Yes, pigeons and sparrows aren’t the only birds that enjoy life and food in the City of Lights. Gulls do too. Though not permanent residents, gulls can be seen congregating on Paris holiday between early summer and late winter on their way to/from northern or central Europe on the one hand and the Atlantic or channel coast on the other.

Paris has, as yet, been spared the kind of gull attacks against cats and small dogs that have recently been reported in Nice (from bigger seagulls). Between Paris’s tasty insects, not-too-toxic fish and the delicious trash, who needs a meal of yorkie (one was reportedly lifted from the beach in Nice and devoured at sea)?

In Paris we can take in the sight of these frolicking feathered friends without fear, for now, whether in July, as in this video that I shot in the Marais:

or in December, as in this video that I shot from a bridge over the Canal Saint Martin.

© Gary Lee Kraut

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Last November I was designing an issue of France Revisited by gathering together an assortment articles and stories about Jews, Jewish sights and Jewish history, particularly in Paris. I thought I’d call it the Hanukkah Issue. That was to be followed by a Christmas/New Year Issue before I would head off on my East Coast lecture tour in January and February.

But then the parties started—the cocktail events, the tapas evenings, the teatime happenings, the association dinners, the afternoon interludes, the “I’m only in town for a couple of days” pleas, the holiday celebrations—and before I knew it Christmas trees littered the sidewalks of Paris, New Year wishes came and went, and then I was on the road in the U.S..

There, I plotted my return, considering material that arrived from contributors and other texts that I might write. Should I transform the planned Hanukkah issue into an Semitic Food Issue, a WWII Issue, an If I Were A Rich Man Issue, an Evolution of the Marais Issue? – for I had articles on all those subjects and more.

But our first ideas are often the best, and a look at the articles I had on hand led me back to the Hanukkah Issue – except that the candles have long disappeared. So let’s get down to basics and call this issue by its rightful name: The Jewish Issue.

Here are the 9 articles, interviews and stories that comprise France Revisited’s March Jewish Issue

1. Love and Latkes. Canadian humorist Melinda Mayor, the Menschette of Montmartre, sent this piece about the trials of being a latke-lover in Paris. Melinda has previous contributed a piece about the trials of motherhood in Paris.

2. Passover and the 11th plague. New York writer and filmmaker Max Kutner tells of his first Passover in Paris and an encounter with the 11th plague.

Two articles about wealthy Jewish banking families that have left their mark on Paris:
3. The Rothschilds of the 19th century: A Riches to Riches Story.

4.  The Nissim de Camondo Museum: A Glory and the Tragedy

Views, one personal, one collective, of WWII deportations and the Holocaust
5. An exclusive interview with Paul Niedermann, a Holocaust survivor, currently living just outside of Paris. His extraordinary story is told though a text and interview by Janet Hulstrand. Janet, you may recall, previously introduced readers to American poet James Emanuel.

6. The Deportation Memorial and The Shoah Memorial. A look at two memorials that merit a place on the list of every traveler, whether Jewish or not.

7. In search of a Jewish Quarter: Rue des Rosiers, the Marais and the Jewish Food Court of Paris.

8. Noshing in Nice: Bread and the Bagel. The ever-perceptive Daniele Thomas Easton went looking bread in Nice and came home with bagels. Readers may recall Daniele’s review of the movie Sarah’s Key.

You might also want to return to an older editorial about anti-Semitism and the traveler.

Read them all, learn, discover, travel, comment, enjoy!

Gary

The post France Revisited’s Jewish Issue appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

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Adidas, Kookai, Minelli, Annick Goutal, Fred Perry, The Kooples, Kusmi Tea. Does that sound like the making of “the Jewish Quarter” to you? It doesn’t to me either, but those are among the signs—along with “falafel, 5€50”—that one now finds on rue des Rosiers, the 1000-foot long street in the Marais that was once a main artery of Yiddishkeit in Paris.

Even well into the 1970s a visitor, few as they were, might have peered into storefront or observed local residents gathering in the street or returning from work and sensed a neighborhood, a community, whose lifestyle and traditions were visible, alive and collective, whether Ashkenazic, Sephardic or Parisian.

Now, however, the tradition most followed on rue des Rosiers is that of a shopping mall, with a Jewish-theme food court to one end and familiar international clothing brands to the other. It can be hard to see the history for the falafels.

Jews were known to have lived on the City Island in the 6th century and later on the Left Bank, and records indicate their presence in the Marais by the 13th century. Nevertheless, due to successive expulsions and limitations on the activities of Jews, notably in the 14th century, there were in fact relatively few Jews in Paris at all between the 15th century and 18th century, when Jews began trickling back. Nevertheless, due to successive expulsions and limitations on the activities of Jews, notably in the 14th century, there were in fact relatively few Jews in Paris at all between the 15th century and 18th century, when Jews began trickling back. Still, it’s unlikely that there were any Jews in the Marais when, in 1791, during the Revolution, France became the first European country to grand Jews full rights of citizenship. By the early 1800s Jewish presence in the Marais was well established. Jewish arrivals in the quarter, and throughout Paris, took on greater amplitude in the second half of the 19th century, with large movement of Jews from Alsace and Lorraine, where more than half of the Jews of France had lived. Others arrived from Eastern Europe (Romania, Austria-Hungary, Russia), particularly between 1881 and 1914, in the same pogrom-fleeing waves that reached American shores, and Jews continued to arrive in the Paris region into the 1930s.

The Marais thus became home to a grouping of diverse Jewish communities that included Alsatian, Russian, Polish and other Ashkenazic traditions, along with Portuguese and Spanish Sephardic traditions, then in the minority here. In the initial decades of the 20th century one could therefore easily believe that the center of the Marais, comprising large swaths of the 3rd and 4th arrondissements, was Paris’s “Jewish quarter,” though there were in fact mostly non-Jews living throughout this working-class area, much of it very run down.

