Overview

In this work Jacques Adler, a former member of the French resistance, asks: ""Are people powerless when confronted with a State determined to destroy them? Why didn't more Jews survive the Holocaust? How did we survive? Did we, the survivors, do all that we could, at the time, to help more people survive?"" In answering these questions, Adler examines the diverse Jewish organizations that existed in Paris during the German occupation from 1940 to 1944. The first part of the book analyzes the national composition of the Jewish population, its expropriation and daily life. The remaining chapters discuss the roles, activities, and policies of various Jewish organizations as they supported Jews in their search for survival, alerted the non-Jewish population to the terrible threat faced by every Jewish family, and acted as representatives of the Jewish people--a role that led to inevitable administrative cooperation with the Nazis and Vichy. Combining careful scholarship with a survivor's zeal to set the record straight, Adler gives an insider's account of resistance members, whose determination was born of the pain and anger that came from the loss of loved ones, whose political ideology sustained them even when they faced the threat of starvation and the loneliness of clandestine existence, and whose anguish was all the more intense because they belonged to that community in Paris that was selected as fodder for the ""Final Solution."" Thoroughly researched and drawing upon previously unavailable materials, Adler presents an important portrait of communal solidarity and communal conflict, of heroes and those whose courage failed.

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9780195043068

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<br> The product of a rare combination of qualifications on the part of its author: the indelible experience of personal involvement during youth, and the dispassionate professionalism of an academic scholar....Carefully researched and comprehensive in its treatment of what happened inside a community under siege, Adler's work will be of interest to all scholars of French and Jewish affairs. --History: Reviews of New Books<p><br> The special contribution of Adler's work is its examination of the array of responses by the Jewish community to such hitherto unsurpassed barbarity in France....Adler's book is both a primary and a secondary source, and the scholarship on which its rests is impressive. --Choice<p><br> A timely and distinguished addition to the immense body of Holocaust literature. --Los Angeles Times<p><br> A profoundly scholarly and moving book....Does full justice to the evils of Nazism and the human frailties of its victims. --History<p><br> A scholarly and perceptive study. --Booklist<p><br>

Adler adds another highly important book to the growing literature of the Holocaust period. * Le'ela April 1995 * `This is a well written and interesting book' Ben Helfgott, JBNR Vol 7, No 3, Autumn 92 'a profoundly scholarly and moving book ... as a scholar he has imposed on himself a strict discipline of critical detachment ... His patient and meticulous analysis shows how difficult it was for the French Jews, and indeed for the immigrants, to understand what was happening to them ... the book does full justice to the evils of Nazism and the human frailties of its victims.' Paul Addison, University of Edinburgh, History 1992 `Both aspects, the experimental and the academic, are discreetly combined in his sober, thorough and authentic study ... his conclusion, as balanced, scholarly and questioning as the rest of this excellent history, is that those trying to pigeon-hole Jewish resistance as either Jewish, or Communist, or part of the wider French resitance, should look to the ways in which the precise context of action and survival determine its nature, calling for sharp moral decisions, not just from immigrant and French Jews, but from anyone who witnessed the arrest of Jews in occupied France. This is an important contribution to an infinitely wider debate.' EHR Journal `precise and scholarly book ... logically organized and closely reasoned, a timely and distinguished addition to the immense body of Holocaust literature.' Los Angeles Times `Blending careful scholarship and a passion for his subject ... [Adler's] research displays remarkable objectivity, while reflecting the survivor's zeal to set the record straight.' Times Literary Supplement

From a former member of the French Resistance, a scholarly treatment of the life-and-death scenarios facing Parisian Jews dining WW II. Adler seeks to resolve complex questions concerning the reactions of a community faced with a state mandate of annihilation - the Jewish people of Paris during 1940-44. The diverse Jewish elements - French Jews (falsely secure in their status as French citizens), immigrant Jews (most vulnerable to Nazi destruction), and Communists (reacting as soldiers, not volunteers) - all tried to deal with the German threat in their own manner. The French Jews sought protection as French citizens. Taking initial reassurances from the Vichy government, they remained blind to their danger until it was almost too late. More attuned to the warning signals, the immigrants immediately banded together to seek community survival through relief services for the orphaned and dispossessed. In contrast, the Jewish Communists' primary agenda involved armed resistance to destroy and harass the enemy. With three such divergent views, the Jewish population of Paris faced severe difficulties in forming a united front to withstand the Nazi death machine. Drawing on publications, archival sources, as well as interviews with survivors and activists, Adler treats these conflicts in a fair, nonaccusatory manner. A thoughtful, thorough exploration, and of particular interest in light of the Klaus Barbie trial. (Kirkus Reviews)

The product of a rare combination of qualifications on the part of its author: the indelible experience of personal involvement during youth, and the dispassionate professionalism of an academic scholar....Carefully researched and comprehensive in its treatment of what happened inside a community under siege, Adler's work will be of interest to all scholars of French and Jewish affairs. --History: Reviews of New Books<br> The special contribution of Adler's work is its examination of the array of responses by the Jewish community to such hitherto unsurpassed barbarity in France....Adler's book is both a primary and a secondary source, and the scholarship on which its rests is impressive. --Choice<br> A timely and distinguished addition to the immense body of Holocaust literature. --Los Angeles Times<br> A profoundly scholarly and moving book....Does full justice to the evils of Nazism and the human frailties of its victims. --History<br> A scholarly and perceptive study. --Booklist<br>

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