The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 (31 page)

In general anti-Semitism may well have been outweighed by sheer indifference, but not to the point of forgoing tangible advantages. As Helmut Knochen put it in January 1941, “It is almost impossible to cultivate among the French an anti-Jewish sentiment that rests on an ideological foundation, while the offer of economic advantages much more easily excites sympathy for the anti-Jewish struggle.”
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There was a striking (yet possibly unperceived at the time) relation between French attitudes toward the Jews and the behavior of representatives of native Jewry toward the foreign or recently naturalized Jews living in the country. While native Jews affiliated to the community were represented by the Consistoire and its local branches, foreign Jews—and the recently naturalized ones—were loosely affiliated to an umbrella organization, the Fédération des Sociétés Juives de France, comprising various political associations and their related network of welfare organizations. Part of the umbrella organization came to be known as “Rue Amelot” (the Paris address of the main office of its leading committee).

After the Rothschilds had fled the country. Jacques Helbronner, the acting vice-president of the Consistoire, became the de facto leader of native French Jewry (Rue Amelot was more collectively run by the heads of its various associations). In many ways Helbronner was a typical representative of the old-stock French Jewish elite: a brilliant officer during World War I, a sharp legal mind who at a young age was appointed to the Conseil d’État (the highest civil service institution in France), Helbronner married into old (and substantial) French Jewish money. He belonged, quintessentially, to the French Jewish haute bourgeoisie, a group considered almost French by its non-Jewish surroundings. And despite his own genuine interest in Jewish matters—which led him to become active in the Consistoire—Helbronner, like all his peers, saw himself first and foremost as French. Typically enough he was close to Philippe Pétain, since the day during World War I when, as head of the personal staff (
chef de cabinet
) of the minister of war, he was sent to inform Pétain of his appointment as
généralissime
(commander in chief of all French forces). Another friend of Helbronner’s was Jules-Marie Cardinal Gerlier, cardinal-archbishop of Lyon and head of the French episcopate. In March 1941 Helbronner was appointed president of the Consistoire.
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Few native French Jews achieved the exalted status of a Helbronner, but the great majority felt as deeply integrated in French society as he did and were to share the positions he adopted: France was their only conceivable national and cultural home, notwithstanding the injustice of the new laws. The growing anti-Semitism of the thirties and its most violent outbursts following the defeat were, in their opinion, caused in large part by the influx of foreign Jews; the situation thus created could be mitigated by a strict distinction between native French “separation” Jews and the foreign Jews living in the country. The Vichy authorities had to be convinced of this basic tenet.

It was precisely this difference that Helbronner attempted to convey to Pétain in a memorandum he sent him in November 1940, after the first statute and its corollaries had sunk in. In this statement, titled
Note sur la question juive
, the future president of the Consistoire argued that the Jews were not a race and did not descend from the Jews who had lived in Palestine two thousand years before. Rather, they were a community composed of many races and, as far as France was concerned, a community entirely integrated in its homeland. The problems began with the arrival of foreign Jews “who started to invade our soil.” The open-door policies of the postwar governments had been a mistake, and they resulted “in a normal anti-Semitism the victims of which were now the old French Israelite families.” Helbronner then suggested a series of measures that would free the native Jews from the limitations of the statute
but not the foreign or recently naturalized Jews
…
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Helbronner’s message went unanswered.

Over the following months the head of the Consistoire and a number of his colleagues pursued their futile and demeaning entreaties. The messages and visits to Vichy pointedly continued to ignore the fate of the foreign Jews and to plead for the French Israelites only. The epitome of this course of action was probably the solemn petition sent to the
maréchal
by the entire leadership of the Consistoire, including the chief rabbi of France. The closing paragraph was unambiguous in its omission of any reference to the non-French Jews:

“Jewish Frenchmen still wish to believe that the persecutions of which they are the object are entirely imposed on the French State by the occupying authorities and that the representatives of France have tried their best to attenuate their rigors…Jewish Frenchmen, if they cannot safeguard the future and perhaps even the life of their children and grandchildren, but seeking above all to leave them honorable names, demand of the head of state who, as a great soldier and a fervent Christian, incarnates in their eyes the fatherland in all its purity, that he should recognize this solemn protest, which is their only weapon in their weakness. Jewish Frenchmen, more than ever attached to their faith, keep intact their hope and their confidence in France and its destiny.”
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The second Jewish statute was to be Vichy’s answer to the petitions.

