SOURCE: "Between Paris and Jerusalem," in The New York Review of Books, Vol. XXVI, No. 16, October 25, 1979, pp. 3-4.

An American journalist and critic, Wieseltier is the literary editor of The New Republic. In the following review of When Memory Comes, he examines the ramifications for contemporary Jews and Israelis of the struggle for Jewish survival since World War II.

On June 11, 1942, Heinrich Himmler demanded 100,000 Jews of France, for Auschwitz. Pierre Laval agreed in July to turn over 10,000. This would "cleanse France of its foreign Jewry": the deportations, Laval insisted, would take only Jews from Germany and Central Europe who had sought refuge in the Unoccupied Zone. The roundups began at once. Switzerland sealed its frontiers. "We cannot turn our country into a sponge for Europe," the Swiss Minister of Justice announced. Jews who stole across were promptly returned to their fate. Among these were Jan and Elli Friedl...