During the German Occupation of 1940 to 1944 the French police certainly knew how to distinguish a Jewish address from a non-Jewish address; they had identity files, now visible at by the Shoah Memorial, indicating with a large J (for juif) which were Jews. The massive round-up of Jews throughout the Paris region in July 1942, followed by mass deportations to the death camps, removed the “Jewish” from any sense that this was “a Jewish quarter.”

After the war some of those who had managed to flee in time and some of the few who survived the camps returned to the Marais, where, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, they were joined by Sephardic Jews arriving from North Africa as Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco gained independence from France. Though the Jewish presence in the Marais was dramatically reduced compared with the pre-war years (most Jews arriving from North Africa settled in other quarters or in the suburbs), rue des Rosiers and surroundings still visibly formed a Jewish neighborhood.

And now? Are travelers correct in thinking when coming to rue des Rosiers today that they are actually visiting “the Jewish quarter”? Is the presence of Semitic fast food and a few Judaica shops a reflection of a vibrant local community or of successful ethnic marketing or of a combination of the two?

Let’s take a look at what’s here.

Clearly there are Parisian Jews around—clearly, that is, if you walk by one of the active synagogues and religious schools just off rue des Rosiers or look into a kosher butcher shop or one of the less tourist-directed bakeries or visit on a Jewish holiday. A Jewish vocational school still operates at 4 bis rue des Rosiers. On Sundays cliques of Jewish adolescents from throughout Paris gather on the street, though they can be lost in crowd of other visitors, for every Sunday is a non-religious holiday in the Marais and the occasion for all comers to celebrate the pleasures of a stroll in the city.

Otherwise one is more likely to catch a glimpse not of neighborhood life today but of the neighborhood that is no longer here: The façade of the old  baths (closed in 1989); a plaque indicating that an attack was carried out against Jewish targets by a Palestinian terror cell on August 9, 1982 at the restaurant Jo Goldenberg , killing 6 and wounding 22 (the space is now occupied by a clothing shop); a sign in the middle of the street stating that this was the Pletzl or little square, the crossroads of the old urban Jewish village (in 1900), and signs here and on neighboring streets (rue des Ecouffes, rue des Hospitalières-Saint-Gervais) telling of deportations to death camps.

Synagogues of the Marais

Attesting to the centuries-old presence of Jews in the Marais, specifically the former parish of Saint Gervais, rue Ferdinand-Duval came to be called rue des Juifs (Street of the Jews) in the late Middle Ages. It was briefly a closed street, though not a ghetto per se since Jews also lived elsewhere in the city. An unsuspecting visitor is unlikely to walk up that little street today thinking that it might ever have been “a Jewish street,” until arriving at its northern end, where it spills into rue des Rosiers. You’ll find more by going one parallel street over in either direction, to rue Pavée or to rue des Ecouffes, where the neighborhood’s Jewish religiosity is more readily visible.

For security reasons, you’ll have to settle for an outer view of the Art Nouveau synagogue at 10 rue Pavée and the religious school across the street. The Pavée Synagogue (the synagogues in Paris are generally referred to by the street on which they’re located) was built in 1913 for the Union of Communities (Agoudas Hakehilos), largely comprised of Orthodox Jews of Russian origin. This high, narrow synagogue was designed by Hector Guimard, the architect famous for designing the entrances to the first Paris metro stations. The Pavée Synagogue, the only religious building to his credit, is less exuberantly Art Nouveau than the metro work, but the rising curves are undeniably his. It was dynamited on the eve of Yom Kippur 1941 by French Nazi sympathizers at the same time as several other synagogues in Paris. Guimard wasn’t Jewish but was married to a Jew—an American at that. Already in 1938 Guimard and his wife had fled Paris at the specter of war and moved to New York City, where he died in 1942. The Pavee Synagogue was restored after the war and is now listed as a Historical Monument. The building also houses aid services for the Orthodox community.

With a kind word and perhaps a small donation, visitors may be able to enter one of the smaller synagogues just off rue des Rosiers on rue des Ecouffes.

The largest synagogue in the Marais is at the district’s eastern edge, on rue des Tournelles, between Place de la Bastille and Place des Vosges. The Tournelles Synagogue, also listed as a Historical Monument, isn’t open for impromptu visits. Those interested in visiting this beautiful structure, built 1867-1876 with Gustave Eiffel’s company involved in the creation of its metallic skeleton, can contact the synagogue in advance to request permission (Synagogue de la rue des Tournelles, 21 bis rue des Tournelles, 75004 Paris). The Tournelles Synagogue backs up to the Vosges Synagogue whose entrance is at 14 place des Vosges. During the Jewish harvest-time holiday of Sukkot passersby will see a hut or sukkah installed on the balcony above the arcade on the square. There’s another handsome synagogue, built in the 1850s, in the northern part of the Marais, at 5 Notre-Dame-de-Nazareth. Taken together, these synagogues attest to the diverse community of Jews had spread throughout the Marais by the end of the 19th century, a century that saw the number of Jews in Paris increase six- or seven-fold. Many more would arrive in the following decades

Neither Rue des Rosiers nor any other area of the Marais was a closed ghetto, though portions might be considered a ghetto in the sense of being extremely run down. Jews were clearly a sizable presence in the Marais by the end of the 19th century, their numbers continuing to climb, however Jews lived throughout Paris in varying density. Rue de la Roquette (past the Bastille just east of the Marais) and Belleville were also had noticeably dense Jewish populations. While some who had distinguished themselves on the social ladder remained in the Marais, others preferred to live in the city’s upscale quarters, such as near the boulevards and quarters being modernized by Haussmann’s transformations of Paris. (Read about the Rothchild family here and the de Camondo family here.)

