Jewish World Review May 2, 2000 / 27 Nissan, 5760
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
UZES, FRANCE ---
France has finally begun to come to terms
with its past well, almost.
After three years of intensive research, a French
government body, the Matteoli Commission, has
published a 3,300-page report on the wartime
persecution of French Jews not only by the Nazis, but by France's
collaborationist Vichy regime.
The picture is far from pretty. Of the 330,000 Jews in France
when the Wehrmacht invaded in 1940, more than 76,000 were
arrested (usually by French police) and deported to death camps.
Only 2,500 returned. And as the Matteoli report admits, it was
during this process of bureaucratic murder that at least $1.3 billion
worth of Jewish-owned assets were "Aryanized" seized with
the enthusiastic assistance of countless numbers of upstanding
French citizens.
The plundered goods included shops, businesses, tens of
thousands of works of art and more than 80,000 bank accounts.
At least 38,000 apartments were seized and ransacked. It was a
gargantuan undertaking. "The spoliation of France's Jews," says
European Jewish Congress Director Serge Cwajgenbaum,
"touched everyone from the wealthiest Rothschild to the poorest
cobbler in the pletzel" the old Jewish quarter of Paris.
So what happened to all this treasure after the liberation of 1944?
Large chunks simply became part of France's national coffers.
Now, France is finally admitting its role in the Holocaust and
planning to make some amends by using an estimated $350 million
in unclaimed assets to educate its young about the horrors of
ethnic hatred. After 55 years of stonewalling and denial, it is major
progress.
But while the French are busily patting themselves on the back, the
fact is the commission and a followup body have no clear plan to
compensate survivors and their heirs, including some in New York
who are suing to reclaim their parents' bank accounts. Nor have
countless vital documents been released regarding enormous
quantities of stolen stocks and bonds.
And while admitting culpability, the French still mainly point their
fingers at the Germans, when, in fact, the Vichy government
eagerly promulgated anti-Semitic laws on its own. French financial
institutions (including branches of such American banks as Chase
and Morgan) froze Jewish accounts even before the Nazis asked
them to. In the mind of Vichy France, the Jews were beneath the
law.
There was nothing new in this attitude. Jews first came to France
in Greek and Roman times. And while they played major roles in
the development of French culture, science, economy and
democracy, they were demonized for centuries by both church
and state.
No spot in all this beautiful land left them in peace for long. Even
here, in this medieval town of Uzes, where I spend much of my
time, history is stained. In the 13th century, for example, two local
Jews were falsely charged with the sacrificial murder of a child
whose blood they were said to have used for baking matzo one
of the oldest anti-Semitic canards. Their arrest provoked a battle
between the local bishop and the lord of Uzes. The reason was
simple: The one with jurisdiction could confiscate the Jews'
property.
The French have a saying: The more things change, the more they
stay the same. The new report offers a chance for some real
change. Now it's up to the
By Richard Z. Chesnoff
JWR contributor and veteran journalist
Richard Z. Chesnoff is a senior correspondent at US News
And World Report and a columnist at the NY Daily News. His latest book is Pack of Thieves: How Hitler & Europe
Plundered the Jews and Committed the Greatest Theft in History.
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