Posted on 06/20/2004 6:20:26 AM PDT by SJackson
Six decades after the end of the Holocaust, the prominent French Nazi-hunter Serge Klarsfeld said this weekend that French Jews would be best off leaving the country.
"One of the lessons of the Holocaust is that even if you want to fight against a wave of anti-Semitism, the best [thing] is to leave if you can," Klarsfeld said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post during a visit to Israel.
At the same time, Klarsfeld, who lives in Paris, said that he does not expect there be a great wave of Jewish emigration from France to either Israel or the US because most French Jews are well off.
While clearly differentiating between the rise of Nazi power in the late 1930s and the situation in France today, Klarsfeld drew a direct parallel to the Holocaust, stating that history has proven it would have been best "had the Jews of Poland and the Jews of Austria left Europe when they could have."
Klarsfeld's remarks come on the heels of reports that the Jewish Agency was planning to launch a campaign to persuade French Jews to immigrate to Israel to escape a wave of anti-Semitism.
The French government reported earlier this month that it had recorded 180 incidents of attacks or threats against Jews or Jewish-owned property since the start of this year, attributed to an increasingly violent second- and third-generation Muslim population.
With six million Muslims and 600,000 Jews, France has both the largest Muslim and Jews populations in Europe.
Although the numbers fell last year, over 2,500 French Jews immigrated to Israel in 2002, double the number a year earlier and the most since 1967.
Klarsfeld, 68, escaped deportation to the death camps by hiding in a closet; he spent the decades following the war in Paris as the leading Nazi hunter in France.
In the interview, Klarsfeld said that, if anything, French Jews who were thinking of immigrating would likely prefer moving to the US, instead of to an Israel engulfed in nearly four years of Palestinian violence. He noted that the father of a French Jew stabbed by a Muslim assailant in Paris earlier this month told the French prime minister that he was going to ask the US Embassy for "political asylum" for his family.
In a bleak assessment of the future of French Jewry, the Nazi hunter said tensions between Muslims and Jews in France were only likely to get worse in the years ahead. "There will be an escalation of attacks [against Jews] in Europe, and especially in France," he predicted.
Klarsfeld noted that anti-Semitic attacks have been aggravated both by the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict – which reaches the homes of French Muslims by inflammatory Mideast Arab TV stations accessible by satellite – as well as by a French foreign policy, which Klarsfeld defines as "openly pro-Arab," and "years and years" of French public and media support for the Palestinian cause.
He added that while a quarter century ago, the bulk of Arab attacks against Jews in Europe came from terror emanating from the Middle East, the fear today is from radical Arab elements within Europe itself.
With a conflict that shows no signs of ending anytime soon, Klarsfeld opined that "things cannot improve" for the Jews living in France.
Klarsfeld, whose father died in Auschwitz, survived the Hollocaust along with his mother and sisters. After the war, his mother sent him to an all-Christian boarding school in a small city just outside Paris, where, as a boy of 12, Klarsfeld recalls ditching school to go to a shop where newspapers telling of the establishment of the State of Israel were sold.
The short-lived, close relationship between France and Israel following the War of Independence until the Six Day War stemmed from troubles France was having with the Arabs at the time and not out of a real friendship with Israel, Klarsfeld said. "France was always anti-Zionist," he said.
Although he later would work on a kibbutz and came to Israel as a volunteer in the 1967 Six Day War, Klarsfeld concedes that with a very French education, which included the study of French Latin and Greek – and literally no Jewish culture, he felt more at ease in France than anywhere else, which explains his decision not to live in Israel despite the Israeli citizenship he holds.
While Klarsfeld has made France his home, his 38-year-old son Arno, an attorney by profession, was in the news recently due to his decision to come to Israel to do an eight-month volunteer stint in the army. He is currently serving in the border police.
Over the last few years, Klarsfeld has been active in pressuring the Hungarian government to search for lists of hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews deported and then killed by Nazis during the waning days of World War II.
Under mounting pressure, the Hungarian government earlier this month decided to establish a historical committee together with Yad Vashem to search for the long-sought lists, which Klarsfeld says (a Hungarian government report notwithstanding) he is certain were not destroyed.
Together with his wife, Beate, the Paris-based Klarsfeld has published similar lists of Jews deported from France and Belgium over the last decades.
If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.
If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.
And, perhaps best of all, it would pi$$ off Chirac!
You have been watching for this.
I think that even today there are a lot of Nazi/fascist sympathizers in Europe who are not Muslims. They have learned by necessity to never voice it, but they nonetheless believe that the pogroms and regimented society were a projection of European strength rather than a moral low point. They saw the Allied occupation of Europe after WWII as a victory for anti-Europeanism and Zionism. To some extent, the Paneuropeanism of the EU dreamers is an attempt to sanitize the goals of Hitler and Mussolini, to clean them of the chauvinist and racist elements.
There is a significant minority of continental Europeans that aren't bothered, but pleased rather, by rising anti-Semitism.
The presence of radical Islamists in their midst has emboldened them, and if anything any attacks by crypto- or neo-Nazis on Jews will be blamed on Muslims.
Hmmm. I said that.
Muslims are just the new brownshirts in Europe.
From the persective of one man protecting his family, it seems moving would be the easy thing. But not everyone has the means to pick up and leave. Abandoning our kindred to those who will inevitably brutally persecute is not a course of action we should consider.
In addition, where do we go when we keep surrendering and leaving areas where such a mentality has taken grip? If we don't confront and fight it, it will spread. If it continues to spread, eventually no place will be safe. Where do we go then? We don't "go", we die.
