Vichy's Responsability in the Holocaust : The Failure of the Integration of the Jews of France ?

Résumé du document

On July 16th 1995, President Jacques Chirac officially recognized for the first time, the responsibility of the Vichy regime in the genocide of the Jews. This statement was heralded as a break from the past as it had been traditionally asserted that no French governmental authorities had taken part in the Final Solution. The difficulty to acknowledge the accountability of a French regime leads to question the specificity of the Holocaust in France. The Vichy regime was the regime instituted after the defeat of the France of the Third Republic. At that time, France was the only country to sign an armistice with the Nazis. Thus, the new French State benefited from a larger autonomy than its European counterparts. It had some means to limit the attacks against the Jews, 'the French government energetically persecuted Jews living in France', as Paxton and Marrus revealed. One could thus wonder whether France's responsibility in the Final Solution means the failure of the integration of the Jews and the total contamination of antisemitism or whether it was only the product of a few, made possible by an unprecedented historical context. In fact, if one can observe a revival of antisemitism during the 1930s, prejudice against the Jews was not prevalent.

Extraits

[...] Such inclination can be interpreted as the resignation to the failure of the integration to the French nation. It is this same resignation, along with fear, that motivated the choice of other Jews to leave France. Nevertheless, other Jews refused to recognize the French State as the legitimate authority of France and joined the ranks of the Resistance. The Jewish communists notably played a prominent role in this struggle. To conclude, the Vichy regime led the Jews to question the effectiveness of their integration to the French nation. [...]

[...] As such, the stakes of the integration of the Jews to the French nation took on a new significance in the fifties. Bibliography MARRUS Michael R. and PAXTON Robert O., Vichy France and the Jews, Calmann- Lévy LAFFITTE Michel, Juif dans la France allemande, Tallandier POZNANSKI Renée, Les Juifs en France pendant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, Hachette WINOCK Michel, La France et les Juifs, de 1789 à nos jours, Editions du Seuil LABORIE Pierre, 1942 et le sort des Juifs : quel tournant dans l'opinion ? [...]

[...] and PAXTON Robert O., Vichy France and the Jews. WINOCK Michel, La France et les Juifs, de 1789 à nos jours. MARRUS Michael R. and PAXTON Robert O., Vichy France and the Jews. STEINBERG Maxime, Le paradoxe français dans la Solution finale à l'Ouest STEINBERG Maxime, Le paradoxe français dans la Solution finale à l'Ouest MARRUS Michael R. and PAXTON Robert O., Vichy France and the Jews. STEINBERG Maxime, Le paradoxe français dans la Solution finale à l'Ouest MARRUS Michael R. [...]

[...] Such measure had direct consequences on the Jews who had fled Germany in the thirties. Actually, Vichy's efforts against the Jews went into three directions. In the rhetoric field, the Marchandeau decree was abolished, on August 27th 1940. This 1939-ruling prohibited antisemit violences in the press. As such, attacks on the Jews unleashed. Regarding the treatment of the French Jews, the Vichy regime passed a law that defined the essence of a Jew, portant statut des juifs”, on October 3rd 1940. [...]

[...] and PAXTON Robert O., Vichy France and the Jews. WINOCK Michel, La France et les Juifs, de 1789 à nos jours. WINOCK Michel, La France et les Juifs, de 1789 à nos jours. MARRUS Michael R. and PAXTON Robert O., Vichy France and the Jews. Between 1930 and 1939, the Jewish population in France rose from to around The Front Populaire was a left-oriented coalition gathered to counter the so-called ligues, after the Stavisky Affair. WINOCK Michel, La France et les Juifs, de 1789 à nos jours. [...]