1

A Window into Low-Income Jews in the Marais through the Archives of the Occupation : Precariousness, Expediency, and Uncertain FuturesWithin archives documenting the « economic aryanization » that took place between 1940 and 1944, reports addressed by the head commissioners of the “Service du contrôle des administrateurs provisoires” (SCAP) provides a window into the low-income world of artisans, second-hand goods sellers, itinerant salesmen, tailors, craftsmen and milliners. It is these people who would become the first cohort of prisoners in the camps of the Loiret after the waves of arrests in May 1941, and who would then become the first French victims of deportation to death camps. They also represent whole swathes of the motley world of modest Jews that had been wiped off the map by 1945, a prelude to the rapid disappearance of a home-based industry of recuperation, fabrication and transformation of clothing in the nation’s capital.