Time and again some of the most prestigious names of French Jewry confirmed that, in their view, the fate of the foreign Jews was none of their concern. Thus, when, during the spring of 1941, Dannecker started using pressure for the establishment of a unified Jewish Council, René Mayer, also a prominent member of the Consistoire (he would become a postwar French prime minister), asked Vallat to encourage the foreign Jews to emigrate.
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So did Marc Bloch, one of the most eminent historians of his time.

In April 1941, in response to a project promoted by the Consistoire envisioning the establishment of a center for Jewish studies, Bloch demanded that all trends within
French
Jewry be taken into account: but regarding the foreign Jews living in France, his stand was clear: “Their cause is not exactly our own.” Though unable to participate actively in the planning of the center, Bloch suggested that one of the main aims should be to counter the dangerous notion that “all Jews formed a solid homogeneous mass, endowed with identical traits, and subject to the same destiny.” In Bloch’s view the planners of the center should recognize two distinct Jewish communities, the assimilated (French) and the nonassimilated (foreign). While the fate of the former depended on its complete integration and the preservation of its legal guarantees, the survival of the latter might well depend on “some form of emigration.”
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VII

In Holland the population staged a small-scale rebellion in reaction to the German treatment of the hundreds of Jewish men arrested in the streets of Amsterdam on February 22, 1941, after the Koco incident. The communists called for a general strike: On February 25 Amsterdam was paralyzed, and soon the strike spread to nearby cities. The Germans reacted with extreme violence against the demonstrators, using both firearms and hand grenades: Several people were killed, scores wounded, and a number of demonstrators arrested.
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The strike was quashed. The Dutch had learned that the Germans would not hesitate to pursue their anti-Jewish policies with utter ruthlessness; the Germans realized that converting the Dutch to National Socialism would not be an easy task.

During the weeks and months that followed the Amsterdam events, two distinct series of developments reshaped the policies regarding Dutch Jewry, in terms of the German local apparatus and the Dutch enforcers. The nonmilitary German apparatus in Holland was divided in two competing camps, somewhat along the lines that had been noticeable in the General Government. On the one hand
Reichskommissar
Seyss-Inquart, his main delegate in Amsterdam, D. H. Böhmcker, and General Commissars Friedrich Wimmer (administration and justice), Hans Fischboek (finances and economy), and Fritz Schmidt (party affairs) were intent on keeping full control of Jewish matters; the SS on the other hand, led by Higher SS and Police Leader Albin Rauter and his second in command, the head of the Security Police, Dr. Wilhelm Harster, were eager to take over a domain they considered specifically their own.
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Whether as a result of the Amsterdam events—which could be seen as a failure of Böhmcker’s policy of pushing for the establishment of a ghetto and using the Dutch Nazis as provokers—or as the outcome of prior planning—Heydrich (and Rauter) decided to establish a Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Amsterdam, on the model of the offices set up in Vienna in 1938 and in Berlin and in Prague, in 1939. Usually such offices, controlled by the RSHA and more closely by Eichmann’s section IV B4, took over the registration of the Jewish population, of its property, and of course of its departure (and thus of the impounding of the abandoned property). The setting up of a similar agency in Amsterdam should have allowed Rauter, Harster, and eventually their man in Amsterdam, Willi Lages, to control all significant aspects of Jewish affairs in Holland.

In April 1941 the Zentralstelle was indeed established, but its functions were limited at first. Moreover, Seyss-Inquart did not give in. In early May, at a meeting convened by the Reichskommissar, who in the meantime had received Hitler’s confirmation of his overall authority, all those involved had to agree that he would keep general supervision over Jewish affairs. De facto the situation was to change again in early 1942, when Harster would bring in his school friend Willy Zöpf to establish a IV B4 section in The Hague, and mainly with the beginning of the deportations, in July 1942.
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Aryanization of Jewish property had started. It was fostered by Fischboek’s services and by a large number of German firms intent on acquiring shares in major Dutch companies by acquiring first those that belonged to Jews. Several German banks became prominent intermediaries in these operations, particularly Handelstrust West, a local subsidiary of the Dresdner Bank.
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In order to speed up operations the Zentralstelle would allow for the departure of Jewish owners of
major
businesses, who would sell their enterprises to the German bidders. Thus the German companies, as legal owners, could claim rights to related foreign assets and avoid any lawsuits, particularly in the United States. The deals ensured unhindered emigration for the lucky few (around thirty families) within weeks of the time of the property transfer. Later on the same racketeering would be applied to Jews in several countries in exchange for large sums in foreign currency.
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Ultimately it would be applied in 1944 to the Manfred Weiss conglomerate in Hungary.

