ö 39:3 2010

LISE J AILLANTA Masterpiece Ripped from Oblivion:Rediscovered Manuscripts and theMemory of the Holocaust inContemporary France

"The past, framed by the memory mode, has a value. In oursociety, it has a market value," argues the historian Henry Roussoin The Haunting Past (1998).^ The French obsession with Vichy hascertainly created a demand for novels, testimonies, documentaries,and films exploring the ambiguides of the Occupadon.^ However,as for aH markets, the producers need to innovate in order to avoidexhausdng their consumers' interest.

In September 2004, Denoël released Suite française, an incompletenovel by a writer that few had ever heard of, Irène Némirovsky.Although Némirovsky enjoyed a reladve popularity during theinterwar years, she since had been forgotten. Suite française waspresented as her last writings before being arrested as a statelessJew and deported to Auschwitz, where she died in 1942. Itreceived enthusiasdc reviews, won die presdgious Prix Renaudot,and was translated into EngHsh in 2006.

Némirovsky was still working on Suite française, conceived as afive-part novel, when she was arrested. The pubHshed versionconsists of two noveHas portraying Hfe in France from June 1940,

1. Henry Rousso, iui hantise dupasse: Entretien avec Philippe Petit (Paris: Textuel, 1998),33. Unless otherwise noted, all translations in this essay are mitie.

2. See Henr>' Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since 1944,trans. Arthur Goldhammer (London: Harvard UP, 1991).

360 A Masterpiece Ripped from ObUvion

as Nazi forces prepare to invade Paris, to July 1941, when some ofthe occupying troops leave France to join the assault on the SovietUnion. The work's original preface by Myriam Anissimov describesNémirovsky's association with the anti-Semitic right, detaüs notincluded in the EngUsh language version. At the end of the vol-ume, a series of appendices present Némirovsky's notes as weU asa selection of letters. This correspondence shows her materialdifficulties at a time when some Jews were forbidden to pubUsh^and had their bank accounts frozen. It also contains letters that herhusband Michel Epstein wrote after her arrest, desperatelyappeaUng for her release. The fictional part of the book (whichdoes not mention the situation of Jews) was therefore completedby an emotional account of Némirovsky's hopeless situation.A paraUel story augments her Uterary creation: the story of thepreservation of the book. Indeed, the preface emphasizes the"miraculous" discovery of the manuscript."* Preserved in a suitcasethat Némirovsky's young daughter transported from one hidingplace to another, the manuscript has finaUy been rediscovered afterdecades of obUvion.

FoUowing the international success of Suite française, anotherrediscovered manuscript was pubUshed in January 2008. HélèneBerr's journal was marketed as the poignant daüy writings of ayoung Jewish woman in occupied Paris. A student of EngUshUterature at the Sorbonne, Berr came from an upper middle-classbackground. UnUke Némirovsky, her famuy had been French forgenerations, and she seemed barely aware of her Jewish identitybefore being targeted by the anti-Jewish laws. After the invasion ofFrance, both Némirovsky and Berr remained in the OccupiedZone. Berr stayed in Paris with her parents, whereas Némirovskyand her famuy sought refuge in Issy-l'Évêque, a viUage inBurgundy. Berr was arrested two years after Némirovsky and diedin Bergen-Belsen in 1945. As in the case of Suite française, the

3. In September 1940, the Otto List excluded some Jewish writers from publication.A second Otto List appeared in July 1942. Némirovsky's name does not appear on eitherlist; however, "her books seem to have been taken off the market" several months beforethe second Otto List. Jonathan M. Weiss, Irène Némirovsky: Her Life and Works (Stanford:Stanford UP, 2007), 117. Hereafter cited parenthetically as Weiss.

4. Myriam Anissimov, preface to Suite française, by Irène Némirovsky (Paris: Denoël2004), 23.

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rediscovery of Berr's journal became the focus of sensationaUzedmedia coverage. An EngUsh translation was prompdy scheduledand released at the end of 2008.

