Dénoncer les Juifs sous l'Occupation

by Laurent Joly

Omniprésente dans l'imaginaire lié à la France des années noires, la délation contre les juifs n'avait pourtant jamais fait l'objet d'une enquête approfondie. L'ouvrage de Laurent Joly vient combler cette lacune.Omniprésente dans l'imaginaire lié à la France des années noires, la délation contre les juifs n'avait pourtant jamais fait l'objet d'une enquête approfondie. L'ouvrage de Laurent Joly vient combler cette lacune.Croisant approche institutionnelle et études de cas individuels, il examine tour à tour le rôle de la dénonciation dans les pratiques du commissariat général aux Questions juives, de la Gestapo, de la préfecture de Police et du journalAu Pilori.Ayant mis au jour les archives judiciaires concernant les quelque 240 Parisiens jugés, après la guerre, pour dénonciation de juifs sous l'Occupation, Laurent Joly interroge la figure du délateur, décrypte sa mentalité, ses mobiles, ses justifications. À partir de correspondances privées inédites, il fait également revivre le destin de victimes, telle Annette Zelman, dénoncée à la Gestapo par les parents de son fiancé non juif et déportée en juin 1942.Tout un pan de la vie et de la persécution des juifs à Paris est ainsi ressuscité : des contextes sociaux conflictuels, des stratégies de sauvetage anéanties, des vengeances sordides se donnant libre cours jusqu'aux dernières heures de l'Occupation.La délation contre les juifs n'est pas ce phénomène de masse que l'on imagine communément. Instrument de la politique génocidaire des nazis, elle n'en a pas moins provoqué la mort de plusieurs milliers de femmes, hommes et enfants.

291 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 11, 2017

Reviews

[Pirate · Rating 5 out of 5]

A harrowing read with account after account of the basest human behaviour. From one hairdresser denouncing his Jewish rival because he had more business to a couple informing the police on a Jewish couple who had refused to pay their exorbitant prices. Others informed so they could get their hands on their possessions. Perhaps though the most odious amongst many of denunciations is that of the delightful and exuberant Annette Zelman by her father-in-law -- Dr Hubert Jausion -- appalled like his wife that their son Jean would deign to marry a Jew. "Ah your father! your father! I hate him as much as I have ever hated anyone!" writes a distraught Annette after being arrested. She is deported and does not return...in a Greek tragedy style manner Jean is so upset and bitter at what his father has done he actively seeks and succeeds in being killed on the battlefield, in an ambush, though his corpse was never recovered. The great French actor Marcel Dalio -- Le Grand Illusion and also memorable in a small role as the casino manager in Casablanca -- lost his mother Sarah Adler and sister Raymond Blauschild (otherwise known by her singer's name Dalia) due to them being denounced in 1943 for not wearing the yellow star by a bitter widow called Berthe Bonnefoy.."This woman who always said hello to me and I would never have thought I should be wary of her," opined one of Dalio's sisters who did survive. It is worthy of mention that most France-based Jews who survived the Occupation did so due to the courage of their neighbours and before one casts stones if the Nazis had occupied the British Isles human nature is no different and there would have been denunciations aplenty. Another scandalous side to this story is how few of the perpetrators -- that is to say the police (uniformed and plain-clothed) who actively took part like Charles Permilleux -- and those who denounced the victims received the death sentence which their actions merited. Indeed many were all but given a slap on the wrist as the justice system fell prey to de Gaulle's wish to move on post Liberation and pretend all was good in post war France. Bonnefoy for instance was sentenced to death but that was subsequently converted to 20 years. The families never received justice adding to the shame of that era of France's history. As I say this is harrowing but well written -- occasionally one got rather bogged down in statistics which to a non French reader proved confusing -- one hopes it might be published in English at some point but in the meantime for those who can read French it is well worth a go.

[Damien Tournay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Une synthèse claire sur cette problématique trop méconnue car souvent baignée de fantasmes et d'approximations.