JFM, I know that you are a fair historian, but with a discriminative sense for the French (and Spain, ie Franco casualties) when it suits your sad agenda ! asserting that France was the evilest in WW2 is one aspect of your racist bias, just compare the facts with your praised alliee Poland’s (75 000 vs 3 millions) this is of the same vein as of your appreciation of the spanish inquisition, and or of Franco’s victims ; besides, Oscar and Mr Levavi are better witnesses than you
cf “Darkness of Anti-Semitism Descends on the West” (David Solway)
France was one of the countries controlled by the Germans at the early stages of war, but it had a high level of democratic tradition of Liberte, Fraternity and Egalite. In France about 75000 Jews perished out of a population of 350,000, about 70% survived. Many factors contributed to the relatively high survival rate, the most important factor was the attitude of the silent majority, who made it difficult of the Germans to identify and catch the Jews. Even the local police cooperated only reluctantly with the Germans, Jews were provided with false identification papers, given shelter and moral support. Jews also participated massively in the resistance and at the beginning stages about 33% of the resistance fighters were Jewish.
In Poland, 3 million of Jews were killed, and only 40-50,000 Jews survived in Poland, the majority (about 240,000) survived in exile in Russia or in German concentration camps. 3 millions of Jews could not have been killed in a short span of 18 months without the active help of the Polish population. The dehumanization of the Jews made them easy prey. There was a saying among the Poles under the occupation: ” The Germans will throw stones at Hitler dead, because he brought about the downfall of the German people, but the Poles will bring flowers to his grave as a token of gratitude of his freeing Poland from the Jews.
(Alexander Kimel)