In this essay, I wül argue that backstories and artifacts are asimportant as content widi regard to the popularity of theserediscovered writings. As AUce Kaplan puts it, "how would Suitefrançaise have been received without the tragic backstory? Are wecapable of reading fiction anymore without being told somediingpoignant, or sensational, or gratifying about the author?"^ It isstriking that so many reviewers have compared Suite française—awork of fiction that does not mention tiie situation of Jews—toAnne Frank's diary'̂ and, more recendy, Berr's journal.'^ In fact, asthe historian Rod Kedward states. Suite française has been framed asa true account of wartime France rather than a fictional work.^More problematicaUy stul, it has been subsumed under the cate-gory of Holocaust-related books, Uke Berr's journal. It is importantto stress that Némirovsky and Berr had radicaUy different purposesfor their writings: The former created a novel that she hoped toget pubUshed, whüe the latter wrote a personal account for herfiancé. But this essay is concerned with the contemporaryreception of Suite française and Berr's journal, which have bodi beenset in the context of the Holocaust. The text itself cannot beisolated from its packaging and marketing, on the one hand, andfrom its reception, on the other. If rediscovered manuscripts areindeed "masterpieces ripped from obUvion,"' why had they been

5. Alice Kaplan, "Love in the Ruins," The Nation, May 29, 2006,http://www.thenation.com/article/love-ruins (accessed November 1, 2010).

6. "IJke Anne Frank, Irène Némirovsky was unaware of neither her circumstancenor the growing probabilit)' that she might not survive." Sharon Dilworth, "'SuiteFrançaise' by Irène Némirovsky," Pittsburgh Post-Ca^tte, AprU 30, 2006, http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06120/685692-148.stm (accessed November 1, 2010).

7. Carmen Callil compares Berr's diary to Suite française and to Anne Frank's journalin ""We Must Not Forget,"' The Guarâan, November 8, 2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/nov/08/¡ournal-helene-berr-review (accessed November 1,2010). Hereaftercited parenthetically as Callil.

8. Rod Kedward, The Pursuit of Reality: The Némirovsky Effect (Reading: U of ReadingP, 2008), 6-7.

9. Chatto and Windus chose "a masterpiece . . . ripped from oblivion {U Monde)"for the blurb of the 2006 edition of Suite française.

362 A Masterpiece Ripped from Oblivion

forgotten in the first place? How can we account for their delayedpublication?

First, we will examine the changing value of writings bydeported Jews in relation to the memory of World War Two. Howdid these writings, first preserved in a domestic environment,come to be shared witii specialized institutions and then withmainstream publishers? Second, we wiH focus on the publishedtexts, marketed as moving Holocaust stories.

"Hidden Away in Families' Chests of Drawers"

_ Few commentators have noted that Suite française and Berr'sdiar}^ existed in handwritten and typed versions well before theirpublication. Instead, the focus has been on the discovery of manu-scripts unearthed after decades of preservation in the domesticsphere.'O According to the historian Renée Poznanski, Jewishprimary sources that offer an account of the French Occupationare scarce, but "more are probably hidden away in families' chestsof drawers."" Unlike East European Jews, who were often forcedto live in ghettos, French Jews had greater opportunities to interactwidi gentiles. Thus, Berr gave die pages of her diary at regularintervals to the family's cook, with instructions to pass them on toher fiancé, Jean Morawiecki, in case she would be arrested.'^Similarly, in Apru 1942, Némirovsky entrusted her most preciouswritings to the care of André Sabatier, her friend and editor atAlbin Michel. According to her biographers Olivier Philipponnatand Patrick Lienhardt, these "manuscripts, journals, and drafts"

10. As one journalist points out: "After decades of privacy, the famñy [of Hélène Berr]finally made the decision to publish Hélène's writing as a book (a development oddlyparallel to the publication . . . of Suite française, a novel written by Jewish author IrèneNémirovsky during the Nazi occupadon of France, smuggled out by famüy, and justpubHshed now)." Marjorie Kehe, "The Journal of Hélène Berr," The Christian SdenceMonitor, November 11, 2008, http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2008/1111/ die-journal-of-helene-berr (accessed November 1, 2010).

