"Their children? Our children!" Holocaust memory in postwar France -- A drama of faith and family: custody disputes in postwar France -- Notre vie en commune: the family versus the children's home -- The homes of hope? Trauma, universal victimhood, and universalism -- From competition to cooperation: redefining Jewish identities
Summary
At the end of World War II, French Jews faced a devastating demographic reality: thousands of orphaned children, large numbers of single-parent households, and families in emotional and financial distress. Daniella Doron suggests that after years of occupation and collaboration, French Jews and non-Jews held contrary opinions about the future of the nation and the institution of the family. At the center of the disagreement was what was to become of the children. Doron traces emerging notions about the postwar family and its role in strengthening Jewish ethnicity and French republicanism in the shadow of Vichy and the Holocaust