Wealth in the Marais

Even when Jews returned to the Marais after the war the strong Jewish presence had existed on the southern side of rue de Rivoli and rue Saint-Antoine was, by the late 1940s, largely absent; the homes of French and foreign Jews and non-Jews had been expropriated for the purposes of rehabilitating an “insalubrious” zone. Little by little the Marais lost its craftsmen and its peddlers as it became home to the middle class and to government projects. Yiddish, so frequently heard and read in the Marais prior to the war, had largely disappeared by the end of the 1950s. Another accent arose, that of Sephardic Jews arriving in numbers from North Africa in the 1950s and 1960s. Sephardic rituals replace Ashkenasic rituals in certain synagogues, notably the synagogue on rue des Tournelles that was split in two to accommodate the distinct ritual interests of the Marais. On rue des Rosiers and nearby streets the neighborhood’s Jewish presence remained clear in the cafés and restaurants, local grocers and shops, with some now preferring couscous and bricks over herring and latkes. But the Marais as a whole was on the way upscale. “The Marais” wasn’t yet a call to stroll and shop, to see and be seen, but by the 1980s public funding was pouring into the area to restore its noble historical buildings—the 17th-century mansions and the town houses on Place des Vosges—and poverty, the hallmark of pre-war Jews in the Marais, no longer had a place here; the working class had been pushed to the edge of the city and into the suburbs. The Picasso Museum opened in one of those mansions in 1985, a turning point in terms of the neighborhoods visibility to visitors to Paris. The decade witnessed an acceleration of a transformation of the district’s local population, in the use of its storefronts and in the way in which the Marais was viewed from outside the 3rd and 4th arrondissements. Visitors from elsewhere in Paris and from abroad began to arrive. Gay bars and businesses opened just west of rue des Rosiers and within a few block of rue des Archives.

With rising real estate prices and an increasing number of visitors through the 1990s, shops began catering to clients from beyond the neighborhood. Rue des Rosiers, the remaining portion of the Marais to stake a claim to being the Pletzl—the ever shifting center of “the Jewish Quarter—, once again began to lose its local Jewish identity, though this time without anyone being murdered. Briefly Paris had the distinction of having side by side a Jewish village by day and a gay village by night. That held for about a decade, but as the Marais gained in desirability for increasingly upscale residents and visitors, any sense of neighborhood anywhere in the district largely evaporated.

Of course, Addidas, Kookai and Fred Perry shops on rue des Rosiers can be Jewish operated, as can the real estate on rue des Rosiers, but only foreign Jewish visitors and native anti-Semites consider this a Jewish quarter anymore. Similarly, only visiting LGBTQ individuals and French homophobes consider the area around rue des Archives a gay quarter. Otherwise, visitors are unlikely to have any idea who actually lives in these areas.

The 2000s saw the arrival of something new on rue des Rosiers and perpendicular streets, a new kind of Diaspora. This time it wasn’t a wave of Jewish immigrants arriving but of Jewish recipes, from New York—deli fare, pastrami sandwiches and the like. Oh, there had been pastrami sold here before, but the new deli restaurants marked the transformation of this small portion of the Marais into a Jewish-theme food court.

Though regrettable for those expecting to be visiting a Jewish enclave and a local community, this is simply part of the evolution of the city, just one of many formerly distinct neighborhoods that have been transformed by market forces in recent decades. The neighborhoods of Paris can still be distinguished by architecture, monuments, museums and history, but they are increasingly homogenous with regards to populations living and visiting there.

Wealth is the historical feature that the central Marais most recalls. After all, nobility and financiers began buying up lots here in the second half of the 16th century, and during the 17th century this became the most fashionable quarter of Paris thanks to the construction of Place des Vosges and of dozens of noble mansions. That was before there was a significant Jewish population here. It was the downfall of French nobility during the Revolution that gave Jews the freedom and elbow room to increase in numbers in the Marais. It was persecution elsewhere, hope for a better life and a need for community that caused the number of Jews in the Marais to swell in the late 19th century. It was also sense of security, hope and community (along with fun) that led to the opening of gay bars and businesses nearby in the late 20th century. The Marais was less desirable for business ventures then. Now, 400 years after the royal inauguration of Places des Vosges, the re-establishment of the Marais as a prized destination and residential area is a sign not such much that it has lost its Jewishness as that it has regained its lettres de noblesse—at least de bourgeoisie.

The Jewish Food Court

French and foreign visitors from beyond the quarter now frequent rue des Rosiers primarily for the shopping and the falafels—falafels, enjoyable as they may be, aren’t a reflection of local community or agriculture or known-how but of what visitors are happy to purchase. Hungry visitors will line up at the falafel window at L’As du Falafel as though the several other similar stands on the street had all failed their latest health test or lost the recipe for frying chickpea balls and slicing cabbage. The devotion to queuing there, particularly on Sunday, is partially due to the perverse lingering effect of an old article in the New York Times, partially due to the hawkers out front (once you’ve paid you’re stuck waiting), partially due to the fact that it’s kosher, whatever the latter may mean to the vast majority of those in line. As to quality, if you’re a serious student of fried chickpea balls and sliced cabbage in Paris then you should try them all. But if you simply want to eat a falafel pita sandwich any stand will suffice.

The street’s other hotspot is Chez Marianne, which takes its French republicanism seriously enough to present itself as French first, Jewish second. Chez Marianne, at the corner of rue des Rosiers and rue de l’Hospitalières Saint-Gervais, serves all kinds of delicious Mediterranean mush (eggplant, hummus, tzatziki, tarama, tapenade, etc.) as well as falafel, so there’s something for everyone. It isn’t kosher and so is open daily noon to 11pm. There are other choices in the area for a decent pastrami sandwich and well-oiled latkes, as well as some fine Ashkenazic bakeries. And there’s one remaining café that on weekdays still maintains a neighborhood feel, Les Rosiers, at #2 on the rue. Meanwhile, while fast foodies are now able to enjoy pastrami sandwiches and other New York imports in other quarters of Paris as well (e.g. meaty Freddies Deli in the 11th or vegan MOB in the 13th), while falafels are more common than crepes on some streets.

