The Sweetness of Forgetting

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses antisemitism and the Holocaust.

Paris has long had a Jewish population; a Jewish community was documented in Roman Gaul, and the Marais, the Jewish quarter, existed at least from the 13th century. Jewish people were often persecuted and occasionally expelled by the French king, reflecting the bias of Christian belief, but the French Revolution granted civil rights to Jews and permitted the establishment of Jewish-run businesses and synagogues. An estimated 320,000 Jews lived in France before the start of World War II (WWII); 200,000 of them lived in Paris, where they met a rising tide of antisemitism in the 1930s.

Around the 17th century in Europe, the emblem called the Star of David, two overlapping triangles, was adopted by Jewish communities as an official seal. By the 19th century, it had come to represent Judaism. The Nazis of Germany required Jews to identify themselves by wearing a yellow badge in the shape of the star on their clothing; this was designed to permit discrimination.

After invading Austria in 1939 at the beginning of WWII, the German army entered Paris in June 1940, forcing the surrender of the French. Officials agreed to an armistice which split the country in two. Roughly two-thirds of the southeast portion, mostly rural, would remain free and under its own rule; the remainder of the country would be occupied by the German military. The resulting government, called Vichy France, operated from July 1940 until the French resistance, led by Charles de Gaulle, reclaimed Paris in August 1944. Vichy leaders collaborated with the Nazis but also enforced their own antisemitic policies.

On July 16 and 17, 1942, French police pulled 13,000 Parisian Jews from their homes and corralled them in the cycling arena called the Vélodrome d’Hiver. They were held there for days without food, water, or sanitation until they were shipped by train to a waystation, Drancy, and to the Nazi death camps beyond. Unlike previous roundups, this seizure included women, children, and French nationals, not just those considered foreigners. It was the largest single deportation from France and very few of those captured survived. Vichy France had its own labor camps, where inmates died in the thousands from disease, cold, or starvation. The largest was Drancy. The majority of French prisoners were sent to Auschwitz. Deportations continued up until August 1944, when they ended with the Allied liberation.

The two-thirds of France initially declared a free zone was not immune from Nazi deportations, but the more rural areas provided refuge for those fleeing occupied areas. These people either joined the resistance or escaped to freedom beyond. Resistance initially included foiling German military efforts or resisting deportations, but the movement became more organized as the war wore on. Muslim people in many areas, including North Africa, actively worked to shield or protect Jewish people from prosecution. Si Kaddour Benghabrit, leader of the Grand Mosque in Paris, helped smuggle several hundred Jewish people out of the city, and Muslim people in Albania saved at least 2,000 Jewish lives.

Approximately 200,000 French Jews survived the war, some escaping to the free zone; by some estimates, there were still 40,000 Jewish people still living in Paris in 1944. The loss of life was worse in other occupied countries; in total, 60% of Europe’s Jewish population—over 6 million people—died in WWII.

Auschwitz, located in southern Poland, was the largest of the Nazi concentration camps and extermination centers. Over a million people were murdered there during its four years of operation. Soviet soldiers advancing from the east liberated Auschwitz on January 27, 1945. Approximately 6,000 prisoners were left alive; 60,000 more had been undergone a death march ordered by German officials. After the liberation, the Hotel Lutetia in Paris, which had been the headquarters for German intelligence, became a gathering point for those deported from France trying to connect with their families.

Since the Holocaust, many who helped hide or smuggle Jews to safety during the war have been honored by the Israeli government with the title of “Righteous Among the Nations.” Holocaust remembrance organizations and memorials attempt to preserve the history of this calamitous event, document the atrocities, honor the deceased, provide solace for survivors, and educate the young. The Holocaust Museum in Paris, called the Mémorial de la Shoah, opened in 2005. (Shoah is what Jews call the Holocaust; it is a Hebrew word meaning catastrophe or cataclysm.) Among the exhibits is the Wall of Names, which records the nearly 76,000 Jewish people deported from France during WWII. Not until 1995 did the French government, under then-President Jacques Chirac, officially acknowledge the role French officials played in supporting the Nazi program of genocide.