The Free Thinking Festival Essay : Jews in Occupied France: Coexistence with the Enemy?
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 19 November 2015
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The brutal treatment of Jews in Vichy France during the Second World War that culminated in their roundup and deportation is widely known. But is this the only way to consider Jewish life at this time? Focusing on the Jewish Scouting Movement.
Daniel Lee from the University of Sheffield reveals the possibility of coexistence between the Vichy regime and the Jews, exposing a world of Jewish creativity and expression that flourished just as the regime’s antisemitic measures intensified.
The New Generation Thinkers are the winners of an annual scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics at the start of their careers who can turn their research into fascinating broadcasts.
The Essay was recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead. If you want to hear Daniel Lee discussing his research you can download The Essay and conversation as an Arts and Ideas podcast.
Producer: Zahid Warley
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right? |
| 0:23.3 | It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music |
| 0:27.0 | when it's out of ice cream. |
| 0:28.8 | Listen to Evil Genius on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:35.2 | On the 11th of May 1941, the Jewish scouts assembled in Vichy, in front of the residence of Marshall Pétin, France's wartime head of state, for an official Joan of Arc feast day ceremony. |
| 0:52.7 | Throughout the day, the scouts paraded openly in the town, |
| 0:56.6 | proudly wearing their uniform and displaying banners adorned with Hebrew writing and images, |
| 1:01.5 | such as the tablets of stone. The fact that the Jewish scouts were invited to take part in |
| 1:06.9 | official Vichy celebrations seems to contradict everything that comes to mind when we think |
| 1:11.9 | about Jews in Vichy France. After all, France, like most of occupied Europe during the Second World |
| 1:18.1 | War, was a dangerous place to be a Jew. During the occupation, Jews lived in a state of fear and panic. |
| 1:26.2 | Thousands of Jews were rounded up in intermed in concentration camps, and eventually deported to the east. |
| 1:33.2 | By the end of the occupation, more than 75,000 Jews had been murdered. |
| 1:39.4 | And yet amidst all of this suffering, the Jewish scouts were continuing life proudly and openly across the |
| 1:45.5 | south of France, taking part in public ceremonies and organizing communal events with Catholic, |
| 1:51.2 | Protestant and secular scouting associations. What was going on? Why weren't these young Jews in hiding? |
| 2:00.0 | The Jewish Scouts' efforts to participate with Vichy |
| 2:03.0 | has been written out of history |
| 2:04.4 | because it does not fit within dominant narratives |
| 2:07.4 | of the occupation that emphasize |
| 2:09.6 | the constantly deteriorating situation of French Jews |
| 2:13.6 | between 1940 and 1942. |
... |
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