israelis’ knowledge of the Shoah.

Study Day for Greek Orthodox Clergy

On 4 October 2018, Yad Vashem coordinated a study day for a delegation of Greek Orthodox clergy and staff members from the Interorthodox Centre of the Church of Greece. In cooperation with the Israeli embassy in Athens, the visit afforded the delegation an opportunity to meet leading historians and broaden their knowledge about the Holocaust.