But I digress. The purpose of this article is not to recommend specific eateries in the Jewish food court or to speak of recent influences to the Paris fast food scene but rather to encourage those interested in Jewish history to look beyond the 20 years of Marais history represented by the Mediterrean-meets-NY-deli food offerings on rue des Rosiers. Enjoy them, enjoy that lingering scent and that occasional glimpse of the Pletzl and an old Jewish quarter—and why not enjoy them insightfully after working up an appetite at more instructive sights? The Deportation Memorial, the Shoah Memorial and the Holocaust Center would be fine places to start. You can begin by reading about them in this next article.

© 2014, Gary Lee Kraut

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Jewish quarters come and go, but anti-Semitism never goes out of fashion. Most recently in France—we are in 2014—there’s been a growing attraction (patent yet limited) of the “quenelle,” a down-turned Nazi salute now understood by most to be an anti-Semitic, anti-establishment gesture. It has gained favor among individuals and groups who believe that Jewish concerns, interests and history get too much airplay, in the way that some in France and elsewhere will unify in their antagonism against homosexuals, gypsies or others.

The Deportation Memorial

Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, political opponents and others were among the 200, 000 men, women and children deported from France to Nazi concentration camps between 1940 and 1944 who did not return. The French Deportation Memorial that honors their memory lies at the eastern tip of Ile de la Cité, behind Notre-Dame Cathedral.

At the back of quiet little park, steep stairs lead to a high-walled triangular courtyard where the Seine can be seen flowing toward barbed iron. A first-time visitor might think that itself is the monument before noticing a narrow passage formed by two blocks of stone leading into the memorial crypt.

Inaugurated by President Charles de Gaulle in 1962, the memorial crypt contains the Tomb of the Unknown Deportee. The remains placed in the tomb are those of an individual who died in the concentration camp of Neustadt. A long alley containing 200,000 points of light extends beyond the tomb. Triangular urns inscribed with the names of concentration camps contain earth from the camps and ashes from their crematoria. Lines of poetry inscribed on the walls speak of pain, loss and tragedy. The entrance is barred to the cells to either side the alley. We peer into these cells unable to see the dark corners, unable to fathom what suffering they might hold.

An annual ceremony is held here on the last Sunday in April. That has, since 1954, been designated as the National Day of Memory of the Martyrs and Heroes of the Deportation, which is close to the date of the Hebrew calendar on which Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom HaShoah, is commemorated.

The Shoah Memorial and the Holocaust Center

Of the 200,000 individuals memorialized at the Deportation Memorial, about 77,000 were born Jewish, and they were specifically targeted to be exterminated because of that. The majority of those Jews were killed in Auschwitz and Birkenau. Several thousand died in internment camps and some thousand others were otherwise executed or killed in France. The memorial to their memory is in the Marais, a large district (broadly the 3rd and 4th arrondissements) that had sizeable Jewish population at the outbreak of the war. The Shoah Memorial/Holocaust Center building is situated within a 10-minute walk of the Deportation Memorial to one side and rue des Rosiers to the other.

Roundups and Deportations

Following Germany’s defeat of France and the Armistice of June 22, 1940, the Germans occupied the northern half of France and a wide swatch down the country’s Atlantic coast. With Paris occupied, the French government, having originally decamped to Bordeaux, made the spa town of Vichy its headquarter. There, on July 10, 1940 Marshal Philippe Pétain, a hero of WWI, was voted full governmental power, hence reference to the French government from then until the Liberation of France in 1944 as the Vichy government.

An estimated 270,000 to 300,000 Jews were living in France in the late 1930s. Within several months after France’s armistice with Germany, the policies of the German occupiers and new French laws led to Jews being progressively excluded from professional life and dispossessed of property. Jews, defined by French officials as individuals with at least two Jewish grandparents, were required to register with the local police, constituting files that would eventually be used to round up Jews for deportation.

In collaboration with Germans and on their own, the French government along with local and state French police began rounding up Jews in 1941, first primarily foreign Jews then increasingly French Jewish men. Jews were required to wear a yellow star as of June 1942. The massive and all-inclusive round-ups in the Occupied Zone would follow.

During the mass round-up (rafle in French) of July 16-17, 1942, 13,152 Jews were arrested in Paris and the Paris region. The event was exceptional not only for the number of Jews that were arrested in a single well-organized sweep but for also the fact that it embodied a clear shift in policy to the deportation of women and children along with men. Many of those arrested were corralled at the winter cycling stadium—the Vélodrome d’Hiver, commonly known as the Vél d’Hiv—that then stood just beyond the Eiffel Tower. From there they were moved to the transit camp at Drancy, northeast of the city, and then by train to Auschwitz.

Though not the only round-ups of the war period in France, those of July 1942 have come to represent the injustice and horrors of deportations throughout that period in France.

In 1995, at the site of the Vélodrome, President Jacques Chirac officially recognized on behalf of the nation France’s responsibility, under the authority of the Vichy Government and in collaboration with the Germans occupying the country, in the deportation of French Jews.

While the sculptural group shown above has been placed near the river, a memorial stands by the site of the former velodrome at 8 boulevard de Grenelle.

The Wall of the Righteous

Of the 270,000-300,000 Jews in France prior to the start of the war, nearly 75% survived by their own means, through the help of Jewish resistance organizations and/or through the assistance of non-Jewish French, through efforts both individual and collective.

