Sacred Treason: Race, Religion, and the Holocaust in France
Summary
Sacred Treason examines a case that altered the trajectory of the Holocaust: In August 1940, French bishops publicly endorsed the Vichy regime and privately supported its antisemitic policies, which classified Jews as a race, lending credence to the authoritarian nationalist government and its persecution of Jews. In August 1942, however, the same bishops defected from this stance and mobilized to protest Vichy’s antisemitic violence. They publicly re-classified Jews as “real men and women” and declared them “part of the human race.” Their defections helped to de-legitimize Vichy and mobilize Catholics on behalf of Jews. Sacred Treason therefore examines newly available primary sources from 18 archives in 4 countries and written in 5 languages to ask why French bishops initially supported Vichy and the Nazis, why they defected, and how their actions, classifications, and re-classifications of Jews affected Jews’ own options and actions during the Holocaust.
Team
Aliza Luft, Sociology
Aliza Luft is an assistant professor of sociology at UCLA whose research examines the fluctuating relationships between social identity, ideology, and interpersonal, sociopolitical action in violent contexts. Her book, Sacred Treason: Race, Religion, and the Holocaust in France, is under contract with Harvard University Press. Another book, the second Handbook of the Sociology of Morality, was published with Springer (coauthored with Shai Dromi and Steve Hitlin). Other research has appeared in journals such as Sociological Theory, Political Power & Social Theory, Qualitative Sociology, European Journal of Sociology, and Socius. Finally, she has published numerous op-eds and interviews in The Washington Post, New Yorker, LA Times, NY Times, and elsewhere. Prior to her time at UCLA, Luft worked in various capacities for USAID, United Nations CTED, the Montreal Institute for Genocide Studies, and Facing History & Ourselves.