The Third Reich and the Holocaust: France and Italy

Most of the focus so far has been on the Jews within Germany and Austria, and then those of the conquered eastern countries, from Poland to Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the USSR. The focus of this class was the plight of Jews living within France and small parts of Italy.

We watched minutes 11:28 to 17:54 of Remembering the Holocaust, Season One, Episode Two: Silent Saviors, found on Amazon Prime. This episode deals directly with the Jewish population of France and those who risked their lives to smuggle or hide Jews from the Nazi occupiers.

As a refresher, France fell to Germany on 12 May 1940. By the end of September, Jewish laws were passed giving definition to Jews and how they lived, from foreign/refugees, to French nationalized Jews.

The fall of France and the subsequent occupation was not of the entirety of French borders. The norther portion, from Paris to the northern coast, was German occupied. The southern portion became  the satellite regime know as Vichy France, and a smaller portion on the lower easter corner of France was occupied by the Italians.

Vichy France and Petáin: The France Collaboration with Nazi Germany

Jewish refugees and foreign (non-French Jews by birth) were the first to be rounded up in the norther portion of German occupied France. These people were sent to Drancy, a camp in France, which served as a transit stop on the way to Auschwitz. Until 1942, the round ups and command of Drancy were relatively humane. Then Adolf Eichmann sent Alois Brunner to take over. From July to September 1942, twenty two trains left for Poland, each training deporting some 1,000 Jews. Another French camp was called Gurs.

Francine's Interview is a small tidbit of greatness in the midst of thousands where the smallest act of kindness has a lifelong effect on a survivor. One piece of chocolate. Aid and kindness never has to be a grand gesture.

The French were not as open to the ousting of their Jews as other countries the Nazis took. "As time went on, however, the attitude of the French population became more hostile toward the Germans, making the aims of the Nazis more difficult to achieve. The Nazis tried, unsuccessfully, through intimidation, to establish a kind of Jewish police force that would collaborate with them. They also released individuals from Drancy, promising them freedom if they identified friends and acquaintances. Unsuccessful in these pursuits, the Nazis began arresting inmates of the UGIF institutions, including children's homes." A History of the Holocaust by Yehuda Bauer, page 255

We watched a second portion of Remembering the Holocaust on Amazon Prime, from the same season and episode as earlier, minutes 27:19 to 34:30.

One Frenchman, a Capuchin monk of the Franciscan order (not to be confused with a capuchin monkey as some thought I said in class) named Pierre Marie Benoit worked with others in France, like André Trocmé and his town of Le Chambon,  to actively save Jews from deportation, from smuggling to hiding and forging new identification documents. Due to his efforts and those of many others involved in the underground French organization Circuit Garel, 7,000 children were saved, many of them smuggled out of France to Switzerland.

Many French Jews from German occupied and Vichy France fled to the Italian sector of occupied France. Before becoming formally aligned with Germany, Mussolini's Fascist Italy did not enact antisemitic legislation and they had no "Jewish Question" that needed answered. Not holding the same ideological beliefs as their Germany Nazi counterparts, many in the Italian military in the France did not collaborate with the round ups and deportation of Jews. This became such an issue that Helmut Koch, the SS security police commander in France, wrote to the Gestapo Chief, Heinrich Müller in Berlin: "If the Italians are now taking all Jews of foreign citizenship under their protection it will make it impossible to continue to carry out anti-Jewish policy according to our conception." A month after this letter, another letter of complaint to Berlin: "The Italians live in the homes of the Jews. The Jews invite them out and pay for them. The German and Italian conceptions seem here to be completely at variance." Later another complaint was sent to Müller about an Italian military protest of the deportation of Jews in Lyon to Auschwitz. Eichmann stepped in to push Nazi ideology into the Italian sector, Heinrich Müller made a trip to Rome to encourage Mussolini and his fascists to toe the Germany Nazi party line in regards to Jews. In response, the Italian government sent Guido Lospinoso to curb the problem and set the Italian military there in the ways of the Nazis and to collaborate. Lospinoso, however, did the opposite. He hired Angelo Donati, a Jewish bank manager, to help and receive aid from Pierre Marie Benoit and his organization of smuggling, hiding, and forging documents for Jewish refugees. This story and quotes was found on pages 257-258 of A History of the Holocaust by Yehuda Bauer.

The other rather large tome I referenced for this lesson is The Holocaust Chronicle . It and the book by Bauer can be found at the links provided.