For a variety of reasons, a larger percentage of French Jews escaped the Shoah than Jews from most other European countries. That partially explains why France now has the largest Jewish population in Western Europe. (Another reason for its size is the many Jews who arrived from Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco as those countries gained independence from France in the 1950s and 1960s.)

Righteous Among the Nations is a title granted since 1963 by the State of Israel via the Memorial Museum of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem to non-Jewish men and women who helped save Jews from persecution during the war. The names of over 3300 Righteous, whether French or acting in France, are inscribed in bronze plaques along the alley, now named  Allée des Justes (Alley of the Righteous), that borders the north side of the memorial. Inaugurated in 2006, the Wall of the Righteous also contains the name of the village of Chambon-sur-Lignon, a largely Protestant village whose religious leaders and villagers, some of whom are individually designated as Righteous, helped save numerous Jews. French Protestants had known periods of tremendous intolerance and murder at the hands of the Catholic majority and nobility from the 16th to the 18th centuries.

On the opposite side of the Allée des Justes can be seen a plaque indicating that more than 11,000 Jewish children were sent to the camps from France, including more than 500 from this, the 4th, arrondissement. Such plaques are now found on schools in districts throughout Paris where Jews lived. Some 6100 of those children lived in Paris. A sign facing the playground in Square du Temple, a park on the northern edge of the Marais, lists the names of 87 children (les tout-petits) from the 3rd arrondissement who weren’t yet old enough to attend school before being sent to the camps.

Entrance to the Shoah Memorial

Ten years after his speech at the site of the Vél d’Hiv, President Chirac inaugurated the Shoah Memorial and Holocaust Center on January 27, 2005, on the Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust and for the Prevention of Crimes against Humanity, marking that year the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Security here is attentive, humorless and direct, as at the entrance to other major Jewish sights, notably the Great Synagogue on rue de la Victoire (9th arrondissement), but one can nevertheless freely enter the memorial (if without a weapon), whereas the synagogue requires prior arrangement for those who aren’t normally affiliated with it.

The names of death camps are written on a circular memorial in the courtyard, above the memorial crypt. Along the nearby wall seven bas-reliefs (1982) by the sculptor Arbit Blatas symbolize the camps. Text on the façade of the building written in Hebrew from poet Zalman Schnoeur’s adaptation of a line from Deuteronomy 25:17 is translated by the center as follows: “Remember what Amalek did unto our Generation exterminating 600 myriad bodies and souls, in the absence of war.”

Below that is written in French the words of Justin Godard, former government minister, Honorary President of the Committee for the Unknown Jewish Martyr: “Before the unknown Jewish martyr, incline your head in piety and respect for all the martyrs; incline your thoughts to accompany them along their path of sorrow. They will lead you to the highest pinnacle of justice and truth.”

History of the Shoah Memorial

The Shoah Memorial and the Holocaust Center form a single entity whose mission is “understanding the past to illuminate the future.” The building combines a museum, a documentation center and reading room, France’s largest (by number of titles) physical bookstore on the subject of the Holocaust, an auditorium for screenings, symposia, debates and presentations, offices and a memorial crypt. Though the building, as a Holocaust center, was inaugurated in 2005, the memorial itself had already existed.

Already in 1943 there was awareness among some Jews in France that evidence and testimony of their persecution would be necessary for the time when justice would be demanded. In April of that year Isaac Schneersohn invited 40 militant leaders of the various political factions in the Jewish community to his home in Grenoble, in the unoccupied zone, to set up the Center for Contemporary Jewish Documentation. But in September of that year the Germans entered into the unoccupied zone (referred to as the Free Zone by the Vichy government), causing Schneersohn and others to go underground as part of the Resistance. There, efforts continued to collect secret archives, including those held by the Vichy government and by the Gestapo in France.

After the war the CDJC began classifying these archives and established a publishing house to publish books and journals about the Shoah. The CDJC was soon called upon by the French government to provide evidence for the Nuremberg Trials.

Still under Schneersohn, the CDJC in 1951 sought to create a memorial to the victims of the Shoah and eventually obtained this plot of land owned by the City of Paris. Schneersohn passed away in 1969.

The Wall of Names

An estimated 78,000-80,000 Jewish men, women and children were deported from France between 1942 and 1944. Of them, some 76-77,000 did not return. (The round numbers in this article are approximate as figures vary among the most serious sources. Those given in this article are generally those presented at the center.) Past the security box at the entrance from the street, one approaches the building through the narrow passage between walls inscribed with the names and dates of birth of these individuals, listed alphabetically by year in which they were deported.

The Memorial Crypt

The building housing The Memorial to the Unknown Jewish Martyr was inaugurated in October 1956, three years after the laying of its cornerstone, and in February 1957 ashes of victims from Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, Treblinka, Mauthausen and from the Warsaw Ghetto, placed in earth from Israel, were buried in the memorial crypt.

A Biblical quote in Hebrew on the back wall of the crypt reads: “Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow. Young and old, our sons and daughters were cut down by the sword.”

A map of the Warsaw Ghetto and an actual door from the Ghetto are now on the opposite wall. Off to the side, behind Plexiglas, are the “Jewish Files,” the index cards created between 1941 and 1944 under orders of the Vichy government and the will of the police department of the Paris region indicating the identification of Jews. These are the files that were used by French police in complicity with the Nazi occupier to know the identity and address of Jews to be rounded up for eventual deportation. Though present here for their association with the memorial, the files belong to the National Archives of France.

The Permanent Exhibition

The Shoah Memorial was officially listed on the register of historic buildings in 1991. But it soon became evident that of the need to enlarge the building and bring the CDJC and the Shoah Memorial together a single entity. A major transformation of the building led to its reopening in early 2005. The facades and the crypt of the original building were integrated into the new structure.

