On the occasion of the publication of "French Jews and Nazism 1933-1939. L'Histoire renversée" by Jérémy Guedj (Puf, 2024) and the meeting scheduled at the Memorial on October 1st, discover the author’s interview.
In the 1930s, some thirty years after the Dreyfus Affair, what view did the Jews of France have of the political context in Germany and the advent of National Socialism?
French Jews were very early interested in the emergence of National Socialism in Germany, really as early as 1923, ten years before Hitler’s rise to power. And, from 1926-1928, they were well aware of the intrinsically anti-Semitic character of National Socialism, of its possible applications: being ostracized from society and even social extermination as one can read. Very regularly, the Jewish press recounts the exactions of the national socialist movement in Germany and predicts the coming to power of Hitler even if it makes some errors of assessment. The Jewish press is much better informed about the issue of anti-Semitism in Germany than the French general press, not only because this is what primarily interests its readers, but also because it wants to alert on the seriousness of Nazi anti-Semitism, where, elsewhere, it is only one element among others. The Jews immediately understood the anti-Semitic dimension of Nazism because they were Jewish – so they felt directly concerned – and because they got information from the Jewish communities in Germany.
Despite the increasingly deteriorating situation of their neighbors, do French Jews feel safe from anti-Semitism and hostility from both the French government and the French people?
As early as the 1920s, concern spread among French Jews for their fellow Germans. But the tragedy experienced by German Jews reminds them of the greatness of the French Republic, the greatness of its institutions. They continue to believe that they will be spared from anti-Semitism, especially if they prove without fail that they are well integrated into French society. They refuse to see that the fate of German Jews could foreshadow theirs, because the question does not even arise for them.
After the signing of the Munich Agreement (in late September 1938), the Jews of France observed that Nazism nurtured anti-Semitism in France without always admitting that there was an intrinsically French anti-Semitism. Despite this state of mind, they feel increasingly threatened in France and understand that they too could be victims of a Franco-German rapprochement. The Israelites who are perfectly assimilated to French society are supporters of discretion, evidence of a successful assimilation, while the Jews from Eastern Europe and young French Jews (more committed and Zionist than their elders) plead for the opposite, or even the response.
French Jews did not ignore the dangers, they may have shown some naivety or overconfidence in the 1930’s. They were then convinced that French society would show solidarity with the Jews, that they were protected in France and there were also signs that they could believe it: at the end of the 1930s, the LICA (International League against Anti-Semitism) obtained the condemnation of anti-Semitism.
In what way did the rise of Hitler upset the identity of the Jews of France?
Contrary to what could have been repeated, the Jews of France did not let themselves be. They tried to act against the German policy, against its propagation. In the 1920s and 1930s, how did they mobilize to fight against Nazi ideology and its expansion?
Very early on, the Jews of France became aware of the danger that Hitler and Nazi ideology represented for the Jews (unlike many French people). So, very early on, they put in place a range of actions to counter Nazism on a small, medium, or large scale. They begin by intellectually contradicting all the arguments of Nazism concerning the Jews. But, from 1938, the Jews of France, by rising against Nazism, speak another language, a language that they no longer share with the rest of French society. They increasingly feel like a minority.
They also organize the translation of Mein Kampf (at the initiative of LICA, the first anti-racist association) and the sending of this text to all powerful and influential personalities in the country with the aim of making Hitler’s project understood, its intentions of annihilation – with all the meanings that the word can take at this time in their imagination – of the Jewish people. Many Jewish intellectuals often try in vain to alert politicians and decision-makers in France of Hitler’s exactions.
For years, we were prisoners of the reading of Hannah Arendt, convinced that the Jews had seen nothing coming, that they had walled themselves in passivity. Yet this assertion does not withstand rigorous and thorough research. A few weeks after the elections of 1933, Jews in France understand very well that Hitler embodies their existential enemy. Even if they warn about the danger, how to plan for such an application of this danger?
And, at the time, some Jews like Raymond-Raoul Lambert, editor of the Univers israélite, consider that some do too much and are dangerously noticed; they prefer silence to noise. For example, at the time of the Munich agreements, the intellectual published an article entitled "Servir et se taire".