11. Renée Poznanski, Jews in France during Wortd War II, trans. Nathan Bracher(Hanover: Brandeis UP, 2001), xix. Hereafter cited parenthedcally as Poznanski.

12. Mariette Job, "A Stolen Life," \n joumat, by Hélène Berr, trans. David Bellos(London: MacLehose P, 2008), 270-71. Berr's text hereafter cited parenthetically asjoumat, MacLehose.

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remained in Albin Michel's offices untü 2005, when they weredeposited at the Institut Mémoires de l'Edition Contemporaine(IMEC).i3 This deposit also contained a typed copy of Suite

française}"" The original manuscript preserved in a suitcase wastherefore not the only extant version. However, most reviewershave focused on the extraordinary survival of the manuscript,suggesting that, had the suitcase been lost, a masterpiece wouldhave disappeared.

In his biography of Némirovsky, Weiss observes that thetypescript contains "major differences" from the manuscript:"Some chapters are eliminated, some are entirely rewritten. Thereare handwritten corrections in the margins, in both Irene's and herhusband's handwriting" (xüi). But for Denise Epstein, the manu-script seemed more faithful to her mother's intent. ̂ ^ T"he versionpubUshed by Denoël, therefore, was based on the notebook ratherthan on the typed copy.

Indeed, the physical aspect of these rediscovered manuscriptshas been an essential part of the media coverage. That Némirovskywrote Suite française in tiny letters, fearing she was running out ofink and paper, testifies to her difficult material conditions. More-over, Berr's journal is constituted of more than a hundred pagesthat the famüy's employee could easüy hide. In his study of Holo-caust diaries, the literary crific James Young maintains that "even ifnarrative cannot document events, or constitute perfect/ïc/uality, itcan document the ¿zfAiality of writer and text. . . . In some cases,die diaries' physical materiality—as scraps of paper, pieces of wood,or torn handbuls—may even lend these texts the evidentiaryauthority repeated attestations from within the narrative cannot."^''The materiality of the manuscripts bears wimess to the privations

13. Olivier Philipponnat and Patrick Denhardt, La vie d'Irène Némirovsky (Paris:Grasset/Denoël, 2007), 403.

14. Olivier Corpet and Garrett White, eds.. Woman of Utters: Irène Némimvsky andSuitefrançaise (New York: Five Ties, 2008), 39. Hereafter cited parenthetically as Corpet andWhite.

15. Epstein even refused to allow the mistakes in the manuscript to be corrected: "Iwanted them to be the last authentic words from our mother straight out of the suitcase!"Denise Epstein, Survivre et vivre: Entretiens avec Clémence Boulouque (Paris: Denoël, 2008), 140.

16. James E. Young, Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust: Narratives and Consequences ofInterpretation (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1990), 37.

364 A Masterpiece Ripped from ObHvion

of war, thus lending authority to the narradves. It is hardlysurprising that Epstein views the handwritten version of Suitefrançaise as more "authendc" dian the typed copy.

After the war, the possessions of the deportees were returned totheir famiHes. Berr's journal was typed and circulated within thefamüy, with the original manuscript going to Morawiecki." Némi-rovsky's suitcase, which had been deposited with a notary, washanded back to her daughters at dieir legal majority (Corpet andWhite, 35).

