The Holocaust, the French, and the Jews (review)

96 SHOFAR Summer 1994 Vol. 12, No.4 one who is mad, i.e. diseased, and the etiology of that insanity is the prevailing paranoid cultural belief system. Freud, Race, and Gender is a densely written examination of psychoanalytic epistemology. The book has a repetitive, free-association and inclusive quality which succeeds in communicating the obsession with turn-of-the-century antisemitism and the "Jewish Science" which it spawned. In this opus, Gilman, the psychohistorian, limits his insights about the cultural origins of psychiatric movements to those of a universalist , libido-based school of thought. It is his view that Freud's brainchild emerged as a consequence of internalized antisemitic stereotypes that caused a narcissistic injury against which he struggled by defying the dominant medical and scientific elite of his day. The price he paid was a life-long ambivalence about his Jewish identity and his need to devalue the feminine. The book should have considerable appeal to students ofsociocultural phenomena and of the evolution of ideologies based on race and gender. Its relevance to today's culture conflicts remains pertinent as one is reminded of the widely publicized assertion by Eugene Sawyer, a former aide to the Mayor of Chicago, that Afro-American babies are being purposefully infected with the HIV(AIDS) virus by Jewish doctors. Such beliefs are reminiscent of older demonizations ofJews, such as being the cause of the bubonic plague, which have changed over time from religious to racial rationalizations and back again, always against a backdrop of conspiratorial intent. Gilman's research sheds some light on the polymorphous perverse potential and the reacting coping mechanisms of the human mind in the context of the "Jewish Problem." Werner I. Halpern, M.D. Rochester, New York The Holocaust, the French, and the Jews, by Susan Zuccotti. New York: Basic Books, 1993. 400 pp. $30.00. Susan Zuccotti, in The Holocaust, tbe Frencb, and tbelews, examines France and its implication in the German efforts to exterminate European Jewry. France is a paradoxical case because much of its Jewish population survived the Holocaust, although the Vichy government collaborated with the Nazis and often took the initiative in antisemitic campaigns. Individual Frenchmen, however, responded to the antisemitic campaigns with a mixture of support, indifference, and resistance. As a consequence, many Book Reviews 97 Jews in France were able to secure support from their non-Jewish compatriots in their efforts to avoid being deported to German concentration camps, while others were turned in by their neighbors. Zuccotti seeks to provide an explanation for the inconsistencies in French antisemitism. She does this largely by examining popular responses to the government's antisemitic laws and the efforts by the police to round up Jews in France for deportation. Zuccotti's analysis of the prewar history of antisemitism in France and the Vichy government's antisemitic disposition does not break any new ground. Basically, she recounts how assimilated French Jews were in France and their general shock to the Dreyfus affair. Her principal argument is that while antisemitism clearly existed in France there is little evidence that it was pervasive, especially for native French Jews. Immigrant Jews from Eastern and Central Europe experienced a more hostile environment than native Jews. The hostility directed towards them arose partly from antisemitism and, in part, from a strong anti-immigration sentiment that grew in intensity during the 1930s. The same can be said about her analysis of the Vichy government in France. She does not break any new ground in her depiction of Vichy officials who were deeply involved in the round-up and deportation ofJews. What makes this book an exciting story is not its historical and political analysis of antisemitism in France. The strength of the book lies in its description of how individual Frenchmen behaved and the complex emotional reactions ofJews in France towards the antisemitic policies of the Vichy government. Zuccotti shows that the French reaction to Vichy's collaboration with the Nazis in the persecution of the Jews ranged from open resistance, overt and covert forms of collaboration, to utter indifference . By focusing on the contrasting behavior of the French, she is able to give a human dimension to what many have...