Yiddish or not? Holocaust remembrance, commemorative ceremonies, and questions of language among Parisian Jews, 1944–1967

ABSTRACT

Between 1945 and the late 1960s, a large number of Yiddish-speaking Jews lived in Paris where most of them had settled before World War II. In the aftermath of the war, Parisian Yiddish culture – as everywhere else – was deeply marked by the Holocaust and destruction of Yiddish life in Eastern Europe. As the Yiddish dimension of Holocaust memory has mainly been studied through the prism of literature, testimony, and historiography, this essay aims to explore the place accorded to Yiddish in Parisian Jewish commemorations, defined as ceremonies involving different categories of actors, and offering a narrative of the past through speeches, specific places, and rituals. To address this subject, I analyze first the commemorative functions attributed to the Yiddish language, as well as the ways in which it was used to collectively remember the catastrophe. Second, I study the conflicts launched by commemorative uses of Yiddish between Jewish subgroups and between generations. By doing so, my paper intends to consider Yiddish culture after 1945 as a fundamental, but also polemical, element in the production of commemorative practices among Parisian Jews during the two decades following the Liberation.

KEYWORDS:

• Yiddish language
• Holocaust memory
• commemoration
• postwar period
• France
• Paris

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Comment made by the Bundist daily אונדזער שטימע (Undzer shtime, Our Voice) about the opening speech given in French at the 1946 Warsaw Ghetto uprising commemoration in Paris. K. [Kuf], “Impozante fayerung tsum dritn yortog fun varshever geto-oyfshtand.” Undzer shtime (April 27, 1946): 1.

2 For the study of Yiddish testimonies, historiography, and literature, see e.g.: Roskies, Against the Apocalypse; Sherman, Yiddish After the Holocaust; Smith, The Yiddish Historians. For yisker-bikher, see: Niborski and Wieviorka, Les livres du souvenir; Boyarin and Kugelmass, From a Ruined Garden; Horowitz, Memorial Books.

3 For a concise presentation of this notion, see: Roskies, The Jewish Search, 17–25.

4 I define commemorations as ceremonial services involving different categories of actors and offering a narrative of the past staged through the connection of various procedures: first, the selection of figures or events considered worthy of collective remembrance; second, the choice of specific (and often sacralized) moments and places; third, the elaboration of fitting rituals, including the choice of a language. On the early ceremonies among Jews in postwar France, see: Wieviorka, Déportation et génocide; Perego, Pleurons-les.

5 Myhill, Language in Jewish Society, 143.

6 For example, David Weinberg described the Jews living in France after the war as wanting “to block out the bitter memory of the Holocaust.” Weinberg, “France,” 21.

7 See for example: Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome; Wolf, Harnessing the Holocaust.

8 See: Moyn, A Holocaust Controversy; Poznanski Propagandes et persécutions, 551–92; Azouvi, Le mythe du grand silence; Cesarani and Sundquist, After the Holocaust.

9 See for instance: Berman, Holocaust Remembrance; Diner, We Remember; Jockusch, Collect and Record.

10 See for instance: Cramsey, “Saying Kaddish;” Finder, “Yizkor.”

11 See for instance: Hyman, The Jews of Modern France.

12 For a reappraisal of the postwar Jewish life in France, see: Mandel, In the Aftermath; Weinberg, Recovering a Voice.

13 Danan, Les Juifs de France.

14 This period is called the ימים נוראים (Hebr. yamim noraim, “the Days of Awe”).

15 The French rabbinical authorities chose this date to commemorate those who died at an unknown point during the war.

16 יזכּור (Hebr. yizkor, “may He [God] remember”) is the first word of a prayer of mourning.

17 According to Jonathan Boyarin, this ceremony was still, in the 1980s, “the largest annual demonstration of the immigrant community.” Boyarin, Polish Jews, 138.

18 The name of this ceremony comes from the הזכרת נשמות (Hebr. hazkarat neshamot, “remembrance of the souls”) liturgy held in the Ashkenazic tradition after the Torah reading on the last day of Passover, on Shavuot, on Shemini Atzeret, and on Yom Kippur. The liturgy includes prayers requesting that the deceased be granted eternal rest in peace.

19 Landsmanshaftn were mutual-aid societies created by Jewish immigrants originating from the same Eastern European town, region, or country. In 1966, a communal leader estimated that 150 landsmanshaftn remained in Paris, representing more than 10,000 families. Letter (copy) of Claude Kelman to Alain de Rothschild (August 24, 1966), Kelman: MDIII-28.

