EXTREMELY SCARCE PRINTING OF STATUT DES JUIFS, OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE FRENCH VICHY GOVERNMENT, WITH OVER 20 LAWS TARGETING FRENCH JEWS, INCLUDING THE NOTORIOUS JUNE 2, 1941 STATUTE, A CRITICAL TURNING POINT FOR ALL EUROPEAN JEWS
Vichy Government. Statut des Juifs [Jewish Statute]. Cahors and Paris, circa 1941. Slim octavo, original printed orange wrappers, stapled as issued; pp. 16.
Scarce official Vichy publication, Statut des Juifs, with over 20 laws targeting Jews in occupied and non-occupied France, including the June 2, 1941 Statut des Juifs, a critical turning point toward French cooperation with genocide in its expansion of restrictions authorizing broader state definitions of Jewishness and purging Jews from most professions, extremely scarce.
On June 14, 1940, Paris fell to the Germany and France was soon divided into two zones: one directly under German control and another ruled the government of Pétain-Laval—known as Vichy France. On July 17th “the first orders limiting the rights of the Jews were issued by the Vichy French” and on October 3, 1940 the Vichy government “published the Jewish Statute {Statut des Juifs), which embraced the definition of a Jew established in the Nuremberg Laws… [Within months] masses of foreign Jews in the free zone were arrested and incarcerated in camps. By the end of 1940, 30,000 foreign Jews had been arrested in Vichy France” (Yahil, Holocaust, 173). This scarce official publication of the Vichy government, Statut des Juifs, contains a printing of over 20 antisemitic laws targeting Jews that were enacted from 1940-41.
Particularly notable is a printing of the crucial June 2, 1941 Vichy law, known as the Second Statut des Juifs, which imposed harsher and more inclusive restrictions of Jews than even those stipulated by Germans in the occupied zone, imposing definitions of Jewishness beyond those set by the Nazi Nuremberg Laws. A scarce printing of this June 2, 1941 statue is found in Statut des Juifs (pp. 3-6), along with: laws of May 20 and October 10, 1940 regulating private businesses; statutes of October 7, October 11, and November 20, 1940 regarding Jews in French colonies and protectorates; an October 4, 1940 law on a census of Jews; German ordinances of September 27, October 18 and December 12, 1940, concerning Jews in the German-occupied zone; laws of January 16 and February 2, 1941 further restricting Jewish business ownership; ordinances of February 12, March 9 and June 1, 1941, each concerning Jews in Algeria and other French colonies; a March 29, 1941 law creating a general commission for governing Jews and laws aimed at them; May 12 and May 19, 1941 statutes amplifying earlier regulations; and “Ordinance number 3” of April 26, 1941 and a May 7, 1941 law increasingly restricting Jews in the German-occupied zone. Table of contents on verso of front wrapper; ads for Vichy government publications on recto and verso of rear wrapper. Text in French.
A fine copy of an exceptionally important text in 20th-century history.