Death to the Jews.
"In Western Europe, anti-Semitism was generally thought to be most virulent in France. For nearly a century, French jews had enjoyed the libertarian legacy of the 1789 revolution. In the mid-1890s, however, republican France was suddenly infected with the racial hatred generated by the trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, the only Jew on the general staff of the french army. Dreyfus, a wealthy Alsatian, was accused of spying on behalf of Germany and in 1894 was tried for treason. The eponymous affair institutionalized anti-Semitism in France in a manner thought unlikely in Germany. A cabal od soldiers, clericalists, aristocrats, politicians, frustrated monarchists, and pseudoscientific savants (...) agitated against Dreyfus and the community to which he belonged. Outside the courtroom where he was tried, the mob growled, "Death to the Jews". In the courtyard of the Ecole Militaire, where he was publicly stripped of his rank before being incarcerated on Devil's Island in French Guiana, he continued to proclaim his innocence. Most French Jews were cowed and passive. (...).
The Dreyfus Affair convulsed France for more than a decade. The growing evidence that Dreyfus had been convicted on trumped-up charges seemed to poison the atmosphere even more: Jews were accused of being a pro-German fifth column, responsible for France's defeat in the war of 1870. (...) Public disorder reached such a pitch that for a while it looked as if the army would rise up against the government to prevent a retrial and put an end to the republic. The violent upheavel reconfirmed German Jews, in their patriotic fervor. They considered themselves lucky to live in an orderly country under a relatively benign regime."
Amos Elon, The Pity Of It All - A portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch 1743 -1933, Picador, 2002, pp. 249-250.
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