Diary of a Witness, 1940–1943 (review)

The English-language translation of the wartime diary of Raymond-Raoul Lambert (1894–1943) has been long awaited. This personal record of the prominent leader of the Union of French Jews in the Free Zone of the Vichy government is an invaluable contribution to the study of the particular situation of French Jewry during World War II. Its publication enhances the emerging area of Holocaust research that focuses on diaries as personal responses to the German occupation and its genocidal project. For students and scholars of the Holocaust who do not read French, the English-language publication of Lambert’s diary is of utmost significance.

As a dedicated diarist, Lambert meticulously records the war period, starting with his military service during the defeat of France in the summer of 1940 and ending on the day before his and his family’s arrest and transfer to Drancy on August 21, 1943; on December 7 Lambert, his wife Simone, and their four children were deported to Auschwitz, where they perished. In the prewar period Lambert was a prominent figure in both French and French Jewish political arenas; he served as the head of the Jewish refugees’ relief committee and was appointed a deputy to French Prime Minister Edouard Herriot. In the summer of 1941, he was summoned by the Vichy government to establish the Union Générale des Israélites de France (UGIF). The mission of the organization was to manage relief activities of the Jewish population in the Free Zone. The establishment of the UGIF superseded the authority of the Central Consistory, the principal Jewish governing institution in France, and generated continuous friction between Lambert and the Consistory president, Jacques Helbronner. The tone of Lambert’s recordings of these confrontations reveals his often contemptuous attitude toward his Jewish opponents: while accusing them of bad faith and incompetence, Lambert adamantly dismissed their accusations of collaboration and deceit.

While the reasons for Lambert’s decision to cooperate with the Vichy government were complex, I would suggest that the combination of his worldview and the particular historical-political circumstances of the German occupation of France might to some extent explain his determination. In contrast to the other occupied countries, where the Judenräte worked directly under German rule, the UGIF dealt with the Vichy government. It may well be that Lambert’s contact with French rather than German authorities was an important factor in his political choices. Lambert’s faith in France and its ideals of freedom and equality—a faith that he seemed incapable of renouncing—elucidates his attitude toward the new political situation. Even in view of the increasingly desperate situation, Lambert was unable to internalize fully the fact that France, which he calls both “wife” and “mother” (October 19 and November 6, 1940, respectively), betrayed its Jewish “children.” At the same time, his inability to accept this reality at the deepest emotional level illuminates his persistence in fighting the increasingly brutal edicts. To the very end, Lambert audaciously protested the deportations, and in his struggle, he may have hastened his and his family’s deportation.

Like the French edition (Fayard, 1985), the English translation is edited and introduced by Richard I. Cohen, professor of French Jewry studies at the Hebrew University. The annotations have been updated and include recent publications in the field of the history of Jews under the Vichy government. In the preface (unchanged from the 1985 version), Cohen raises the issues of Lambert’s collaboration with and participation in—or rather lack of participation in—the underground. The introduction offers a useful historical survey of the situation of French Jewry from “the Dreyfus Affair to the nightmare of the Vichy years” (p. xv). The first chapter situates Lambert’s prewar political activities in the general context of the Jewish community in France. As Cohen correctly argues, Lambert’s life before the Second World War reflected the mindset of emancipated...