Other than to coming pay homage to the memory of victims of the Shoah, the permanent exhibition in the sub-basement museum is the most instructive aspect of the memorial and center for first-time visitors. Through photographs, texts, documents, films and recordings, the exhibition provides an excellent overview of the history of anti-Semitism in Europe and the events of the war period, followed by evidence and testimony gathered during the post-war period. While the films and recordings are in French only, the texts are in both French and English.

The center’s board of directors includes a number of well-known Jewish figures in French political, intellectual and economic life, currently among them Eric de Rothschild (president), Robert Badinter, chief rabbi Gilles Bernheim, Alain Finkielkraut, Serge Klarsfeld and Simone Veil. Among the memorial’s partners are the City of Paris, the Paris region (Ile de France), the Ministry of Education and the French train company SNCF.

© 2014, Gary Lee Kraut

The Shoah Memorial, 17 rue Geoffroy-l’Asnier, 4th arr. Tel. 01 42 77 44 72. Metro Saint-Paul or Pont-Marie. Open Sunday to Friday 10am-6pm, until 10pm on Thursday. Closed for certain Jewish holidays as well as Jan. 1 and Dec. 25. Admission is free except for the auditorium and some educational activities. Free guided tours for individuals are given Sundays at 3pm in French and the second Sunday of each month in English.

The 7000+ titles available through the center’s bookshop are listed online at www.librairie-memorialdelashoah.org.

The Museum of Jewish Art and History, is also in the Marais at 71 rue du Temple, 3rd arrondissement. Metro Rambuteau or Hôtel de Ville. Open Monday to Friday 11am-6pm, Sunday 10am-6pm. Exhibitions open until 9pm on Wednesday. A 15-minute walk from the Shoah Memorial and also in the Marais, this museum is housed in a 17th-century mansion called the Hôtel de Saint-Aignan, a building occupied in 1942 by number of Jews, 13 of which died in the camps. The permanent collection shows glimpses of Jewish life in France through the centuries and mounts notable temporary exhibitions.

Related articles on France Revisited:
– Paul Niedermann: Interview with a Holocaust Survivor and Witness in France
– In Search of a Jewish Quarter:  Rue des Rosiers and the Jewish Food Court of Paris

The post Jewish Paris: Deportation Memorial, Shoah Memorial, Vel d’Hiv Memorial appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

By Melinda Mayor

“Wait ’til you taste it.”

I slip on an oven mitt and take out the tray. My mouth is watering at the smell, and I’ve eaten two (okay, three) already today. I only put them in the oven long enough to warm them up a bit. I slide the tray’s contents onto a plate. Excitedly, I turn around, only to find my husband checking the mail.

“Don’t you want to try them?”

“What? Oh yeah, sure.”

I cannot comprehend this indifference when it comes to something so important, so delicious. He picks up one of the two on his plate and casually takes a bite. It takes every drop of willpower I possess not to leap onto the plate and scarf down the remaining one. He chews. I wait.

“Well?”

“It’s good,” he says unconvincingly.

“You don’t like it?”

“I said I like it.”

“It didn’t sound like you like it.”

“I said I like it!” A pause. “But it’s kind of…”

“Oily, right? I mean, it’s supposed to be oily, all our food is about the oil and the temple and blah-dee-blah-blah, but it’s…saltier, don’t you think? I was really thirsty after I ate a couple this afternoon.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right.”

I smile at him. “Nothing compares to yours, but what could I do? You were at work, and I needed latkes. He raises his eyebrows at me. “Yes,” I say icily. “I NEEDED them.” I hold his gaze with all the wide-eyed melodrama of an afternoon soap, and we both laugh.

My gentile husband cooks latkes. It’s one of the many things he didn’t do before meeting me, along with lighting Hanukkah candles and saying, “Oy” (though he argues with me about that last one). I told him how much I loved latkes—who doesn’t?—and he looked up a recipe online. The first time he made potato pancakes they turned out more pancake than potato. But now he’s a pro. When he selfishly goes to work, however, I have to make other arrangements: The latkes I just heated up were from the deli on rue des Rosiers in the Marais. That’s where I fail as a Jewish mother: I ask my kids, “Are you sure you had enough to eat?” but I don’t know how to cook. Well, I can make an egg. But who wants eggs all the time?

Getting latkes from the Jewish deli is a schlep worth making, especially if you get a pastrami sandwich to go with them (I also enjoy the turkey). In addition to the Jewish food on rue des Rosiers, the Marais is also known for its gay and Chinese communities, respectively. This means Jews can easily go for their typical Christmas dinner—Chinese food—while taking in the well groomed, smartly dressed men strolling by.

The first time I was on rue des Rosiers, I knew this was going to be something special. I was just visiting Paris then, and I was excited to be surrounded by “my people.” Surely I would feel at home in this foreign land once I was immersed in my natural habitat. I walked into a shop that sold everything from meats to pastries. As usual, I had trouble deciding what I wanted. And once I’d finally chosen from the vast array, I realized I could barely pronounce the words. I couldn’t even make a joke about how long I’d taken to decide. These weren’t my people. They were French.

The next time I was on rue des Rosiers I was pushing a baby in a stroller. We sat down at a restaurant and I ordered him his first latke. When it arrived, my excitement was palpable. I cut him off a piece, and he examined it for a while before finally putting it in his mouth. He loved it. Seeing my little mensch chow down on his potato pancake (more potato than pancake) warmed me almost as much as the food did. Later he broke out around his mouth in a reaction to the oil, and I broke out in guilt. Oily food and guilt: Maybe my Jewish mother instincts aren’t so off after all.

Now, in the kitchen, I eye the untouched latke left on my husband’s plate. I look at him, then back at the latke, then at him again. I broach the subject slowly, carefully: “So…are you going to eat that?”