To explain the delayed pubHcadons of both texts, most com-mentators have stressed dieir sendmental value together widiprivacy concerns. Mariette Job, Berr's niece, divulges that themanuscript was difficult to read, especiaHy for those who wereclosest to Berr: "For years he [Morawieckx] could only read thetyped copy because her handwridng 'emphasised the cruelty' ofher absence and was Hke a frozen hand reaching out to bim"(Grice). As one reviewer put it, "the famHy (at least some of itsmembers) was not ready for die text to become pubHc: too pain-ful, too indmate."'^ Similar factors have been advanced to explainwhy Suite française remained unpubHshed undl 2004. In a recentinterview, Epstein states that she and her sister, EHsabeth GHle,thought that the notebook containing Suite française "was a personaldiary," an idea that "held [diem] back for a long dme" (Corpet andWhite, 41). The manuscript was associated with hurtfiol memories,Hke any other possessions that belonged to the deceased.Interesfingly, Epstein also notes that she and GiHe were reluctantto pubHsh an incomplete novel that their mother would haveprobably edited (Corpet and White, 43). Yet, die incompletenessof the novel has rarely been discussed. According to the writerPierre AssouHne, in the 1980s GHle told him about her mother'slast novel, which was stiH in a suitcase that she had not dared to

17. Elizabeth Grice, "How the Diaries of Hélène Berr, the 'Anne Frank of France,'Came to Be Published," Daily Telegraph, October 29, 2008, http://www.telegtaph.co.uk/culture/books/3562700/How-the-diaries-of-Helene-Berr-the-Anne-Frank-of-France-came-to-be-published.html (accessed November 1,2010). Hereafter cited parenthetically as Grice.

18. Nathalie Levisalles, "La vie brève," Ubération, December 20, 2007,http://www.liberation.fr/livres/0101118148-la-vie-breve (accessed November 1,2010).Hereafter cited parenthetically as Levisalles.

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open.' ' Of course, both Epstein and Güle knew about themanuscript's existence weU before the 1980s.20 Rather than anunfinished novel, reviewers have often perceived Suite française as adiary Unked to painful memories.

In the immediate postwar period, Albin Michel and the famuywere probably aU the more reluctant to release an incomplete workbecause Némirovsky's other novels did not seU weU. NicholasHewitt's remarks on the ecUpse of Louis-Ferdinand CéUne'sUterary reputation after 1945 could equaUy be appUed to Némi-rovsky: "T'o the readers of the 1950s, he may have appeared tobelong to a Uterar}^ generation that ended with the Liberation,appearing mannered and outdated in the post war era. . . . TheLiberation marked an important cultural dividing Une, whichwould remain in place for decades."-'

Némirovsky's style certainly seemed outdated after 1945. AlbinMichel released only three previously unpubUshed works after theLiberation: a biography of Anton Chekhov, La vie de Tchékhov(1946) and two novels written just before her deportation—Lesbiens de ce monde (1947) and Les feux de l'automne (1957). A 1946réédition of Le pion sur l'échiquier contains no preface orinformation about Némirovsky, apart from a Ust of her pubUshedworks.

However, the biography of Chekhov includes a foreword byJean-Jacques Bernard, the son of the famous playwright TristanBernard and a writer himself. Jean-Jacques Bernard had been sentto the camp of RoyaUieu-Compiégne in December 1941 and wasreleased in March 1942. In 1944, Albin Michel pubUshed hisaccount of the camp.22 In his foreword, Bernard extensivelycomments on Némirovsky's tragic fate: "Born in the East, Irene

19. Pierre Assouline, "La revanche posthume d'Irène Némirovsky," La république des ¡ivres,http://passouline.blog.lemonde.fr/2007/10/16/la-revanche-posthume-direne-nemirovsky(accessed December 12, 2010).

20. Angela Kershaw, Before Auschwitz Irène Némirovsky and the Cultural I-^ndscape of Inter-War France (New York: Roudedge, 2010), 1. Hereafter cited parenthetically as BeforeAuschwitz

21. Nicholas Hewitt, "Céline: The Success of the Monstre Sacré m Postwar France,"Substance 32.3 (2003): 36.

22. Jean-Jacques Bernard, Le camp de la mort lente (Paris: Albin Michel, 1944).

366 A Masterpiece Ripped from ObUvion

Némirovsky went back to the East to die."^^ Colored by Bernard'sown experience of anti-Semitic persecution, this foreword focuseson Némirovsky as a victim of Nazi brutaUty, rather than on theactual content of the book—Chekhov's Ufe and work.