There is no other option than to fight this now.
Christians and Jews must unite in this battle if we are to hope to survive.
I am disgusted, but not surprised that France has "stepped forward" as the first major European battleground against the Socialists. As it was with the German Socialists in the early 19th century, evil must again be confronted.
Did anyone really need to tell French Hebrews they aren't welcome in France?
A Nazi hunter in France should be bagging the Nazi mafuggers right and left.
Same Klarsfeld welcomed the deafeat of French nationalist who wanted to stop the flood of Muslim immigration:
"If elected, Le Pen says he will try to limit immigration. He opposes abortion, supports the death penalty and has often been accused of being anti-Semitic.
[...]
Noted Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld and philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy were among the other personalities at the Pantheon who urged voters to support Chirac in the final round."
What is the logic - open the gates for Muslims and then flee crying the victimization? If they these "Nazi hunters" do not like Le Pen (and I do not blame them for that) they SHOULD promote some nationalist France First alternative and help to shut the door!
Political correctness is the plague of our times.
"If elected, Le Pen says he will try to limit immigration. He opposes abortion, supports the death penalty and has often been accused of being anti-Semitic.
[...]
Noted Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld and philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy were among the other personalities at the Pantheon who urged voters to support Chirac in the final round."
Quebec would be better.
I understand the concept, the National Front will deal with the Islamics first, the Jews later, though it’s not one I subscribe to. Personally, it’s not clear to me that the Jewish community are the ones that “opened the gates” for Muslims, nor am I aware of them opposing immigration either. It appears to me to be a French issue, not a Jewish issue, and yes, French Jews are (were?) French.
As to the specifics of your question, why “Nazi hunters” don’t support LePen and the National Front, it may have something to do with the fact that the parties founders, along with LePen, consisted of a Vichy official and a member of the SS. David Duke's "tough on immigration" too. Not supporting those folk would seem to be a no brainer to a Holocaust survivor.
I don’t know the French political scene well enough to know if there’s a party that’s tough on immigration that isn’t run by racists and ex Nazis. As to creating one, I realize LePen is on record as saying the Jews bought Chirac (in the late 90’s), but I don’t buy it.
Montreal has had anti-Semitic attacks recently. They harbor a HUGE Muslim population.
In France -- you see the result of combining the German Nazi mentality, with the Arab "Sand Nazi" insanity.
These traits, when combined with the natural "French characteristics" of unwarranted arrogance, incompetence, deceit, slovenliness and untrustworthiness -- produces a rather low grade cockroach...
The result is modern day France.....
Semper Fi
We in the US should welcome them, with open arms.
They wou8ld be able to shout down the liberal Jews from NY, and CA, who hate guns and hate Bush.
I think your entire post is right on the money and even brought up points I had wondered about, but not thought as deeply on, or written about as I should have. I was stationed in Baumholder, GE for 3 years (97-2000) with the US Army. I saw several instances of Skinhead/Neo-Nutzi movements allying with the radical Islamic (Wabaharrist) sect. I also saw the "Watermelon" socialists (Green on the outside, but Red to the core) ally with the same movement. It seems the Radical Islamics (Islamofacsists if you will) have united these groups through hatred of Jews, the USA, Israel, capitalism, private industry, freedom, etc.
On the surface, this would seem quite an accomplishment, until you realize these groups all believe in the same things, just different orders of importance: In simplistic terms, the Skinheads/Neo-NAZIs are racist/biggots first, socialists second and vice-versa for the Greens/"Progressives". The Jewdao-Christian beliefs stand in the way of both groups "progress" in returning humanity to a state of barbarism (though they would call it "utopia"). Eliminating the Western religions are paramount to these groups. In comes the Islamofascists, uniting these groups since they too are Anti-West, anti-tecnology, anti-freedom, but most of all: filthy rich. The skinheads/Neo-NAZIs and "Progressive" Leftists are now united in cause, if not united in how to achieve goals (and in what order those goals should be achieved). The Islamofascists now have a legion of "usefull idiots" to aid in carrying out their plans.
We also must look at Europe in a historical light: Freedom in Europe is a new concept, though a very old one at the same time. Though Italy (Rome) and Greece were the birthplace of representative government, Europe's history is not one of freedom. Though the USA has very dark chapters in our own history (ie, slavery), these pale to European historical depths. Freedom from the regimented/dictatorial society of feudalism and then NAZIism is relatively new for modern Europe. I met people in Germany who still wished for others to do their thinking for them. Sadly, this is also a growing trend in the leftist movement in the US. For what is the "Welfare State", if not modern feudalism and slavery/serfdom? Finally, it is truly sad that the birthplace of this modern freedom, France, is now falling to the evils of this movement.
To some extent, the Paneuropeanism of the EU dreamers is an attempt to sanitize the goals of Hitler and Mussolini, to clean them of the chauvinist and racist elements.
Again, direct hit. Unfortunately for the world, putting a clean face on evils of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, Kim Jung Ill, Saddam, and Bin Laden does nothing to diminish the evil itself... It just makes it easier for those on the Western "Progressive" Left, who will do everything possible to stay in a state of denial over these events, to remain delusional and unaware of the growing danger (while at the same time acquiring their own fleeting power at all costs and damn their country and her people).
I'm French, some in my family are jews.
Some of my best friends are jews too.
We might need a little help from our friends rather soon.
I'm not a coward, I'm a tough guy but right now, it's getting extremely difficult..
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