20 The most important organizations representing East-European Jewish immigrants in France after the Second World War were the Zionist-oriented Fédération des sociétés juives de France (Federation of Jewish Societies of France, FSJF); the Socialist Bund (Union) and Cercle amical (Workmen’s Circle); the Communist Union des Juifs pour la Résistance et l’Entraide (Union of Jews for Resistance and Mutual Aid, UJRE) and Union des sociétés juives de France (Union of Jewish societies of France, USJF).

21 For example, following the first statut des Juifs (statute on Jews) on October 4, 1940, a law gave French prefects the authority to confine foreign Jews in special camps, such as the internment camps located in Pithiviers and Beaune-la-Rolande.

22 At the end of the 1930s in Paris, around 90,000 (out of a Jewish population of 150,000) were immigrants from Eastern Europe who had arrived in France before and after the First World War. Their countries of origin were Poland (45,000), Russia (16,000), Hungary (12,000), Romania (11,000), and the Baltic states (1,700). Weinberg, Les Juifs à Paris, 20.

23 This number includes around 76,000 deportees, 3,000 people who died in French internment camps, and at least 1,000 Jews who were executed in France because of their Jewishness.

24 Klarsfeld, Vichy-Auschwitz, 179–81.

25 Roblin, Les Juifs de Paris, 147 and 175.

26 Some yisker-bikher were published in the French capital by Parisian landsmanshaftn, for example: Tshubinski, Khurbn Levertov [The Destruction of Lubartów]. See: Kichelewski, “Entre histoire et mémoire.” Parisian landsmanshaftn also contributed to the redaction of several books published abroad, for instance: Shamri et al., eds. Seyfer Kalushin [The Book of Kałuszyn].

27 For example, the following commemorated events: the voluntary engagement of foreign Jews in the French army in 1939–1940; the first arrest and internment of Jewish men on May 14, 1941; the execution of Jewish hostages on December 15, 1941; the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup of July 1942; and of course the revolt of the Warsaw Ghetto.

28 Roblin, Les Juifs de Paris, 92.

29 Bensimon and Della Pergola, La population juive, 285.

30 After the war, there were no fewer than three Yiddish dailies in Paris: the Communist נײַע פּרעסע (Naye prese, New Press); the Zionist אונדזער וואָרט (Undzer vort, Our Word); and the Bundist Undzer shtime (see note 1). The writer Rabi mentioned in 1962 that 3,000 copies of every daily edition of Naye prese and Undzer vort were printed. Rabi, Anatomie du judaïsme français, 173.

31 On the postwar Parisian Yiddish life and press, see: Lustman, Entre Shoah, communisme et sionisme.

32 Laura Jockusch uses the same socio-cultural differentiation between Eastern European Jews and Western and Central European Jews to understand the latter’s lack of investment in postwar Jewish Holocaust documentation projects, which were mostly undertaken by Eastern European Jews. Jockusch, Collect and Record, 39.

33 However, Yiddish did not form part of every single Jewish commemoration in Paris in the aftermath of the war. It was, for instance, absent from the ceremonies organized by the Association consistoriale israélite de Paris (Israelite consistorial association of Paris, ACIP), the Parisian branch of the Consistoire central (Central Consistory), a body which supervised Jewish religious activity in France and was led by French “israélites.”

34 Numerous monuments were erected in the early postwar period by landsmanshaftn in the Bagneux and the Pantin cemeteries located in the Parisian suburbs. On the memorial landscape in the Bagneux cemetery, see: Meidinger, “Les tombes.”

35 See: Perego, “De l’écrit à l’oral.”

36 See: Silverman, The Undying Flame, 111–3.

37 The Comité général de défense des Juifs (General Defense Committee of Jews, CGD) was an underground organization created in Grenoble in July 1943 by the representatives of three Jewish immigrant groups: the Communists, the Zionists, and the Bundists.

38 “Commémoration du soulèvement du ghetto de Varsovie.” Quand Même! (April 1947): 1.

39 “3.000 yidn oyf der akademye tsum ondenk fun di oyfshtand fun varshever geto.” Naye prese (April 18, 1952): 3.

40 “Dray toyznt yidn hobn in Mitialite baert ondenk fun geto-heldn.” Naye prese (April 21, 1959): 1. I would like to thank David Shneer z”l for sharing information and documentation regarding Lin Jaldati’s tour in France.

