Paris Letter: France Lives on Illusions
Paris Letter: France Lives on Illusions NO country is at all what you imagine it to ho from book*, newspaper srtklas, ar tha accounts of your friends. The living-, breathing land is something...
...The living-, breathing land is something different It does not consist of slogans or programs...
...And who was responsible for closing the Palestine doors if not our chief partner in arms and democracy, Great Britain...
...But they won't accept any extreme, either of the Left or of the Right...
...they certainly want no dictatorship...
...i tat.h it can be e«plained fas part by the fact that their pride ¦offered tab macfc ernes* German eaeaaattaa They really begem ta feel them selves a defeated and freetratod people wham ealy aat-side help earned deliver...
...What the French think of the Germans as a political and national entity, I need hardly say...
...If the Americans had not swept forward upon the capital, Paris would have suffered the same fate si Warsaw...
...The United States will not be sble to tell the Poles that "Jew benches" in Polish universities are illegal as long as there sre special seats for Negroes in American buses and as long ss American schools bar or segregate Negro students...
...Jewish committees might very properly see to it that Jewish fsmilies and groups are adequately covered by such a provision...
...They want the Germans crushed, suppressed, occupied and everything else, and yet they don't seem to be thinking with any degree of seriousness whether it is possible to csrry out such a program in fact...
...Besides, the Jews in Alaska would have served as a barrier against the Japanese threat...
...I still cannot put that living France into words, because many pieces are misaing, yet aa I run through my mind all the persons with whom I've talked, I know that France, divorced of elegant myths and exaggerated heroics, offers something unique to mankind...
...In any plans to solve that problem the Jewish group itself must actively cooperate and must meet those difficulties that arise from its particular position...
...And of course in such restaurants I would not sell a slice of bread without a ration ticket (which is whet the law requiree on paper...
...1 find it hard to imagine that France will be a great world power again in our lifetime, but in aome way I hope the French sense of proportion end the French sense of irony will have their influence on the decisions which the more powerful but less urbsne Big Three finally reach...
...They are still a bit humiliated because other* had to come to liberate them and they are still very, very vague about their political and economic future...
...We are living in "One World," indeed...
...From the standpoint of symbols and theatre it is well that there waa an insurrection and thst General Leclere'e armoured division entered the capital, but if one examines the thing with prosaic common sense it Is self-evident that only the presence of the advancing American armies made the Paris melodrama possible...
...Them, a moaaoat after liberation, that aasse pride made them think of thing only: Will taa world reeagaisi aa ae a great power again, aaw, at aaea...
...They really want the following— (1) Enough to est, (2) Order, (3) Pesce and Reconstruction...
...They can do much on their part and in cooperation, with other groups td remove the prejudicial atmosphere...
...How, for example, could Wilson, former president of Princeton, object to "numerous clauses" in European universities when he knew that his beloved ^Princeton barred Negroes ? The situation has not changed radically since 1918...
...But it should be within the ambit of a larger progrsm...
...They are in favor of the utmost severity in dealing with them...
...sometimes, and this is difficult to believe, one senses that despite everything, despite all that France has suffered, the ordinary German soldier was not really hated...
...about the need to increase real wages (which are very low compared to living costs...
...He shaved, wore a neatly pressed uniform, and did everything in his power to convince the French that he wss a nice boy...
...Symposium Concluded Th<» Future of Jews in Europe By Milton R. Konvitz T WANT to comment on two of the proposals made I by Adolph Held: there should be an international •*¦ Bill of Rights, and free immigration of Jews and non-Jews to areas that stand to benefit from immigration...
...Because everyone has his own little story and when all are pieced together, there is the mossic which is the living France...
...By order, I do not mean that they want anything even jemi-totalitarian, but they have been greatly impressed by the way the Americans get things done fast, and they want France to do the same in the future...
...about the chances of getting coal this winter...
...I have heard plenty of French officers, who remained in France under German occupation as members of the resistance movement, voice about the same opinions as those expressed above, and the Provisional Government probably includes men who think very much the same, but there still seems to be some psychological obstacle to the moral regeneration of France...