In fact, there was not enough demand for Holocaust-related booksafter 1945. The histodan Annette Wieviorka points out that, althoughmany deportees' writings were pubUshed in France immediately afterthe war, this mass testimony came to an end very quickly. UnlikeWorld War One veterans who could count on a vast market ofandens combattants, the deportees had difficulties finding enoughreaders for their memoirs.^'* Bernard's Le camp de la mort lente (1944)was not reedited until 2006, and Némirovsky was soon forgotten.

Indeed, in aU the studies pubUshed before 2000 that I haveconsulted, Némirovsky is never mentioned.^s As Angela Kershawputs it, even feminist critics of the "second wave" had no reasonto become interested in novels characterized by "traditionaUstrepresentations of gender roles and the lack of any obviousnarrative experimentation or self-refiexivity" {Before Auschwitz 186).Grasset and Albin Michel reedited some of Némirovsky's novels inthe 1980s and 1990s, without much success.2<5 Moreover, Weissnotes that "from 1937 until 2006 (with the exception of a biog-raphy of Anton Chekhov, translated in 1950), no works by IrèneNémirovsky have appeared in EngUsh" (9).

In 1992, Gille pubUshed Le mirador {The watchtower), a fiction-aUzed memoir of her mother. It was reprinted in 2000, along with

23. Jean-Jacques Bernard, foreword to A Ufe of Chekhov, by Irène Némirovsky, trans.Erik de Mauny (London: Grey Walls, 1950), 6.

24. Annette Wieviorka, Déportation et génoáde: Entre la mémoire et l'oubli (Paris: Pion,1992), 168. Hereafter cited parenthetically as Déportation.

25. Wieviorka does mention the Frenay Commission, which shortly after the war, wasin charge of tracing famous people who had been deported—including MauriceHalbwachs and Némirovsky {Déportation, 49). But Wieviorka later notes that "there wereno major writers among the deportees" (168), and she does not examine Némirovsky'scase.

26. After reediting David Golder in 1967, Grasset introduced Némirovsky in itscollection Us cahiers rouges ^xh Le ¿a/(1985 and 1993), David Golder {y^iG), hes mouchesd'automne (1988) and L'affaire Courilof{\990). Albin Michel reedited Us chiens et les loups(1988), Lí vin de la solitude (1988), La vie de Tchékhov (1989), and U proie (1992). Gallimardalso reedited L'enfant prodige (1992).

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a release of Némirovsky's selected short stories. GiUe, who hadbeen working as an editor and translator before her prematuredeath in 1996, was instrumental in the rehabilitation of her mother.Her position in the publishing business not only ensured publicityto her work, but also put her in contact with an institution thatcould "rip her mother out of oblivion": the IMEC, an organizationin charge of preserving and publicizing the manuscripts of modernand contemporary writers.^^

Indeed, institutions have played the role of the middlemanbetween the family and mainstream publishers and between theprivate and the public sphere. The director of the IMEC energet-ically advocated for the publication of Suite française and laterorganized an exhibition of the manuscript and suitcase in partner-ship with the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York (Corpetand White, 42).^^ Likewise, the Centre de Documentation JuiveContemporaine (CDJC) was instrumental in the publication ofBerr's journal. In 2002, Mariette Job went to the Mémorial de laShoah—^where the CDJC is housed-^with the intention of makingher aunt's manuscript available to researchers, and thus Berr'sjournal was displayed in the permanent exhibition. In 2008, thediary was published by Tallandier, an imprint with close links to theMémorial de la Shoah.^' This institution has continued to publicizethe journal by recendy organizing a special exhibition on Berr'stragic life.3'' Moreover, an archivist from the CDJC gave a speechwhen the City of Paris decided to rename a library after Berr.^'

27. Olivier Corpet, director and cofounder of the IMEC, writes: "I wish especially toremember Elisabeth Gille, Denise Epstein's sister, thanks to whom I first met Denise andcame to know the work of Irène Némirovsky" (Corpet and White, 159).

