“We Live with Despair”: Jewish Refugees and the French Internment Camp System, 1939-1940

• In Event: Past is Present? Reconsidering Jewish Refugees and Immigration Policies of World War II in Light of Contemporary Refugee Crises

Abstract

With conflicts in such places as Syria, the DRC, and Somalia, the international community is facing a humanitarian crisis unlike anything since the era of World War II. As millions of displaced individuals seek safe haven, Europe and America alike grapple with what it means to be a land of asylum. Looking to the past helps us consider the present; in this case France during the first months of World War II. France, long heralded for its traditions of universal republicanism and human rights protections, also has had a tumultuous relationship with immigrants and refugees. On the frontlines of the refugee crisis for the better part of the 1930s, the government established internment camps in 1938, which eventually detained Jewish refugees alongside suspected Nazi supporters, and held screening commissions to ascertain whether internees were enemies of France. Drawing from recently-released letters housed at the Alliance Israélite Universelle and sources in the French National Archives in Paris, this paper examines the experiences of interned Jews as told in their own words through letters they wrote from 1939 into the spring of 1940. It considers these letters for what they reveal about French policy, camp conditions, and the limits of French republicanism under duress. They shed light on the haphazard nature of local officials’ decision-making regarding who to detain and illustrate a disregard for legal status in the drive to ensure state security. The letters offer precious information about daily life in camps and highlight the real effects of government policy, offering lessons to countries facing today’s refugee crisis.

Author

• Meredith Scott-Weaver, University of Delaware