James McAuley (2)

This is such an interesting history. The author focuses on a few French Jewish families and their history. McAuley shows how the the families believed that they were truly French. Their collections and houses were meant to show an allegiance to French values in the 19th and early twentieth centuries. However, the French establishment of writers and critics always considered the families as " foreign" no matter what they did. The houses described by the author as part of this history were all donated to the French nation as museums-Musee Camondo and Villa Kerylos. Many members of these families were sent to Auschwitz and were murdered there. The author also talks about the role of women and how some of them rebelled against the life that they're expected to lead as part of a dynastic joining of two family fortunes. The families discussed were the Camondos, the Reinachs and the Rothschilds. I liked the approach of the author on this subject.… (mere)