41 In fact, Yiddish-speaking immigrants living in Paris often spoke three or more languages, typically including that of their country of origin (Polish, Russian, Romanian, Hungarian, etc.).

42 For instance, a reader of Undzer vort complained about a commemoration organized by a landsmanshaft and held in Polish: “Briv in redaktsye.” Undzer vort (May 17, 1950): 2.

43 See, for instance, the announcement for the Yizkor ceremony in 1961. “Izkor” [Headline in romance characters]. Naye prese (September 16–17, 1961): 8.

44 For example, Parisian Bundists invited in 1962 the American Bundist leader Alexander Erlich to speak at the Warsaw Ghetto uprising commemoration. A. R. [Alef Reysh], “Di ondenk-manifestatsye tsum 19tn yortog fun oyfshtand in varshever geto.” Undzer shtime (April 24, 1962): 3f.

45 “Hekher dray toyznt yidn hobn manifestirt in ondenk fun di korbones fun 16tn yuli 1942.” Naye prese (July 22, 1947): 2.

46 Jewish immigrants could learn French by themselves, thanks to lessons provided by Jewish organizations, and also through their children whom they sent to French public schools.

47 On the ceremonies organized in this specific place, see: Perego, “Les commémorations.”

48 Isaac Schneersohn was an important figure in postwar Jewish life in Paris. Born in Russia, he arrived in France in 1920. In 1943, he secretly founded the Centre de documentation juive contemporaine (Center for Contemporary Jewish Documentation, CDJC), which sought to collect evidence on the anti-Jewish persecutions perpetrated in France by Nazi Germany and the Vichy regime. He initiated the construction of the Tomb of the Unknown Jewish Martyr in the early 1950s.

49 This global ambition was quickly contested in Israel by the Knesset, which reacted to Schneersohn’s plans in August 1953, a few months after the unveiling ceremony of the monument’s foundation stone in Paris, by officially creating Yad Vashem. On this polemic, see: Wieviorka, “Un lieu de mémoire.”

50 “La cérémonie de Hazkara.” Le Monde juif (January 1959): 37.

51 “Émouvante commémoration de la Déportation de la Révolte du Ghetto de Varsovie le 24 Avril.” Le Monde juif (June 1960): 79.

52 “Cérémonie grandiose à la mémoire du 20^e anniversaire de la révolte du ghetto de Varsovie.” Le Monde juif (January–June 1963): 111.

53 Letter (copy) of the Executive Committee’s President to Mister S. (September 28, 1961), CDJC-Mémorial: box “Cérémonies et manifestations 1957–1965.”

54 Minutes of the preparatory meeting for the twentieth anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising (February 17, 1963), CDJC-Mémorial: box “Conférence du Dr A. Safran (30.11.1949) / Cérémonie de la remise des dons (1958) / Cérémonie commémorative (25.09.1960) / Révolte du ghetto de Varsovie.”

55 Baumgarten, Le Yiddish, 213; Ertel, Brasier de mots, 249f.

56 Quoted by Shandler, Adventures in Yiddishland, 18f.

57 “Commémoration de la révolte du ghetto à la Colonie scolaire.” La Terre retrouvée (June 1, 1959): 9.

58 “Impozante fayerung lekoved dem 12tn yortsayt fun oyfshtand fun varshever geto.” Undzer shtime (April 21, 1955): 2.

59 Shandler, Adventures in Yiddishland, 22.

60 Kuznitz, “Yiddish Studies,” 549.

61 Shandler, Adventures in Yiddishland, 4.

62 Ibid., 4.

63 Roskies, “Yiddish Studies,” 26–7. Quoted by Myhill, Language in Jewish Society, 146.

64 Shandler, Adventures in Yiddishland, 134.

65 Ibid., 22.

66 Ibid.

67 Ibid., 127.

68 Ibid., 128.

69 Ibid., 4.

70 A. R. [Alef Reysh], “Pietetfuler yisker-ovnt tsum 8tn yortog fun varshever geto-oyfshtand.” Undzer shtime (April 20, 1951): 3.

71 Thiesse, La création, 70.

72 For a concise overview of the scholarly literature on commemorative practices, see: Misztal, Theories of Social Remembering, 126–132.

