Reinterpreting Jewish Petitioning Practices During the Shoah: Contestation, Transnational Space, and Survival

ABSTRACT During the 1930s and early 1940s, members of the Jewish community, converts, and men and women of partial Jewish heritage across German-controlled Europe wrote tens of thousands of petitions. As tools to redress grievances and request support, these petitions ranged from rushed appeals for exemptions from deportations to elaborate protest entreaties to fascist officials. Too readily dismissed by scholars as ‘sham possibilities,’ petitioning practices and the question of their ‘success’ were multi-layered phenomena. Even petitioners who ultimately failed could use the often lengthy petitioning process to buy time and prepare other responses such as going into hiding. This rereading of entreaties submitted in Central Europe and occupied France reveals the widespread existence of trans-European networks that connected families and communities, created unique transnational spaces, and profoundly shaped reactions during the genocide. As part of integrated histories, these transnational petitions demonstrate the need to eschew oversimplified binaries of resistance versus collaboration in favor of more complex taxonomies.