Description
Book SynopsisThis book, which draws on a rich array of primary sources and archival materials, offers the first major appraisal of French responses to the Jewish refugee crisis after the Nazi seizure of power in 1933. It explores French policies and attitudes toward Jewish refugees from three interrelated vantage points: government policy, public opinion, and the role of the French Jewish community.
The author demonstrates that Jewish refugees in France were not treated in the same manner as other foreigners, in part because of foreign policy considerations and in part because Jewish refugees had a distinctive socioeconomic profile. By examining the socioeconomic and political factors that informed French refugee policy in the 1930''s, the author presents overwhelming evidence that Vichy''s anti-Jewish measures were not merely the work of a few antisemitic zealots in the administration, nor did they stem solely from the desire of Marshal Pétain''s government to find scapegoats for the mili
Trade Review
"Placed within the broad context of French and European history, this highly original, nuanced book is a valuable resource not only for specialists in the Third Republic but also for scholars of the 1930's, World War II, and the Holocaust." -Carol Fink,Ohio State University
Table of Contents
1. Introduction 2. Refugee policy and middle-class protest during the Great Depression, 1933-36 3. The conservative crackdown of 1934-35 4. The great invasion I, 1933-36 5. Loyalties in conflict: French Jewry and the refugee crisis, 1933-May 1936 6. Refugee policy during the popular front era 7. Breaking the impasse: colonial and agricultural schemes during the popular front era 8. The deluge: from the Anschluss to Evian 9. The impact of appeasement 10. The crosscurrents of 1939 11. The missed opportunity: refugee policy in wartime 12. The great invasion II, 1936-40 13. The politics of frustration: the remaking of the Jewish relief effort, 1936-40 14. The path to Vichy: continuities and discontinuities in Jewish refugee policy 15. Conclusion.
