In the Aftermath of Genocide: Armenians and Jews in Twentieth-Century France

by Maud S. Mandel

France is the only Western European nation home to substantial numbers of survivors of the World War I and World War II genocides. In the Aftermath of Genocide offers a unique comparison of the country’s Armenian and Jewish survivor communities. By demonstrating how—in spite of significant differences between these two populations—striking similarities emerge in the ways each responded to genocide, Maud S. Mandel illuminates the impact of the nation-state on ethnic and religious minorities in twentieth-century Europe and provides a valuable theoretical framework for considering issues of transnational identity. Investigating each community’s response to its violent past, Mandel reflects on how shifts in ethnic, religious, and national affiliations were influenced by that group’s recent history. The book examines these issues in the context of France’s long commitment to a politics of integration and homogenization—a politics geared toward the establishment of equal rights and legal status for all citizens, but not toward the accommodation of cultural diversity. In the Aftermath of Genocide reveals that Armenian and Jewish survivors rarely sought to shed the obvious symbols of their ethnic and religious identities. Mandel shows that following the 1915 genocide and the Holocaust, these communities, if anything, seemed increasingly willing to mobilize in their own self-defense and thereby call attention to their distinctiveness. Most Armenian and Jewish survivors were neither prepared to give up their minority status nor willing to migrate to their national homelands of Armenia and Israel. In the Aftermath of Genocide suggests that the consolidation of the nation-state system in twentieth-century Europe led survivors of genocide to fashion identities for themselves as ethnic minorities despite the dangers implicit in that status.

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 28, 2003

Reviews

[Phoenix · Rating 4 out of 5]

Communities in Diaspora

A reasonable examination of the coping strategies of Armenians and Jews wrt the French State which was liberal but had little tolerance for ethnic distinctiveness. After the genocide an estimated 65,000 Armenian refugees made it to French shores. In the 1920’s labor shortages were to the advantage of the refugees, who as stateless persons lacking documentation, were seen as immigrants. Camp Odo established outside of Marseille was a prominent transition point. Attempts to encourage the refugees to disperse and assimilate failed as, lacking sufficient infrastructure from the government, the Armenians bonded out of necessity and developed their own.

Particularly interesting was the relationship of both groups to their newly established homelands abroad. Soviet Armenia, following the invasion of the short lived Nationalist government (May-Nov 1918), was problematic first as it was communist and later because of the 1939-41 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Hitler. Politically Armenians were divided into 3 significant political groups: the anti-communist Dashnaks (Nationalists) who , whom I’ve always regarded as hard right; the much smaller Haistani, supported by Moscow, but encouraged not to join the French Communist party to avoid being seen as a threat; lastly the Ramgavars representing the bourgeoisie. While not pro-Soviet, they believed the USSR would protect Armenia from Turkey and give it survivability. What united them all were the Armenian churches, which acted as social conveners, even for atheists.

The community encouraged its members to keep a low profile, eschew ethnic dress in public, learn French, blend in. Support for Armenia was for the sake of Armenians elsewhere. When the Soviets switched sides, several thousand younger Armenians repatriated themselves to Armenia, and several thousand more did so after the war. By the 1950s most were disillusioned sought to return to France.

While the Jews of France were established, a significant percentage during the interwar were Eastern European refugees. Though stung by the Dreyfus Affair, Jewish community leadership such as the Conistoire de Paris and the Alliance Israelite Universelle were initially hostile to Zionism as they saw it exposing Jews to accusations of dual loyalties. Zionism was a solution for oppressed Jews from elsewhere and was stronger among the new immigrants. Communal benevolent associations allowed these immigrants to network and support each other while mediating below the radar between conflicting claims for loyalties: the land they came from (Eastern Europe), resided in (France) and were ideologically committed to (Israel/Palestine).

After Vichy the 4th French Republic wanted to quickly rebuild and forget. Rehabilitation funds were limited, focusing on resistance fighters, not deportees, most of whom were Jews. Individuals were expected to rely on family and community, which for Jews had been decimated by the Nazis. Whereas Vichy employed some 4000 bureaucrats to collect and dispose of Jewish property over 4 years, the Republic offered a staff of 150 over 2. In spite of the existence of large depots of furniture and other goods the logistics of recovery proved next to impossible. Often survivors found their old apartments occupied by French survivors of the war that the courts were reluctant to evict. Additionally the government did not feel obliged to assist refugee residents who had arrived before the war but were not citizens. As with Armenians a generation before , support materialized from abroad, in this case the American (Jewish) Joint Distribution Committee. An interesting phenomenon for both Armenians and Jews is that fund raising for common needs as a social activity served to unite the communities.

The subject matter while dry would be of interest to members of both groups and policy planners wrt understanding the concerns of minorities within the context of a larger society.