"Les Justes" de France

In yesterday's post, I used the expression "les Justes" to refer to the individuals associated with the Swiss convent who gave refuge to Jewish women from 1942-1944.  In fact, the expression comes from "Les Justes parmi les nations" ("the Righteous Among the Nations"), as it is used at Yad Vashem, the official memorial in Jerusalem to Jewish victims of the Holocaust.   The title is used to describe and honor non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from being exterminated by the Nazis.  Since the 1960s, some 22,000 individuals have been awarded the title.  Nearly 2,000 of these individuals are French.  I have had the honor - and distinct pleasure - of meeting one of them.

The history of Jews in France dates back over 2,000 years.  However, it wasn't until the 18th century, during the French Revolution, that France emancipated its Jewish population.  Still, France was the first European nation to establish legal equality for Jews.  Even with that, anti-Semitism remained an issue, as illustrated vivdly in the late 19th century by the shameful Dreyfus affair.  Today, France has a Jewish population of around 500,000 - the largest Jewish population in Europe.  Most live in metropolitan areas.

In the early months of WWII, it is estimated that there were approximately 350,000 Jews residing in France.  Some had fled pogroms in Eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  In addition to French Jews and Eastern European Jewish immigrants, others were more recent refugees from Nazi-occupied areas.  Their situation did not grow perilous until after the defeat of France by Nazi Germany in June 1940.   Even without prompting from the Nazis, as early as October 1940, the Vichy Government began working with the Gestapo to round up Jews for deportation to concentration camps.  In all, some 76,000 Jews were deported from France.  Only a small fraction of that number survived deportation.

Still, given the pre-war numbers, it is interesting to note that most Jews in France, in contrast to what happened in other Nazi-occupied areas of Europe, were not deported at all.  Several sources also report that, until great pressure was put on the Vichy Government by the Nazis, those who were deported were generally non-French Jews, who were considered not to have "assimilated."  The fact that so many were not deported and, indeed, even survived the Nazi Occupation was due in large part to segments of the non-Jewish French population who either hid them, often in plain sight, or helped them escape to a neutral third country such as Switzerland.   Those non-Jews who assisted with this heroic, albeit "passive," resistance literally risked their lives to do so.  If caught, they were either summarily imprisoned, executed, or themselves deported to concentration camps where they met the same horrific fates as did Jewish deportees.

I met the still lively and vivacious Jeanne Brousse in 2006 when she came to my workplace to speak about her experiences and those of others she knew who are no longer here to speak for themselves.  In 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, Jeanne was 18 years old.  By 1942, she was 21, a French civil servant, working in administration at Haute-Savoie headquarters in Annecy.  Fortuitously, she worked in a modest office position with refugee services.  In that capacity, she was able to obtain forms in order to forge identification documents and other necessary papers.  In some cases, these forged documents would describe Jews as Gentiles so that they were able to live among the population without attracting undue official attention.  In others, she was able to forge work papers and permits so that individuals could pass for seasonal workers on farms in the region.  In some cases, she helped to provide school identification documents so that Jewish children could attend school.  As she pointed out, however, she could only function effectively as part of a much larger network of individuals who collaborated to keep persecuted people hidden, who passed them off to nosy neighbors as visiting relatives and who, in extremis, assisted them to get across the border into Switzerland.  Whether they were rural farmers, businessmen, Muslim or Christian, they all helped out.  Their convictions, determination and their consciences were stronger than their fear.

In some cases, Jeanne herself made courier runs, carrying supplies and medicines to individuals participating in the French Resistance - although this was much rarer since her primary value was as an office worker.  She also described how, in certain instances, her superiors - who almost certainly knew or at least suspected what she was doing - simply turned a blind eye.  She realized how fortunate she was because she could very easily have been betrayed.  Her tales are literally hair-raising.  They also renew one's faith in the essential decency of most human beings.

About her efforts, she says simply, "Je n'ai fait que mon devoir ... ."  [I just did what I had to do ... what had to be done], although she has spoken in more detail about her inspirations at the time and her continuing relationships with those whom she saved, most of whom she had never known before. 

Many of her experiences are described in "Les Armes de Jeanne ["Jeanne's Weapons"] (1940-1945)."  It goes without saying that the world is indeed a better place so long as people like Jeanne exist.