Here’s an interesting note carried by the Jewish Press Service that I found in the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle:
Jews Refuse to Pay Tax to Vichy’s “Union of Jews”
London (JPS) — For refusal to pay taxes for the upkeep of the Union of Jews of France, created by Vichy decree, many Jews were in concentration camps, interned and ordered held there until the tax is paid.
This Union (Union Generale des Israelites de France) was established by the Vichy (Nazi-collaborationist) government. It was ostensibly meant to coordinate social services for Jews by creating an umbrella organization over various Jewish organizations, but was really a phase in the Nazi-organized obsession with bureaucratically solving the “Jewish Problem” in Europe via elimination. As in other parts of Nazi-controlled Europe, Jews in France had to make hard decisions about how much to resist such organizations outright and how much to try to participate in them as potential tools of resistance or amelioration.
All French Jews were required to be members of the Union, which presumed to control all Jewish property. The Nazis might, for example, “fine” the whole of the Jews of France, and the Union in its representative capacity would borrow money to pay off the fine by pledging Jewish property as collateral, or, apparently, by taxing the membership base.
was a time when the last of the shipments of doomed French Jews to death camps were taking place, as, I suppose, the Nazis decided that they had better devote more of their resources to repelling the allied invasion at Normandy (which began in ).
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