73 Mandel, “France,” 208.

74 “La commémoration du 3^e anniversaire du soulèvement du ghetto de Varsovie.” Bulletin de nos Communautés (May 10, 1946): 3. The Conseil représentatif des Juifs de France (Representative Council of the Jews in France, CRIF) was founded in January 1944 in the wake of secret talks between the leaders of the previously mentioned Consistoire central and General Defense Committee of Jews. Its creation was meant to unify the different segments – native and immigrant – of French Jewry, hence the reference to the organizers’ “conception of unity.”

75 La Terre retrouvée (January 1, 1950): 4.

76 Letter (copy) of Isaac Schneersohn to Mrs. Jean B. (October 27, 1958), CDJC-Mémorial: box “Visites du Mémorial & soirées comm. des sociétés et amicales 1957–1959 / Cérémonie Lampe du Souvenir 1961.”

77 Letter of Mr. S. to the Tomb of the Unknown Jewish Martyr (September 17, 1961), CDJC-Mémorial: box “Cérémonies et manifestations 1957–1965.”

78 Letter of Mrs. Jean B. to the Tomb of the Unknown Jewish Martyr (September 23, 1958), CDJC-Mémorial: box “Visites du Mémorial & soirées comm. des sociétés et amicales 1957–1959 / Cérémonie Lampe du Souvenir 1961.”

79 Letter of R. H. to the President of the Tomb of the Unknown Jewish Martyr (September 21, 1958), CDJC-Mémorial: Ibid.

80 Letter of Mrs. Paul W. to the Tomb of the Unknown Jewish Martyr (September 25, 1958), CDJC-Mémorial: Ibid.

81 Minutes of the CRIF’s plenary assembly (October 20, 1958), CRIF: MDI-16.

82 Ibid.

83 “Le pèlerinage des Israélites à leur ancien camp d’internement de Pithiviers.” La République du Centre (May 17, 1951): 2.

84 For instance, presenting the reconstruction of Jewish institutions after France’s liberation, Anne Grynberg describes “une dynamique unitaire – au-delà des différences entre ‘autochtones’ et ‘immigrés’ et des divergences idéologiques” (“a unitarian dynamic – beyond differences between ‘natives’ and ‘immigrants’ and ideological divergences”). Grynberg, “Après la tourmente,” 249.

85 Minutes of the preparatory meeting for the twentieth anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising (February 25, 1963), CDJC-Mémorial: box “Conférence du Dr A. Safran (30.11.1949) / Cérémonie de la remise des dons (1958) / Cérémonie commémorative (25.09.1960) / Révolte du ghetto de Varsovie.”

86 Ibid.

87 Minutes of the meeting of the Alliance israélite universelle’s Central Committee (May 9, 1963), AIU: AM-CC-PV1, box 4.

88 Shandler, Adventures in Yiddishland, 1.

89 About this bilingual strategy of Yiddish newspapers, see: Roblin, Les Juifs de Paris, 178f.

90 Levitte, “Vers une étude,” 98.

91 Roland, Du Ghetto à l’Occident, 226f.

92 Ibid., 271.

93 Isaac Pougatch, “Les publications juives en langue française.” Undzer kiyem (October 1960): 20.

94 Roblin, Les Juifs de Paris, 92.

95 Ibid., 159.

96 Bensimon and Della Pergola, La population juive, 285 (chart 13.6).

97 Minutes of the preparatory meeting for the Warsaw Ghetto uprising commemoration (January 11, 1966), FSJF: box “Yiddish”.

98 Ibid.

99 Such a dilemma was not exclusive to the Jews living in France; at the same time on the other side of the world, Australian Jewish communal leaders had similar discussions about the impact of the use of Yiddish on the youth’s participation in memorial services. Berman, Holocaust Remembrance, 33–6.

100 Rabinovitch, Goren, and Pressman, Choosing Yiddish, 3.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Simon Perego

Simon Perego is Associate Professor in Contemporary History in the department of Hebrew and Jewish studies at the INALCO (Institut national des langues et cultures orientales) in Paris, France. He has previously held a postdoctoral position at Sorbonne University (research programme “Writing a New History of Europe”). Based on his doctoral dissertation, his last book was published by Champ Vallon in French in 2020 under the title Pleurons-les: Les Juifs de Paris et la commémoration de la Shoah, 1944–1967. He is currently working on testimonial practices among Yiddish-speaking Jews in France after the Holocaust. Email: [email protected].