I am very curious, because i have seen statistics that 75% of French Jews were alive at the end of the Holocaust, and I am wondering if this includes Algerian Jews or not, as they were pretty much spared extermination and were French citizens since around 1870. Since 1848, Algeria was an integral part of France, theoretically no different than Corsica or Normandy. However native Algerians (except Jews, a very select number of Muslims, and a few converts to Christianity) didn’t have citizenship, and when they got it in 1947, they were still second class. I am very curious about how old statistics in France are affected by this.
These numbers are for continental France only. The statistics about the fate of Jews in France during WW2 come from the work of Serge and Beate Klarsfeld published in 1978 (Mémorial de la déportation des Juifs de France). These figures are now cited in most works about the Holocaust, for instance in the France entry of Yad Vashem's Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. The 25% number refers to the total population of Jewish people living in continental France on the eve of the war, about 330-350,000 people, consisting in French Jews and foreigners who had arrived after WW1, usually from Eastern Europe. Numbers vary depending on how people are counted: a summary of 1992 (established by Klarsfeld and other people) considers that there were 190,000 French nationals and 140,000 foreigners. 80,000 Jewish people living in continental France (hence the 25% figure) were murdered during the war, mostly in the camps. Of these 80,000 people, 25,000 were French nationals and 55,000 were foreigners.
French North Africa had a sizeable Jewish population, about 400,000 people (Algeria: 120,000, Morocco: 200,000; Tunisia:85,000; numbers taken from the Yad Vashem Encyclopedia), Algeria was a French department whose Jews were French citizens while Morocco and Tunisia were protectorates. Vichy implemented its racial laws in the three territories, more harshly in Algeria than in the protectorates, where its power was more limited. Some Jewish people were sent to forced labour camps, but there was no attempt to deport the Jews and kill them. The Germans invaded Tunisia in November 1942 in reaction to Operation Torch, toughened the racial laws, and sent 5000 Jews to labour camps. Twenty Jewish political activists were deported to extermination camps in Europe and died. The liberation of North Africa by Allied Forces ended whatever plans the Nazis had to kill the North African Jews.
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