...In my* judgment, only a small part of this problem can be solved by direct legislative or constitutional procedures, whether national or—if that could be achieved—world-wide...
...It seems that in most cases Frits behaved quite correctly while in France...
...It's more oratory than actual hard-headed determination...
...I would do the same with the swsnky cafes, so that those remaining open would he the kind that any average worker or small shopkeeper could afford...
...I would also close down 75 percent of the shops that sell perfume, silk stockings, fancy gowns, elaborate jewelry and practically every other luxury except automobiles...
...Certainly Alaska needs people for the development of its rich natural resources...
...Here, once more, is an illustration of the destiny and responsibility of the Jew: to fight for rights for all peoples at all times...
...No, the French have not lost their sense of humor or proportion...
...I think that the way to clean up France would be to begin with a 90 percent reduction in the gendarmes and to select the remaining 10 percent from the veterans of the front who are tough, honest and sincerely devoted to their jobs...
...But very few of them actually discuss the German problem with any attempt at thinking in terms of the future...
...As to the first proposal, it is to be remembered that when the peace treaty at the end of World War I came to be written, the Far Eastern countries asked for a declaration of racial equality, and the declaration would have been made were it no\ for the resistance of Great Britain and the United States...
...We got nowhere...
...Such a program would promote the sense of exclusion and the prejudice that is thereby instilled on both sides...
...Th* letter on the prevailing situation in turbulent France i* from a correspondent well-known to The Sew Leader, and trustworthy, whose identity cannot now be disclosed...
...They csnnot seem to get it into their heads to use a new broom and really sweep...
...But what about the coet of living, the misery of the homeless, the continued operations of the blsck market, the fortunes acquired through partnership with the Germans...
...There are wide areas that should be open for free immigration, but so long as we cannot influence our own Congress, or the politicians who run the affairs of the British Empire, how csn we expect to get anywhere with this proposal ? Again, it is obvious that our fight for Jewish rights must begin at home...
...It is a multicolored, multtflavored affair, revealing itself much more in little details than in speeches or ceremonies at the Arc de Triomphe...
...The most important thing to be said in favor of the French is that despite their many poses of grandeur and pomp, they really take themselves and all other peoples with a grain of salt...
...Every once-in-a-while one of them, usually after too many cognacs, will begin to declaim about the Mutton of France and exclaim as though he were revealing a great new truth from Mt, Sinai, "J* Suit Francai*/" and expect the walls to crumble...
...The need for such education is particularly urgent in tn% United States, where the discrimination of group against group is becoming possibly the major problem of our democracy...
...There is an sir of indecision and suspended animation in France, which is hard to explain...
...A problem for them is how to retain their faith and cultural vitality without raising in others a sense of their exclusiveness in any of the affairs that pertain to tha wider community...
...cTUALLY things »re not moving with anything approaching decisive speed in any of the economic and social domains where reform is most needed...
...They certainly seem to favor the dismemberment and virtual partition of Germany...
...For thia reason, I should imagine that there probably will be some reform in the French electoral system and in the relationship of the Prime Minister to the legielstive body, in order to prevent a repetition of the old story of constantly changing ministries, blocs snd fronts...
...about the progress of the war and the role therein of French forces...
...To me one of the outstanding visible examples of what is wrong with France is the tremendous number of gendarmes...
...I believe the claim should rather be for the adequate reparation of the colossal injuries inflicted upon Jewish people as individuals and families, and that this claim should be made part of a more universal claim thst all who have suffered persecution owing to Nazi or Fascist intolerance should become a primary concern in the re-establishment of Europe...
...Therefore the rehabilitation of the Jewish people in Europe should not be thought of as the restoration of Jewish communal life, as though they were still to maintain separate enclaves in the larger community...
...I think the French will continue to use beautiful language, strike dramatic poses, but when it comes to action, thst is another story...
