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xviii Introduction Resistance during the Holocaust Anti-Nazi resistance during World War II took on many different forms and occurred on a scale ranging from countless individual acts to large, well- organized movements. France saw resistance from both Jews and non-Jews. The number of resisters and resistance groups will likely never be known for certain, because the postwar French government tended to inflate their num- ber for political reasons. In many places, particularly near the start of the German occupation, resistance was not centrally organized in fact, referring to the Resistance was for quite some time a misnomer, as those opposed to the German occupation were often divided by ideological, political, and reli- gious differences. Resistance itself encompassed an array of active and passive measures. Active resistance included sabotage, murder, assassinations, intelligence gathering, bombings, and the like. Passive resistance also took many forms. It included noncooperation with authorities, civil disobedience, organizing underground newspapers, and hiding Jews and other Nazi targets, as well as smuggling them out of the country. A somewhat generalized, though false, impression developed in the post- war period suggesting that most Jews did not offer any resistance toward their Nazi persecutors and went to their deaths without much of a fight—as it was said, “like sheep to the slaughter.” This is erroneous, as Jews adopted a dynamic resistance stance throughout France. This was sometimes solitary but could also be a part of an organized group effort. It took many forms— from smuggling, to sabotage, to assassinations, to spying, to running under- ground newspapers, to devising anti-German propaganda. Passive (or spiritual) resistance had its own end—simply to survive the ordeal while maintaining one’s dignity—and it took on a multitude of forms, ranging from creating and maintaining Jewish institutions to providing clandestine education for children. It also encompassed the observance of Jewish holi- days and religious and cultural rituals, preserving the history of communal existence, maintaining journals and underground newspapers, and collect- ing and hiding documentation of Jewish experiences under wartime conditions. Within France, Jews made up nearly 20 percent of the French Resistance movement, even though they composed only about 1 percent of the French population. As one example among many, the Armée Juive, or Jewish Army (AJ), numbered some 2,000 at its peak. Formed in Toulouse, it conducted attacks and sabotage against German personnel and interests, smuggled hundreds of Jews into neutral Spain and Switzerland, and incited uprisings in major French cities in the summer of 1944 to help divert German atten- tion and troops from the Allied landings at Normandy beginning in June of that year.