His head is in the fridge, rifling through the vegetable drawer as he figures out what to make for dinner. “What?”

I sigh and roll my eyes. “I said, Are. You. Going. To. Eat. That.”

He glances over at the plate on the countertop. “Yeah, I’m saving it for later.”

I look at him incredulously. “I’m sorry, what is this ‘later’ that you speak of?”

He grins at me. “It’s called self-control.”

I have a look of utter confusion on my face. “I don’t understand you.”

He closes the fridge, shaking his head with a smile.

“Oy.”

The last time I was on rue des Rosiers we were celebrating Father’s Day. We went to the Jewish deli where I first got the latkes, and the four of us—me and him plus the four-year-old and the three-year-old—all indulged in giant deli sandwiches and, of course, latkes. It was a very Jewish meal, and I didn’t have to make it. The gentile husband was in his element. The kids whined slightly less than usual. And I knew who my people were.

© 2013, Melinda Mayor

Melinda Mayor is a writer-performer whose works include her one-woman show, “Jew! (A Musical),” various monologues and Meshugeneh Mama, her regular column for Message magazine. For more of her work see www.MelindaMayor.com.

For other work by Melinda Mayor on France Revisited see The Cranky Parent in Paris: Maman, Bébé and Unsolicited Advice.

The post Love and Latkes appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

It was in the 1960s that the rehabilitation of the Marais took off, thanks to Malraux’s Bill (La loi Malraux) initiated in 1962 by President De Gaulle’s Minister of Culture. It didn’t happen overnight and for a while property remained affordable (that was the time to buy) and courtyards wide open to outsiders (that was the time to visit). It took the Autumn Festival of classical music (alas no more) to bring the magnificent heritage of the Marais to the attention of the public and to nudge the public authorities into restoring it.

Today the Marais is a secret to no one and is saturated with day trippers and tourists on weekends and holidays. La Place des Vosges is the most expensive square in Paris, as it was right from the beginning, the city’s first open-air square — La Place Royale —, inaugurated in 1612 on the occasion of the double betrothal of Louis XIII to Anne of Austria and of their respective siblings.

Surrounded in neat order by 36 brick-and-stone townhouses, these were occupied by the most prestigious families of the nobility, among them the maternal family of Madame de Sévigné, the great letter writer who was born at no. 1. Or the Duc de Sully, the retired Minister of the murdered Henri IV, who resided on the  southwest corner of the square, no. 7, now the French Heritage Trust (Caisse des Monuments Historiques), complete with an excellent bookshop. His daughter married into the great Rohan family, several members of which lived in this palace in the years that followed.

A branch of the Rohan family, married to the equally great Guénémée, resided at no. 6, on the southeastern corner of the square. It was a fabulous palace “all gilded and painted by Cotelle,” whose sketchbook of the drawings were made for this palace is now kept at the Ashmolean Library in Oxford.

The splendor was gone by the time Victor Hugo lived in this townhouse (1832 -1848), now his museum. So was the lovely garden. For after the court moved to Versailles (1682), the Parisian aristocracy shifted its centre of gravity west, causing the remote Marais to decline. The French Revolution dealt it a final blow; which is why Victor Hugo could afford to occupy an entire townhouse at this address. It is also during the French Revolution that the square was renamed after the Vosges, a thank-you gift to the newly created department (district) in eastern France for being the first to pay its taxes to the new republic.

Today Dominique Strauss-Kahn, now famous outside of France for the Sofitel chambermaid affair, and his wife Anne Sinclair reside on the Place des Vosges, in a 240 square-meter (2583 square-foot) apartment, though not a full townhouse. You would have to belong to the uppermost financial echelon to own a full-size townhouse in this kind of neighborhood, like the ruling family of Qatar for example, the new proprietors of the listed Hôtel Lambert on the eastern edge of the Ile Saint-Louis, now undergoing major restoration.

Apart from sharing this superb address in two different time zones, Victor Hugo and DSK, reports have it, also shared an insatiable sexual appetite. Victor Hugo was the most notorious fornicator of 19th-century France, resisting neither glamorous actresses nor humble chambermaids. During his time on Place des Vosges he seduced la petite boulangère from the corner bakery still standing on rue du Petit-Musc, south of rue Saint-Antoine. A back staircase in his study allowed him to repair unseen to his rendezvous by way of the Impasse Guénémée. I knew nothing about Victor Hugo’s connection to the boulangerie when I was a student round the corner in the early 1970s, and bought here occasionally my pains au chocolat and baguettes. The hotel across the street where the two of them retired was demolished in the 1950s.

DSK was thrown into jail, publicly humiliated and castigated, perhaps career-wise ruined. Victor Hugo was adulated as a national hero and honored with the biggest funeral ever held in the capital. Two million Parisians gathered along its itinerary, all the way from the Arc de Triomphe to the Panthéon.

Other members of the Rohan family lived at the magnificent no. 87 rue Vieille du Temple west of Place des Vosges, now part of the National Archives. Between 1766 and 1778  they had Caron de Beaumarchais as a neighbor, now no. 47 of the street, the Hôtel Amelot de Bisseuil, alas invisible from the street behind its splendidly carved doors that won’t yield.

The son of a watchmaker, turned arms dealer, Beaumarchais founded here the Rodriguez and Hortalez Company for the purpose of selling arms to the budding American nation in its fight against the English. He also used his time here to compose an opera and, more  famously, to write a play, Le Mariage de Figaro, better known internationally in Mozart’s operatic version, a satire on the popular theme of troussage de domestique (the rolling up of a female servant’s skirts) as the journalist Jean-François Kahn (JFK) referred to the DSK affair.

