"Few are the surviving diaries of Jews who were leaders of their communities during the Holocaust. Raymond-Raoul Lambert of France, 'a man of action,' left such a record, filled with notes of his incessant struggle. A veteran of the French army in both world wars, who could have emigrated after the fall of France in 1940, he had chosen to stay. As the losses of French Jewry mounted under German occupation, he himself became a victim. On December 7, 1943, he was sent to Auschwitz with his family, never to return. He was forty-nine years old."
— Raul Hilberg
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"The remarkable wartime dairy of Raymond-Raoul Lambert," who was "arguably the most important Jewish official in contact with the Vichy government and the Germans...a Jew who was certainly neither obedient nor ingenuous in his dealings with the oppressors. He may indeed have been wrong...but he certainly had good reason for believing that he was right."
— Michael R. Marrus
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| Table of Contents |
|
| Preface |
vii |
| A Note on the Translation |
xiii |
| Introduction |
xv |
| 1940 |
3 |
| 1941 |
27 |
| 1942 |
89 |
| 1943 |
161 |
| Letters to Maurice Brener |
201 |
| Index |
211 |
