Abstract EN:

This Ph.D. thesis focuses on the history of relief and rehabilitation aid to Jewish survivors of Nazi camps in France in the immediate aftermath of WWII. Until now, historiography has been mainly concerned with capturing the return of the deportees. In this context, the Lutetia, a Parisian luxury hotel transformed into a reception center in April 1945 often seems to summarize the efforts made by both the state and various associations to help them. Therefore, the fundamental question of the reintegration of Jewish survivors in French society was left unanswered. What became, in France, of the surviving minority of the targets of the Nazi extermination policy? How were they to find a “normal” life after losing loved ones and property, in a country whose rulers had contributed to the anti-Jewish policy of the German occupiers? This thesis intends to answer these questions by studying the public and private measures that benefited the Jewish survivors of the camps and their families. Without neglecting representations of the deportation, this research is resolutely turned towards the practices of contemporaries. In addition, it falls within a relational approach, emphasizing the interactions between public authorities and private organizations. Finally, this manuscript offers an open-ended reading of the relationship between the state and the society, from the point of view of both the population and the organizations considered. This thesis has the ambition, through the Nazi camps survivors, to contribute to a better understanding of the potential, implementation or non-application of a relief and rehabilitation aid policy to vulnerable populations victimized by trauma.