Équivoques de l'oubli après Vichy

Abstract

Through a reflection on the ambiguous facets of Holocaust oblivion that has lasted for generations, the article examines how the official politics of memory in France instrumentalized historical oblivion as an ideological tool. To this end, the essay analyzes Fabrice Humbert's 2009 novel, L'Origine de la violence, to examine the essential role of literature in pinpointing the dynamics of memory and forgetting while exploring the ambiguity of oblivion, pardon and reparation. The unveiled family secret is explored as an allegory of the cryptic national history that reflects the amnesia imposed after the Vichy regime (1940-1944) by the “resistancialisme” promulgated in the post-war period in France; amnesia decreed years later by President Georges Pompidou when he pardoned the French war criminal Paul Touvier in 1972. This politics of forgetting comforted a generation of citizens implicated in collaboration during WWII, resulting in conflicts with the younger generations, as portrayed in Humbert's text.