Although they have the same family name, the journalist is no relation of the ex-head of the IMF, but he does happen to be a long-standing friend of his wife. This exacerbated the furor caused by his comment which sounded as though he was condoning DSK’s demeanor because it’s culturally commonplace and traditionally played down. Not so Beaumarchais who, most daringly in his play, on the eve of the French Revolution, questioned the right of a nobleman to the thighs of his female servant (le droit de cuissage), an audacity for which he was briefly jailed by order of the king.

Hailing from 21 Place Royale half a century earlier, the Duc de Richelieu and great nephew of Cardinal Richelieu bragged about his sex life with all the female residents of the square. At times the duke could be violent, notorious for experimenting with his victims on his famous armchair. The Duke went on to seduce the regent’s daughters and their cousin, but when he carried off three of regent’s mistresses, the latter had him removed from Paris by appointing him Ambassador to Vienna.

Incidentally, Mozart too stayed in the Marais, in the magnificently restored Hôtel de Beauvais, at 68 rue François Miron. The palace was built for Catherine Belier, Anne of Austria’s lady-in-waiting and better known to history as Cateau la Borgnesse (one-eyed Kate), a gift from the Queen for having initiated young Louis XIV to the facts of life! A century later seven-year-old Mozart stayed here with his father and sister Nennerl. The threesome was the guests of the Ambassador of Bavaria, Count Van Eyck, whose residence this was. Today this is the Administrative Court of Appeal which graciously keeps the courtyard open to the public. On its façade can be seen the carved heads of Cateau and of Anne of Austria. On your next visit to the Marais, don’t forget to drop by.

Thirza Vallois is the author of Around and About Paris, Romantic Paris and Aveyron, A Bridge to French Arcadia. Around and About Paris, Volume 1 is now available on Amazon as an ebook.

Thirza’s selection of businesses that enjoy the patina of time and/or are well-known landmarks:

Fine lodging, a 4-star hotel:
Hôtel Pavillon de la Reine. 28 Place des Vosges, 3rd arrondissement. Tel 01 40 29 19 19.

Fine dining, Bernard Pacaud’s 3-Michelin-starred restaurant:
L’Ambroisie. 9 Place des Vosges, 4th arrondissement. Tel. 01 42 78 51 45.

Dining with a side dish of operatic singing:
Bel Canto. 72 quai de l’Hôtel de Ville, 4th arrondissement. Tel. 01 42 78 30 18.

A favorite timeless old-time tearoom:
Le Loir dans la Théière. 3 rue des Rosiers, 4th arrondissement. Tel. 01 42 72 90 61.

Tequila, margaritas, guacamole, nachos, quesadillas, and perhaps a smattering of beautiful people:
La Perla. 26, rue François Miron, 4th arrondissement. Tel. 01 42 77 59 40.

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You might also think that she was off her rocker. She’ll laugh wildly as she turns the handle of a wooden automaton whose mechanism causes the blue elephant to jump when the mouse appears. She’ll study your expression like a maniacal scientist as you try to figure out how to open a highly crafted Japanese puzzle box, before she reveals the precise 7 (or 12 or 27!) manipulations.

You may actually have to be a bit nutty and maniacal yourself to appreciate the unique offerings at Tumbleweed.

To call Tumbleweed a toy shop would be to miss the beauty and cleverness of the articles that Lynn Rovida has gathered from around the world. These aren’t children’s toys so much as playthings and decorative toys for big kids, ages 9 to 99.

The colorful wooden tops from Austria are intended for collecting as much as for spinning. The cardboard animated cutouts require delicate assembly before the (British) humor is revealed in the form of a flying pig, a surfing dog, a ewe boat.

You might offer a bright child a three-layered jigsaw puzzle from Wales, but the finely cut puzzle paintings from Prague have an artful sophistication that you’ll want to keep for yourself. A bright teenager could enjoy one of the brainteasers, though he probably won’t figure it out until he finishes college. Even the tin wind-up circus figures that were created as children’s toys in the 1930s now come with an obligatory safety warning, “Only for decoration, not for children.”

Lynn defines the spirit of Tumbleweed as “quirky, playful, and beautiful.” She is in continual search for finely handcrafted articles that fulfill those criteria. As to the zoomorphic baby slippers she sells, she confesses that they’ve earned a home at Tumbleweed simply because “they’re so cute and funny.” They also make for great gifts for infants.

Lynn likes to think of her finds as bits of poetry, and she has a special affection for people who share that point of view. Handing back and forth the poetry from her meticulously organized display cases, she treats such individuals not simply as customers, but as playmates as well. On the other hand, she can be visibly frustrated when someone enters her 160-square-foot shop looking for a quick fix of cheap mass-market humor, pulling apart 3-D puzzles with appreciation for neither the workmanship nor the challenge of putting them back together. Like a child giving away puppies, Lynn wants to be sure her merchandise find a good home.

As poetic handcrafted goods, the articles available at Tumbleweed don’t come at mass-produced prices.

In keeping with its name, Tumbleweed, created in 1989, is an uprooted concept in constant evolution. Lynn, who hails from Western Pennsylvania and has lived in France since 1977, initially promoted traditional and contemporary American crafts. The focus of her store has since evolved, yet the emphasis on natural materials and good craftsmanship remains.

In 1993, Lynn moved Tumbleweed into the Marais, around the corner from Place des Vosges. Since then, the Marais, following in the multinational footsteps of its Left Bank cousin the Saint Germain Quarter, has witnessed the arrival of chains, international brands, and shops emphasizing fashion over originality.

Tumbleweed, meanwhile, follows the beat of a different drummer.

Tumbleweed
19 rue de Turenne
75004 Paris.
Tel 01 42 78 06 10.

Open daily 11am-7pm.
Lynn Rovida is typically in the shop on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, othewise her assistant is on hand.

© 2004, 2005, 2008, 2011 by Gary Lee Kraut

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