“Witness apartments”, the book that shakes up the history of the spoliation of Jews – L’Express

In history, there are popular assertions heard in childhood that we perpetuate become adult without ever questioning them. It is to one of them, not the least, that attacks Witness apartmentsthe fruit of a research work of more than ten years, published to be discovered on February 20. Who does not have in mind the image of these Parisian apartments occupied by “collaborators”, which the Jews cannot recover at the end of the Second World War? The idea that these dwellings were invested by Parisians compromised with the occupier, thanks to the complicity of a well -informed concierge? Finally, the representation of a “spoliation” identical to those who have struck shops, furniture or works of art within the framework of the arryanization policy carried out by the Germans and the Vichy regime? In Witness apartmentsIsabelle Backouche, Sarah Gensburger and Eric Le Bourhis, all three researchers, dismantle these beliefs one. And relate in relentless reasoning, based on unpublished documents, a spoliation of a different genre: that of Jewish rental leases.

When they leave the capital for the free zone, the province or, later, whether they are deported, the vast majority of the 200,000 Jews in the Paris region leave behind apartments they are tenants. Like most Parisians: “In 1941, only 7 % of buildings housed owners occupying and they only. All the others host the tenants,” said the authors. However, between 1940 and 1942, the first economic arryanization measures focus on goods, furniture, works of art, shops, but not on personal housing. The Jews therefore remain holders of their lease. And this, especially since a large part of them continues to pay their receipts, a practice facilitated by the low level of rents of the time, which represent less than 5 % of the salary. Paradoxically, the law, very favorable to tenants during the war, also applies to the Jews, even though they are also victims of persecution. The owners protest, they would like to recover their apartments, they do not succeed. On the other hand, in 1943 when the prefecture needed to relocate the bombing victims, the administrative machine allowing in all illegality the reassignment of Jewish apartments was set up.

The 133W fund has many secrets

The three researchers made this discovery almost by chance. None of them devote most of their work on this subject. Sarah Gensburger is a sociologist of memory at CNRS-Sciences Po, even if she worked on spoliations in parallel with her thesis. Isabelle Backouche is a historian (EHESS), she explores relations between city and man, but unrelated to the period of war. It is however she who discovers unpublished archives by working on “the islet 16” a district of Paris, in the marsh, unhealthy, whose inhabitants were expelled before it is the subject of an urban renovation. In the Paris archives, it comes across a fund – the 133W – labeled as “requisition files for vacant housing in favor of individuals classified in alphabetical order, 1942-1944”. 66 boxes, bundles of papers classified by street names, then by number and “name of the Jew”. This last mention draws her attention, she talks about it to Sarah Gensburger, who does not understand what it is. Intrigued, they put themselves to work with Eric Le Bourhis, at the postdoctoral time, now a historian at the Inalco, which helps them to explore this data. For years, they endeavor to understand, then to reconstruct this unknown story, which takes place on the sidelines of the arryanization policy.

Solicited multiple times by owners or managers who want to recover their vacant housing, the general police station with Jewish questions has, in fact, recalled that he only takes care of goods belonging to Jews and that he “n ‘does not have to know the disputes between Aryan owners and Jewish tenants “. From 1943, it was therefore under the leadership of the Seine prefecture that a “rehousing service” is set up. Boulogne’s bombing in the summer of 1943 made the last hesitations yielded. The “classic” administration is working to find a cover to make legal an operation that is not: install tenants in apartments whose leases are still running. The victims will be the first relocated, will follow civil servants such as the republican guards of the barracks of the Place de la République requisitioned by the Germans, then civil servants losing their retirement housing, then families on social criteria . Through concentric circles, “2 rue Pernelle”, where the rehousing service is installed, becomes an agency where Parisians come to ask for an HBM because they want to improve their living conditions. The prefecture keeps its hand on the process, it only authorizes the owners to re -turn only to impose the future occupants.

Because, when at the end of the war the Parisian Jews who survived come back, many discover their occupied apartments. They want to recover them, they know that their family members they have lost sight of during the years of occupation will try to find them at their last address. Some call for justice which, systematically, proves them right: these occupations are illegal and must stop. But these decisions are little applied. The others trust the administration to see their rights recognized. Wrongly. An ordinance of November 1944 returned to them in their rights, but apparently only: in its article 2, it lists a series of categories of relocation which cannot be expelled, precisely those that the prefecture had chosen from 1943. Then, in 1946, a law makes it almost impossible for the expulsion of tenants. “In less than two years, even though families are still dispersed, the laws of the Republic have turned their backs on Jewish families ousted from their accommodation,” notes the authors. A time, they hesitated to use the term ” Spoliation “which, in the collective imagination, refers to the notion of property. Little by little, their opinion has been forged, it is not anything else. Hence the subtitle of their fascinating work .

Because, when at the end of the war the Parisian Jews who survived come back, many discover their occupied apartments. They want to recover them, they know that their family members they have lost sight of during the years of occupation will try to find them at their last address. Some call for justice which, systematically, proves them right: these occupations are illegal and must stop. But these decisions are little applied. The others trust the administration to see their rights recognized. Wrongly. An ordinance of November 1944 returned to them in their rights, but apparently only: in its article 2, it lists a series of categories of relocation which cannot be expelled, precisely those that the prefecture had chosen from 1943. Then, in 1946, a law makes it almost impossible for the expulsion of tenants. “In less than two years, even though families are still dispersed, the laws of the Republic have turned their backs on Jewish families ousted from their accommodation,” note the authors. A time, they hesitated to use the term “spoliation” which, in the collective imagination, refers to the concept of property. Little by little, their opinion has been forged, this is nothing else. Hence the subtitle of their fascinating work.

Witness apartments. The spoliation of Jewish tenants in Paris, 1940-1946 By Isabelle Backouche, Sarah Gensburger, Eric Le Bourhis. La Découverte, 448 p. , 23 €.