...It is for this reason that I do not feel entirely at one with Adolph Held's claim for the restoration of "Jewish settlements" in Europe—outside of Palestine^that is...
...Shortly after Hitler came into power, responsible American Jews made strong efforts to get Congress to open Alaska to Jewish immigration...
...An international Bill of Rights, even if it were pn militated, will mean little or nothing to the Jews and other minorities in Europe so long as large sections of the American people are exposed to discrimination solely because of their color or race...
...It is so because the final trouble is one of prejudice that has grown up through many generations and that has been advanced by many unfortunate circumstances...
...But his friends will merely smile and pat him on the shoulder...
...What is that compared to the fsct that Churchill left a bouquet of flowers beside Foch'i tomb in the Invslides...
...about the new Franco-Russian pact It is all really dull compared to conversations on any street or sny cafe with any living Frenchman, young or old, male or female...
...By Robert M. Maclver The answer to the need and the situation of the Jewish people is very difficult...
...r'igate, L* Potmlair*, L'Aub* and a host of other newspapers ail write about the things that newspapers always write about—the trial and execution of collaborators (which goes on with quiet efficiency and 100 percent popular approval all the time...
...WIS it remember Franca m Frames 7 Instead af doing something very concrete about winning that recognition, the Preach have been rehabilitating their agaa with words and with pretense, each aa the pretense that tha Parisians themselves really and truly delivered Parks...
...And because they have nothing to do they frequently make sn outward show of their authority (with the civilian population of cour?e, and in trivial and minor matters...
...The situation of the Jewish people preaents only in a more extreme form a problem that rises everywhere in our multigroup society, and that must be met by a program of social education which should begin in the schools and in the families, teaching people the necessity of living together in the one community if thst community is to be healthy and strong...
...I would place a rigid ceiling on prices and profits...
...And how could Wilson approve the declaration as long as race discrimination wag not only tolerated in the United States but held to be perfectly legal by the United States Supreme Court...
...I do not think that any of the above will be done...
...and "the mission of Israel," in it* self-interest, is to make it a world of freedom and justice...
...Of course, when he did not behave, he went to the other extreme, but that is another story, and the newspapers give you all of that...
...I would continue by closing all the restaurants of the so-called first and second category (the ones that are permitted by law to charge higher prices because they pay higher rentals and have fancy waiters...
...I would employ the help now holding these parasitical functions for some sort of essential reconstruction worlc, and there is enough of that to be done to keep France busy for years...
...Their pride is restored...
...The same Frenchmen, incidentally, will reveal a tremendous respect for the Germans...
...They are tired of interminable dawdling and vacillation...
...Whatever can be done to rehabilitate Jewish people as part of a larger scheme would be more effective than any isolated treatment of them...
...I think that the sooner tht French forget Napoleon and Foch and remember that bread and elementary social justice and democracy —even of the brand that obtains in Britain—comes before pomp and pretense, the better for the future of France...
...The same thing is true of efforts to open Australia and Canada...
...As to free immigration, a similar point must be made...
...But the French mast have these illusions to live, and now thst they have been formally awarded a position of equality in the European Council snd now that de Gaulle has had a glass of vodka with Stalin, the French are happy...
...At least 75 percent of them do literally nothing except draw pay, frequent cafes and ride bicycles...
...I would enforce these regulations with the utmost severity...
...For how could England approve such a declaration at a time when it held many peoples in subjection on the claim that it was the "white man's burden" to bring light and culture to "inferior" races and nations...
...They want results, concrete results expressed in lower prices, suppression of profiteering, elimination of the black market, and, I think, more than anything else, a limit on political haggling, bargaining, blocs, and all those things that paralysed prewar France...
...Yon know how little of AmerieV is really to be found Saturday night at Times Square, or Sunday morning in the "News of the Week" section of the Tim...
...It ta this isolation, both in national and international policies, that has been the sign and the symbol of the prejudice front which more than any other people the Jewish people has suffered...
Vol. 27 • December 1944 • No. 52