28. Némirovsky's manuscript was displayed as part of a temporary exhibidon at theMuseum of Jewish Heritage (September 24, 2008-August 30, 2009).

29. Michel Laffitte's juif dans ta France attemande was published in 2006 by Tallandierwith the support of the Fondadon pour la Mémoire de la Shoah (a trust that funds 80percent of the Mémorial de la Shoah's budget). In Februar)' 2007, the Mémorialorganized a launch evening for Laffitte's book, attended byjob and members of the Berrfamily. Following this evening. Job persuaded her family to agree to the publication ofthe journal, and contacts were made with Tallandier (Levisalles).

30. "Hélène Berr: Une vie confisquée," Mémorial de la Shoah, November 10, 2009-March31,2010.

31. Karen Taïeb, "Intervendon de Karen Taïeb relative à la dénomination Hélène Berrà la bibliothèque Picpus" (speech. Croupe PSRCA Paris, Aprü 1, 2010),

368 A Masterpiece Ripped from Oblivion

It is striking that both Némirovsky's and Berr's manuscriptshave been displayed in Holocaust museums. Peter Novick suggeststhat Holocaust remnants are invested with a religious aura: "Thefetishized objects" are displayed "Mke so many fragments of theTrue Cross or shin bones of saints."-'^ The permanent exhibition atthe Mémorial de la Shoah thus presents selected parts of Berr'smanuscript, including her reaction after wearing the Yeüow Starfor the first time, as weü as her quote from Wüliam Shakespeare'sMacbeth—"Horror! Horror! Horror!" (2.3.64)—that constitutes thelast words of the published version and reportedly the last entry ofher journal (262). These pages are displayed along with a smilingpicture of Berr and a penknife. A notice inside the museum displaycase explains that "according to the testimony of other inmates,Hélène exchanged her bread for a pocket knife to cut needles inwooden boards to knit, by pulling threads out of thin covers."Morawiecki then gave the knife to Job. This narration of extremedestitution and suffering, therefore, is juxtaposed to a stor)' offamilial transmission. As Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer note intheir study of Holocaust traces, "such remnants carry memorytraces from the past. . . but they also embody the very process of itstransmission."^^ The exhibition frames the memory embodied bythese "testimonial objects" with a narrative of pain and martyrdom.

The aura of the original manuscript also extends to the objectsand persons closely associated with it. Thus, the suitcase thatcontained the manuscript oí Suite française has become, in Epstein'swords, "a cult object," a reliquary at the center of the exhibitionorganized in New York (Corpet and White, 35). Of course, thesuitcase is a potent symbol of departure, separation, and uprooting.The Random House edition covers of Suite française picture a suit-case next to a couple seemingly on the verge of being separated.

http://www.groupe-psrga-paris.fr/intervention-de-karen-taieb-relative-a-la-denomination-helene-berr-a-la-bibliotheque-picpus.html (accessed December 12, 2010).

32. Peter Novick, The Holocaust and Collective Memory: The American Experience (London:Bloomsbury, 1999), 11. It should be noted that manuscripts are exhibited in any exhibi-tion dedicated to a writer. However, the fact that Berr's and Némirovsky's manuscriptshave been displayed in Holocaust museums frames them not only as literary masterpiecesbut also as Holocaust remnants.

33. Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer, "Testimonial Objects: Memory, Gender, andTransmission," Poetics Today 27.2 (2006): 355, emphasis in original.