Eventually the German takeover of Jewish property would be much more systematic in Holland than in occupied France, in line with the Nazi master plan for a European economic “new order.” The Dutch economy was destined for complete integration into the German system, whether the Dutch wished it or not. Once more ideological creed and economic greed converged. In August 1941 the Jews of Holland were ordered to register all their assets with the formerly Jewish Lippman-Rosenthal bank; on September 15 real estate was included in the registration.
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Regarding the Dutch “enforcers,” the February 1941 events led to the dismissal of the Amsterdam city council and its replacement by an adequately subservient new group. Mainly a new chief of the Amsterdam police force, a former officer in the colonial army in the Dutch East Indies, Sybren Tulp, was put in command. Tulp could hardly have been shocked by racial discrimination; as a member of Mussert’s NSB, he had the appropriate ideological leanings, the more so that he was a great admirer of German National Socialism and particularly of Adolf Hitler.
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In the meantime, before the Koco incident, the German roundup and the rebellion, as Böhmcker was considering the establishment of a ghetto in the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam, he conveyed to a few Jewish personalities, including Abraham Asscher, that he required the creation of a unified representation of the Jews of the city.
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It remains unclear whether Seyss-Inquart’s representative mentioned a “Jewish Council” or whether the term was first used by Asscher. The fact is that Asscher volunteered to preside over the new organization and asked for the appointment of David Cohen as copresident. Both Asscher and Cohen then chose the other members, mostly from their own social milieu, Amsterdam’s small and wealthy Jewish haute bourgeoisie. On February 12 the council held its first meeting. On the next day, at Böhmcker’s demand, Asscher spoke to an assembly of Jewish workers requesting the delivery of any weapons in their possession. As historian Bob Moore pointed out, “in effect, the first steps toward Jewish collaboration with the Germans had begun, with the self-appointed elite of the Jewish Council acting as a conduit for Nazi demands.”
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Whatever the assessment of the Dutch council’s early behavior may be, the Germans did not ask for its approval when it came to dispatching the four hundred young Jewish men arrested after the Amsterdam rebellion to their death. At first they were deported to Buchenwald, then to Mauthausen. They arrived in Mauthausen on June 17, 1941. A batch of fifty was immediately killed: “They were chased naked from the bathhouse to the electrified fence.” The others were murdered in the main quarry of the camp, the “Vienna Ditch.” According to the German witness Eugen Kogon, these Jews were not allowed to use the steps leading to the bottom of the quarry. “They had to slide down the loose stones at the side, and even here many died or were severely injured. The survivors then had to shoulder hods, and two prisoners were compelled to load each Jew with an excessively heavy rock. The Jews then had to run up the 186 steps. In some instances the rocks immediately rolled downhill, crushing the feet of those that came behind. Every Jew who lost his rock in that fashion was brutally beaten, and the rock was hoisted onto his shoulders again. Many of the Jews were driven to despair the very first day and committed suicide by jumping into the pit. On the third day the SS opened the so-called ‘death gate,’ and with a fearful barrage of blows drove the Jews across the guard line, the guards on the watchtowers shooting them down in heaps with their machine guns. The next day the Jews no longer jumped into the pit individually. They joined hands and one man would pull nine or twelve of his comrades over the lip with him into a gruesome death. The barracks were ‘cleared’ of Jews, not in six but in barely three weeks. Every one of the 348 prisoners perished by suicide, or by shooting, beating, and other forms of torture.”
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When asked by the local
Landrat
how the Dutch Jews had adapted to the hard work, Commandant Ziereis answered: “Ah, hardly a one is still alive.”
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