What happens when trusted institutions fail in moments of moral crisis?
Sacred Betrayal tells the untold story of how Catholic and Jewish leaders in France responded to the Holocaust: through the quiet negotiations, hidden doubts, and private assurances that shaped the fate of tens of thousands, as much as through any public action or silence.
Drawing on years of archival research across four countries and three languages, Sacred Betrayal uncovers a gripping and often heartbreaking history of how religious and political leaders navigated the rise of Nazism and the collaborationist Vichy regime. At the heart of the book is a simple but urgent question: How do people make decisions when the world around them is falling apart?
Moving beyond traditional accounts that focus on top French and Nazi officials or heroic resisters, this book opens the doors of churches, synagogues, and government offices to reveal the messy, behind-the-scenes reality of institutional life during genocide. Catholic bishops sent mixed signals, offering private sympathy while remaining publicly silent. Vichy officials made quiet promises they never intended to keep. And Jewish leaders, desperately trying to protect their communities, often placed their hopes in relationships that proved tragically misguided.
But Sacred Betrayal also challenges the idea that Jews were simply victims without agency. Instead, it shows how French Jewish leaders actively resisted Vichy and the Nazis' racial agenda, not by opposing the consequences of antisemitic persecution, but by rejecting the very premise that they constituted a separate race. Many insisted they were French citizens who happened to be Jewish, not racial outsiders: a stance rooted in French republican and Catholic ideals and supported by centuries of civic integration.
Through this lens, Sacred Betrayal sheds new light on how genocide unfolds: through trust, misjudgment, and the quiet erosion of moral certainty, as much as through outright violence. It shows how institutions can blur the line between safety and danger, loyalty and betrayal. And it raises pressing questions about how societies respond to rising hatred today.
This is not just a book of historical sociology. It is a story about power, belief, and the devastating consequences of misplaced faith in the institutions we count on to protect us.
Sacred Betrayal
How the French Catholic Church Broke Its Pledge to Protect Jews During the Holocaust
September 2026, Harvard University Press. Available for pre-order now.
Editorial Reviews
“Uncovering the interpersonal ties that linked the Catholic Church and Jewish organizations in wartime France, Aliza Luft reveals how bishops not only accommodated the Vichy regime but also shaped French Jews' perceptions of risk. Sacred Betrayal is a powerful reminder that, in contexts of extreme violence, institutions matter. A historiographical tour de force.”―Claire Zalc, author of Denaturalized
“A necessary and compelling examination of how the French Catholic Church failed to protect Jews during the Holocaust. Deftly handling the sources, Luft traces how local bishops collaborated with the Vichy regime while also misleading French Jews with false gestures and promises of protection. This important book sheds new light on the troubling reality of misplaced faith in religious institutions and on the incremental radicalization that became the Holocaust in France.”―Wendy Lower, author of Hitler’s Furies
“A compelling and damning history of the French Catholic Church’s complicity in the Holocaust. From its heartrending first pages, Sacred Betrayal shows how the Church assured Jewish citizens of its continued adherence to French republicanism―while at the same time, allying itself with the Vichy regime and abandoning the nation’s unifying values of liberté, égalité, fraternité.”―Christopher C. Gorham, author of Matisse at War
“A powerful account of how the French Catholic Church’s silence and selective interventions during the Holocaust shaped Jewish leaders’ perceptions, decisions, and ultimately survival. This is a major contribution to Holocaust studies and sociology, showing how institutions can generate misguided hope, distort risk, and inhibit collective action.”―Geneviève Zubrzycki, author of Resurrecting the Jew
“In this persuasive and sophisticated study, Aliza Luft shows how the Catholic Church falsely reassured French Jews amid Vichy and Nazi persecution―even as the bishops themselves drifted from silence to sporadic protest to complicity. Withits account of appeals to moral authority, wavering resolve, and the choices behind public silence, Sacred Betrayal complicates the easy binary between resistance and collaboration.”―Anna Grzymała-Busse, author of Sacred Foundations
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