Description
Book SynopsisTwo books by Maurice Rajsfus, a French activist and former investigative journalist for Le Monde, who shares his research and personal recollections in order to shed new light on France's role in the Holocaust.
In the first volume, 'Operation Yellow Star,' Rajsfus meticulously analyzes archival documents, demonstrating the extent of police collaboration with the Vichy regime and how it facilitated the persecution, deportation, and ultimately the death of hundreds of thousands of Jews. Examining long-unseen arrest records and transcripts, Rajsfus seeks to understand how and why many average French citizens resisted Nazi occupation while others were willingly complicit. In the second book, 'Black Thursday,' Rajsfus recounts his own experiences of July 16, 1942, when he and his family were arrested as part of the Vel’ d'Hiv roundup, the largest ever in France, of 13,000 Jews. While most of those detained during the two-day sweep eventually di
Trade Review
If [Rajsfus] still wishes to recall how scrupulously — and even with zeal — the French police applied Nazi orders, he also wants to warn us against certain xenophobic or discriminatory speech still heard recently that could lead to behavior of that bygone age.
Adept reporting and personal experience make for a gripping read… While each book is strong enough to stand on its own, Operation Yellow Star and Black Thursday together make an unusual, important, credibly researched, and skillfully written contribution to Holocaust literature.
Maurice Rajsfus has devoted his life to denouncing and combating racism, fascism, intolerance, and police brutality, while putting in his texts a good dose of caustic irony.
An unsparing indictment of Paris police during the Nazi occupation.… The author’s memory of July 16 is harrowing.… Besides commemorating his family’s murder, Rajsfus raises awareness about how “the enemies of human rights are once more gaining ground,” spouting xenophobia that is easily transferable to any minority group. A heartfelt, timely plea to remember past atrocities.
Well researched and deeply personal, the accounts are powerful in their detail.
Well documented … essential for understanding and above all not forgetting. To this day there are still no pictures of the days of horror at the Velodrome d’Hiver.
Through his sobering, exhaustive research Rajsfus chronicles the arrests, harassment, and deportations of Jews [in France]…. Rajsfus’ eyewitness, unblinking account of the events in Vichy France is a journalistic, yet passionately written j’accuse against the French collaborators and those who want to erase the [era’s] devastating atrocities. -- Lew Whittington * New York Journal of Books *
Table of Contents
Author's Preface to the English Edition Book One - Operation Yellow Star Note Honor and Discipline In the Service of Immoral Laws The Stages of Humiliation Toward the Yellow Star A Little History The Preliminaries Preparations Hunting Them Down The Requests for Special Dispensation Non-Jews Wearing the Badge A Compliant Press Toward Liberation The Red Line Book Two - Black Thursday: The Round-up of July 16, 1942 Preface Part One Twelve Hours of Anxiety [untitled chapters 1-15] Part Two: No Witnesses, No Crime! Local Amnesia The Police Have Forgotten The Bus Drivers Did Their Job Vincennes City Hall Has No Information What About the Churches? My City Has Lost Its Memory Part Three: Survivor of the Absurd Memories, a User's Guide Lost Children... Appendix - Interview with Maurice Rajsfus
