Poliakov, L.[Léon]
Godart, Justin, Dr. (1871 - 1956), Preface.
Schneersohn, Isaac, rabbi (1879?1881 - 1969), Preface.
La Condition des Juifs en France sous l'Occupation Italienne. Paris, Édition du Centre, 1946. 174, [2 p.], 11 documents in facsimile format [including documents of Sicherheitspolizei-SD-Eisatzkommando (Marseille)]
(Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine. Série 'Documents' No. 3)
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8 vo, original printed wraps with printer's device on front cover. Slight age wear on wraps.VERY GOOD.

FIRST EDITION.

'Scarce and heart-gripping work written by the well renown French-Russian historian of anti-Semitism, Léon Poliakov. The author's interest in tracing the roots of anti-Semitism stemmed from his involvement in the founding in 1944 of the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine (CDJC). Poliakov's work was not only engaged in a broader desire to understand European anti-Semitism after the war. In part, he saw the value of his research as revealing the biases that motivated anti-Semitic accusations. In doing so, it recovered the humanity of its victims, but also the biases that underlay the relations of Jews and Christian society in Europe from the classical to early modern periods. This work focuses on the Jewish condition in France under the Italian occupation and is profusely illustrated with numerous b/w photographic reproductions of documents.' - Eric Chaim Kline

Léon Poliakov (1910, Saint Petersburg – 1997, Orsay) was a French historian who wrote extensively on the Holocaust and anti - Semitism.Born into a Russian Jewish family, Poliakov lived in Italy and Germany until he settled in France.

He co-founded the Centre de documentation juive contemporaine, established to collate documentation relating to the persecution of Jews during World War II. He also assisted Edgar Faure at the Nuremberg Trial. Poliakov went on to serve as director of research at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) from 1954 until 1971.

According to historian Jos Sanchez, Poliakov was the first scholar to critically assess the disposition of Pope Pius XII toward various issues connected to the Holocaust. In November 1950, Poliakov wrote 'The Vatican and the 'Jewish Question' - The Record of the Hitler Period-And After,' in the influential Jewish journal Commentary. While this article was the first to consider the attitude of the papacy during World War II and the Holocaust, it was not until 1963, when German playwright Rolf Hochhuth published his play Der Stellvertreter that discussion of Poliakov's initial investigations in this area took on worldwide significance.

Justin Godart (1871 - 1956) was a French politician who served as the Minister for Health. He was educated at the Collège-lycée Ampère and gained a Doctor of Law there. On July 10, 1940, Godart joined the Vichy 80, a collection of French parliamentarians who unsuccessfully voted against a constitutional amendment dissolving the Third Republic and giving Philippe Pétain the power to establish a new authoritarian state, now known as Vichy France. Upon Lyon's liberation by Allied forces in September 1944, he became the interim Mayor of Lyon. Until 1950, Godart represented France in the International Labour Organization.

In 2004, Israel conferred the Righteous among the Nations honorific upon Godart for his services to Jews during the Holocaust.

Isaac Schneersohn (1879 or 1881 ?-1969) was a French rabbi, industrialist, and the founder of the first Holocaust Archives and Memorial, born in the Ukraine.On April 28, 1943, He founded, under the Nazi Occupation at Grenoble, in collaboration with the philosopher Jacob Gordin, the future Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine (CDJC) which will be integrated into Mémorial de la Shoah in 1997.

Isaac Schneerson was related to the future Rebbe of Lubavitch. The future Rebbe of Lubavitch, Menachem Mendel Schneerson and his wife Chaya Mushka Schneerson, who lived at Berlin, in 1933, decided to come settle at Paris.In choosing this new location, an important factor was the presence of cousins: rabbi Schneour Zalman Schneersohn, Édmée Schneerson, and Isaac Schneersohn, living there.

'By the early 1930s [Isaac] Schneersohn was well connected and an important contact for his cousins the Schneersons (Menachem Mendel Schneerson and Chaya Mushka Schneerson) and the Horensztajns (Menachem Mendel Horensztajn and Sonia (Sheine) Horensztajn). Although no longer terribly observant Jewishly, he did keep a kosher home, in large measure because his wife remained religious; the Schneersons (Menachem Mendel Schneerson and Chaya Mushka Schneerson), sometimes ate there. He [Isaac Schneerson] also ran a salon, and on Friday nights people often gathered at his home 135 Avenue Émile-Zola (about two and half miles from where Mendel (Menachem Mendel Schneerson) and Moussia (Chaya Mushka Schneerson) lived), including some of the best-known Zionists, from Vladimir Zev Jabontiski (Vladimir Jabotinsky) to Chaim Weitzmann (Chaim Weizmann).

In a way he [Isaac Schneersohn] became his cousins' (Menachem Mendel Schneerson and Chaya Mushka Schneerson) adviser; even in Russia he had been particularly concerned with getting Jews past the quota restrictions and into higher education. In the process he had made contacts with the czar (Tsar) and other notables, a pattern he would continue in France. As his own sons, Boris, Arnold, and Michel, were students in engineering at the École spéciale des travaux publics (ESTP), this may have made that institution appeal to Mendel (Menachem Mendel Schneerson) too.'