Marc Bloch.

Why do we care? Why does it matter?

I bounced the idea off Kathy on doing a series of important/great Jewish soldiers
who served patriotically in the armies of the countries of their birth. When I first
investigated the subject, I was overwhelmed at the enormous number of Jews who
served with distinction in the military through the ages. I found this to be counter-
intuitive to what I was lead to believe, that Jews, in the main, where not particularly
good soldiers and were rather more studious and preferred cerebral pursuits over
war and soldiering.
There is also a narrative, especially when it comes to the Second World War and
the Shoa or holocaust, that Jews were victims that went like lambs to the slaughter.
While this is certainly true in the instance of six million innocent Jewish victims,
there were hundreds of thousand of Jews who served heroically in the armed
forces of the USA, UK, Soviet Union, France, Poland and other nations and made a
massive contribution to defeating the Nazis. I believe that this narrative of
resistance, mostly ignored, needs to be told.
Who was Marc Bloch?
He was a soldier and historian.
He was a brilliant French historian who cofounded the highly influential Annales
School of French social history. He was possibly the most brilliant and influential
historian of the 20th century.
The Annales School was somewhat innovative in that it wrote history from the
point of view of the ordinary man as opposed to the biography of great leaders and
insisted in the importance of taking all levels of society into consideration. This was
history from the bottom up rather than from the top down as was the practise of
the day.
He wrote The Strange Defeat, Feudal Society, French rural history, the Historians Craft.
Soldier
He served France in the First World War with distinction as a sergeant and was
awarded the Legion d honneur for bravery.
He was a Captain in the French reserves when France went to war in 1939 and
served in the disastrous opening campaign when France was defeated by the
Germans in 1940. He wrote a book analyzing the reasons for France’s defeat which
was published after his death in 1946.
He joined the French Resistance in late 1942, driven by ardent patriotism,
identification with his Jewish roots and a conception of France as the champion of
liberty.
He was captured in Lyon by Vichy police in March 1944 and turned over to the
Gestapo. He was imprisoned and tortured by the Gestapo at their headquarters.
He was interrogated by the infamous Klaus Barbie who oversaw interrogations at
the prison. He apparently remained "calm and stoic" throughout his ordeal, giving
away nothing but his real name. He was executed on 16 June 1944 ten days after
D-Day.