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The cover of the EngHsh language edidon of Weiss's biography ofNémirovsky also shows a suitcase, which seems to have beenabandoned on a cobblestone street.̂ "* Moreover, Young gives theexample of the arfifacts displayed at the Auschwitz museum:"Great bins . . . hold the suitcases of vicdms, who were ordered towrite their names and birthdates on them before their deportafionto the camp. They appear now as self-inscribed epitaphs."-'^

The suitcase can symboHze the eternit)' of memor)^ throughfiHadon and heritage. Thus, Epstein gave her mother's suitcase toher own daughter, "who had nothing that had belonged to hergrandparents" (Corpet and White, 35). Here, the suitcase carriesnot only material possessions, but also the memory of Némirovskyfrom one generadon to the next. Epstein, who says her fatherentrusted her with the care of the suitcase, presents herself as theguardian of this heritage. Similarly, Eva Hoffman has writtenabout the legacy left by her Holocaust-survivor parents: "I was thedesignated carrier for the cargo of awesome knowledge transferredto me by my parents, and its burden had to be transported care-fuHy, with aH the iterated accounts HteraHy intact."^*" Entrustedwith the duty to "carry" their parents' legacy, the secondgenerafion is transfigured into guardians of memory, whose voiceis carried by Jewish insdtudons.

Indeed, both the CDJC and the Museum of Jewish Heritageoffer a framework through which to read the manuscripts. Berrand Némirovsky's writings are presented as "Holocaust stories," astragic tales left by Jewish women before their exterminafion(Corpet and White, 15). However, this labeling is highly problem-

34. It should be noted that many books on the Holocaust, fictional and nonfictional,feature suitcases on their cover. See, for instance, Lillian Boraks-Nemetz's young adultnovel about a Polish gid who escapes the Warsaw ghetto during Wodd War Two, The OldBrown Suitcase: A Teenager's Story of War and Peace (Vancouver: Ronsdale, 2008).

35. James E. Young, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning (NewHaven:YaleUP, 1993), 133.

36. Eva Hoifmin, After Such Knowledge (London: Seeker and Warburg, 2004), 14. LisaAppignanesi, whose parents survived persecutions in wartime Poland, also writes: "Myparents and their friends only talked of their great good luck. If the baggage they carriedwith them was weighty with loss, they were still prepared to trade it in for the future."Using the Dead (London: Vintage, 2000), 21.

370 A Masterpiece Ripped from ObUvion

atic. Can the term "Holocaust" quaUfy Suite française and Berr'sjournal, texts written before what became known as the Holocaust?

PubUshing and Marketing Holocaust Stories

Despite a career that spans from 1929 to 1942, Némirovsky hasbecome inseparable from the Holocaust. Even Kershaw, whosebook attempts to study Némirovsky "before Auschwitz," contendsthat it is "both important and valuable to recognize Némirovsky'sidentity as an Occupation writer, as a Holocaust writer, and as aUterary success of the twenty-first century" {Before Auschwitz 171).UnUke the authors Primo Levi or EUe Wiesel, Némirovsky survivedonly one month at Auschwitz and has left no written account ofthe Nazi camp. Moreover, there is no reference to Jews and anti-Semitic persecution in Suite française. According to the critic Chris-topher Lloyd, Némirovsky's own "stigmatized condition" was toopainful to contemplate: "Writing about invented characters seenwith a sort of amused disdain aUowed her temporarüy to escapeher own sense of entrapment."^'^ Furthermore, Weiss suggests thatduring the war, Némirovsky was "trying to have her cultural identity[as a French writer] recognized as a national identity" and concen-trated on characters who had been French for generations (172).

