Was the French Resistance Jewish?

The importance of the Resistance in France during the World War II cannot be measured solely in terms of the military exploits of its member groups or by its contribution to the liberation of France. Its very existence testifies to a survival during the occupation of another France, a France that opposed the Vichy regime and rejected the official policy of collaboration with the Nazi occupier. French Jews—under a double jeopardy of anti-Semitic law (French and German), stripped of their possessions, interned in camps, then sent on to Auschwitz—contributed in full to the story of the Resistance. Extremely numerous in the different movements formed in France as well as in London around Gen. de Gaulle, they also created specifically tasked groups; many Jews were associated with the French Communist Party, while others specialized in the saving of those threatened with deportation.

After the liberation, Georges Zérapha concluded that from June 1940 to December 1941 Jews led the way from bottom to top in the majority of subgroups of the Resistance. They were among the first to reach London, from Raymond Aron to André Weill-Curiel and including René Cassin. We find them among the founders of the Musée de l'Homme network in 1940, publishing the first issue of the magazine Résistance on Dec. 15, 1940. Of the six founders of Libération in July 1941, three were Jews. Jean-Pierre Lévy created and ran Franc–Tireur. Robert Salmon was one of the two founders of Défense de la France; it was he who chose to give this name to the new journal, whose first number appeared in July 1941. These examples give only a partial idea of the early and massive Jewish presence at high positions in all the various movements.