The role of Jewish self-help in countering Nazi persecution has generally been marginalised in accounts of righteous (gentile) rescue attempts, or treated in isolation as part of the “Jewish” resistance to Nazism. These two disparate strands of analysis and interpretation of Jewish survival, at least in Western Europe, fail to acknowledge the importance of the relationships and connections between Jewish and non-Jewish actors in this process. By looking at specific case studies taken from Belgium and France, this lecture seeks to demonstrate how pre-existing contact between Jewish and non-Jewish individuals and organisations, and their continued co-operation during the occupation period, served to play a positive and possibly crucial role in Jewish survival in comparison with countries like the Netherlands where this co-operation was far less evident or entirely non-existent.

Prof Bob Moore (University of Sheffield) is the author of Survivors: Jewish Self-Help and Rescue in Nazi-Occupied Europe. This lecture is a partner event to Joanna Michlic’s talk on rescues in Eastern Europe scheduled for 16 January 2013.