France: From German Fascist Occupation to Islamofascist Occupation

July 1940: After the military ceremony yesterday, I went to services at the little synagogue, which was full to bursting. In the prayer for our country, "France" was substituted for the word "Republic". I encountered friends evacuated from Paris and Luneville ... French Jewry is enduring a particular kind of anguish. It accepts suffering along with everyone else but dreads the discrimination the enemy may demand. This fear makes me particularly dread the future, for myself and for my sons. But I still have confidence. France cannot accept just anything, and it is not for nothing that the bones of my family have mingled with its soil for more than a century -- and that I have served in two wars. For my wife, my sons, and myself, I cannot imagine life in another climate; pulling up these roots would be worse than an amputation.

February 1941: I've been told that on the day the Statut des Juifs was published the government spokesman, who receives the foreign press every day at the evacuated' Quai d'Orsay in Vichy, answered a question from an American journalist by saying 'The Statut was neither demanded nor imposed on us by the occupying authorities. The government takes full responsibility for it. It was decided upon, after mature reflection, in response to the needs of the nation'. It was useful to identify this historical point, and we shall know enough not to forget it. It appears that this comment, when received in New York, was considered sufficient cause for demonstrations and protest meetings. Poor France!
Thus I have been led to wonder, what are the causes of such an iniquity, what are the deep reasons why an armistice regime would deny, in such a brutal fashion, a humane tradition going back more than a century; for a soldier to forget the innumerable sacrifices, for thinkers to forget [Henri] Bergson, and a whole galaxy of fine minds ... Since our calamity in June 1940, the Jews of France have had neither the leaders nor the defenders they deserve....
1. The moral influence of German propaganda, through imitation. Without admitting it, people are adopting the conquerors' methods without stooping so low as to accept any of their myths that are condemned by science.
2. The financial activities of the German propaganda services, which have succeeded in poisoning the minds of certain journalists, consciously or unconsciously, during the past eight years by resurrecting and distributing the pernicious works of Celine, Chateaubriand, the Gringoire campaigns [nationalist anti-Semitic journal], the 'Rothschild' and 'Mandel' slogans, etc.
3. The explicit demands of Action francaise, which for the past forty years has been calling for discrimination against Jews in France.
4. Certain facts that unfortunately have seemed to justify an apparently moderate racism: the actions of Leon Blum and the Popular Front, which were called Jewish; the presence of too many Jews in the press agencies, the film industry, banking, and behind the scenes politically, and, it must be said, their inborn exuberance; the too-hasty immigration of autocrats; the high percentage of Jewish names among citizens naturalized since 1918 [as a result of immigration from central Europe].
5. The inability of the French administration, despite all warnings received from those who were thinking clearly, to complete a Statut des Etrangers [Law on Foreigners] and to have an immigration policy...
To sum up, France has taken revenge on the Jews for the [French] blindness and inability to understand, since the more or less disguised closing of the United States to immigration from Europe, that France could profit from these human resources if it would manage and select them -- before assimilating them.

February 1942: 1. By the communication referred to above [Measures against the Jews], the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces in France asks that a certain number of measures be taken with regard to Jews in the Occupied Zone, such as: the obligation to wear a distinctive symbol, being banned from frequenting public places, excepting certain premises particularly reserved for them, and the institution of a special curfew.
2. I have the honor of informing you that I am not in agreement with these proposals.
3. I feel that the various strict measures already in force to date against the Jews are sufficient for the intended purpose, which is to remove them from public employment and from positions of authority in industry and commerce in this country.
4. There can be no question of going further without deeply offending French public opinion, which will see in these measures only humiliations without real efficacy, either for the future of the country or for the security of the occupying troops. The very excess of these decisions would certainly go against the intended purpose and would run the risk of provoking a movement in support of the Jews, who would be considered martyrs.

February 1943, Marseilles:  A quick report on what has happened -- just for myself, since I am not entitled to comment on it. On Friday, January 22, beginning in the early morning hours, there were massive raids and arrests all over Marseilles, to be expected due to the arrival during the preceding days of mobile guard units, coming by bus or train from Toulouse, Lyon, Nancy, and even from Paris. Reliable sources told us that a conference was held on the 21st at the railroad station to consider the use of eighteen trains prepared to leave for an unknown destination. We didn't know whether these were for [German] redeployments, or for sending off suspects arrested following the measures being planned.
Shortly before noon both the German and French police assigned to the railroad station began making arrests, entirely indiscriminately, and transporting the arrested persons by truck to the Surete and then to Baumettes Prison for identity checks. Jews were being arrested merely on sight of their stamped identity cards. In the evening the arrests continued, and there were also raids in certain neighbourhoods during the night. We tried urgently to speak with the police at their administrative offices but got no results. We were told that these were general measures being taken by the police, by agreement with the German authorities, toward the definitive cleansing of the city of Marseilles.
Diary of a Witness, 1940 - 1942 Raymond-Raoul Lambert

Rioters outside a Paris synagogue. Photo: Facebook. July 2014

An anti-Israel demonstration at the city’s Bastille Square quickly turned violent with protesters seeking out and attacking Jewish targets and screaming “death to the Jews” and “Hitler was right” according to community newspaper, JSS News.
Signs in support of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood were on display as well as a replica of a Palestinian rocket similar to those launched from Gaza at Israel in recent weeks, according to the report.
Hundreds of Parisian Jews were trapped in a synagogue while rioters threw stones and bricks. The group was initially thought to be held hostage and was freed to leave the center only after police intervention at 9 p.m. A Jewish owned store on rue de la Roquette was trashed by 50 men with iron bars and a young man was hospitalized nearby, according to reports. Another synagogue in Paris was also attacked and a source told The Algemeiner that a similar demonstration in Marseille also turned violent.
“What we are witnessing in Paris today is extremely, extremely serious. Jews are in peril for their lives,” New York-based French Jewish artist and activist Ron Agam told The Algemeiner.
Criticizing French police, Agam said, “French authorities acted like amateurs in failing to predict collateral violence against the Jewish community. I am outraged like I never have been against the Government for being so careless when they knew how radical this demonstration against Israel was going to be.”
“To see so many French people, most of them Muslims, calling for a pogrom against Jews and supporting a criminal and terrorist organization is the most troublesome situation,” he said, “French Jews are in serious danger.”
The Algemeiner -- July 2014