Diaries, testimonies and memoirs of the Holocaust often include at least as much on the family as on the individual. Victims of the Nazi regime experienced oppression and made decisions embedded ...within families. Even after the war, sole survivors often described their losses and rebuilt their lives with a distinct focus on family. Yet this perspective is lacking in academic analyses.
In this work, scholars from the United States, Israel, and across Europe bring a variety of backgrounds and disciplines to their study of the Holocaust and its aftermath from the family perspective. Drawing on research from Belarus to Great Britain, and examining both Jewish and Romani families, they demonstrate the importance of recognizing how people continued to function within family units—broadly defined—throughout the war and afterward.
This review essay traces the evolution of French Jewish philanthropy from the emancipation of the French Jewish population through the interwar period. Through an analytical reading of the ...historiography on this question, three distinct phenomena come to the fore: the centralization of Jewish philanthropy during the post-emancipatory period through the Consistory’s Comité de Bienfaisance Israélite de Paris, the internationalization of French Jewish philanthropy through the establishment of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, and finally its diversification, through the creation of new structures to assist Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire, in the late 19th century. While the institutions and actors that shaped French Jewish philanthropy have been well relatively explored, this paper argues that future research should shed light on how aid was provided, especially during the interwar period. This topic is essential for our understanding of Jewish relief efforts during World War II.
This paper offers a study of American Jewish philanthropy in France after World War II according to the histoire croisée method. To what extent did Jewish American organizations and individuals ...influence the reconstruction of Jewish life in France after the Holocaust ? After describing what was later called a “Jewish Marshall Plan,” this article studies the role of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC or Joint) which was the most important American Jewish organization in France after the war. Narratives from one American woman, and from a European one will help us elucidate how individuals from each side of the Atlantic perceived each other during this encounter.
This article focuses on France as a refuge for unaccompanied Central European Jewish children on the eve of World War II. Contrary to the United Kingdom, which accepted 10,000 Jewish children through ...Kindertransport, only 350-450 children entered France. This article utilizes children’s diaries and organizational records to question how children perceived and recorded their displacement and resettlement in France, a country that would soon be at war, and then occupied, by Nazi Germany. By questioning how these events filtered into and transformed children’s lives, I argue that the shifting political environment led to profound transformations in these children’s daily lives long before their very existence was threatened by Nazi–Vichy deportation measures. Most children were cared for in collective children’s homes in the Paris region in which left-oriented educators established children’s republics. Yet the outbreak of war triggered a series of events in the homes that led to changes in pedagogical methods and new arrivals (and thus new conflicts). The Nazi occupation of France led to the children’s displacement to the Southern zone, their dispersal into new homes, and the reconfiguration of their networks. This analysis of children’s contemporaneous sources and the conditions under which they were produced places new emphasis on the epistemology of Kindertransport sources and thus contributes to larger theoretical discussions in Holocaust and Childhood studies on children’s testimony.
“Here is to my prayer that my hindsight will prove to be as exciting as my lack of foresight,” wrote Abraham Plotkin on the opening page of his diary (3). Plotkin, an unemployed labor organizer who ...set sail for Europe on October 25, 1932 with the objective of investigating German labor and unemployment policy, answered his own prayer by producing a manuscript whose historical value stems precisely from the author’s lack of foresight. Indeed, unlike historians writing on the rise and early day...
Orphelines ou sœurs ? Hobson Faure, Laura
20 & 21 (Imprimé),
1/2020, Letnik:
N° 145, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Peu d’attention historique a été accordée aux frères et sœurs en tant qu’unités familiales, pendant et après la Shoah. Les historiens ont tendance à considérer les « orphelins de la Shoah » comme des ...cas individuels. Cet article, établi à partir d’entretiens d’histoire orale, de dossiers sociaux, de papiers privés et d’archives organisationnelles françaises et américaines, utilise une approche microhistorique. À partir de l’expérience de deux sœurs ayant survécu à la Shoah en France et ayant ensuite immigré aux États-Unis, il questionne leur capacité à rester ensemble. L’article affirme que les orphelins ne sont pas aussi seuls que nous le pensions mais qu’il existe d’importantes différences dans la façon dont les frères et sœurs abordent et interagissent avec leur passé. Ainsi une interaction soutenue avec nos sujets de recherche peut-elle enrichir les résultats historiques.
Orphelines ou sœurs ? Hobson Faure, Laura
20 & 21 (Imprimé),
2020, Letnik:
145, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Peu d’attention historique a été accordée aux frères et sœurs en tant qu’unités familiales, pendant et après la Shoah. Les historiens ont tendance à considérer les « orphelins de la Shoah » comme des ...cas individuels. Cet article, établi à partir d’entretiens d’histoire orale, de dossiers sociaux, de papiers privés et d’archives organisationnelles françaises et américaines, utilise une approche microhistorique. À partir de l’expérience de deux sœurs ayant survécu à la Shoah en France et ayant ensuite immigré aux États-Unis, il questionne leur capacité à rester ensemble. L’article affirme que les orphelins ne sont pas aussi seuls que nous le pensions mais qu’il existe d’importantes différences dans la façon dont les frères et sœurs abordent et interagissent avec leur passé. Ainsi une interaction soutenue avec nos sujets de recherche peut-elle enrichir les résultats historiques.
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