The label "Holocaust writer" is aU the more problematic sinceNémirovsky had a complex relationship with her Jewishness andwrote for right-wing, anti-Semitic periodicals in the 1930s and1940s. Kershaw contends that EngUsh and American readers havefound those issues more puzzUng than the French have. Forinstance, Ruth FrankUn's violent attack against Némirovsky inJanuary 2008 finds no paraUel in the French press.^^ AlthoughKershaw's point is perfectly vaUd for the mainstream press inFrance, I would add that the French Jewish community has showna far more ambiguous attitude toward Némirovsky. On the onehand, Epstein, who defines herself as a post-Shoah Jew, has

37. Christopher Lloyd, "Irene Némirovsky's Suite française and the Crisis of Rights andIdentity," Contemporary French Civilisation S'i .2 (2007): 168.

38. Ruth Franklin, "Scandale Française: The Nasty Truth about a New LiteraryHeroine," The New Republic, January 30, 2008, http://www.tnr.com/article/books/scandale-française (accessed November 1, 2010).

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repeatedly observed that her mother was not the only Jewishwriter to pubUsh in right-wing journals (Corpet and White, 46).Epstein remembers her mother as a Jewish victim, Uke theorganizers of the New York exhibition who claim that"Némirovsky's sense of herself as a Jew and the way she behavedunder exceptional circumstances may have had ambiguouselements, but there was no ambiguity in the way she was perceivedby her enemies or in the nature of her tiltimate fate" (15). In short,"Némirovsky's story is indisputably a Holocaust story" (15). Onthe other hand, many French Jews have voiced their uneasetoward Némirovsky and her works. For instance, the Museum ofArt and History of Judaism in Paris has refused to host thesuccessful exhibition initiaüy opened in New York. In 2008, itsdirector justified her decision by accusing Némirovsky of self-hatred {detestation à soi) .^' Since other museums shared the samereticence, the exhibition of the manuscript and suitcase has so farnever been shown in France.

In fact, Némirovsky's aüeged anti-Semitism does not seem tohave been discussed before Myriam Anissimov's preface to theFrench edition of Suite française. As Kershaw points out, "the factthat Myriam Anissimov, herself a Jewish writer and the child ofHolocaust survivors, wrote the preface defines the text in terms ofJewish memory" {Before Auschwitz 188)."*° The preface and theappendices set the text in the context of the persecution of theJews, while the novel itself remains suent on the Jews' situation.Indeed, the paratext tends to subsurne the novel under the Holo-caust diary genre. In the absence of a real diary, the notes andletters give an account of Némirovsky's difficulties, week after week,month after month. Némirovsky's letters form a "compassionate

t"''̂ with the readers, who are incited to share the author's

39. François Dufay, "L'offense faite à Irène," L'express, September 18, 2008,http://www.lexpress.fr/culture/livre/l-offense-faite-a-irene_823047.html (accessedNovember 1,2010).

40. In 1985, Myriam Anissimov inter\'iewed Epstein and Gille for Grasset's rereleaseof some of Némirovsky's works and then wrote a lengthy article in the newspaper Umatin (Corpet and White, 43). She was also instrumental in the publication of Suite française(44).

4L Annette Wieviorka, The Era of the Witness, trans. ]axed Stark (Ithaca: Cornell UP,2006), 143.

372 A Masterpiece Ripped from Oblivion

growing despair and fear of deportation with the hindsight of herterrible fate. This retrospective reading is confirmed by a notefrom the translator: "Irène Némirovsky died at Auschwitz on17 August 1942, a fact which makes the correspondence thatfollows this date even more poignant."''2 We are therefore invitedto read Michel Epstein's desperate attempts to obtain his wife'sliberation knowing she has already died. This hindsight frames ourreading in terms of tragedy, in the classic sense of a character whovainly struggles against fate. This is precisely the function of theappendices: The constant references to the dates act as ashortening of time—we know that Némirovsky does not havelong to Uve, we know that her husband struggles vainly—intensifying the emotion of the reading. Instead of a novel on theFrench Occupation, we are given to read a "Holocaust story": thestory of a brilliant writer unable to escape her tragic destiny.

The success of Suite française in Britain and the United Statesseems to have surpassed aU expectations for a work in translation.As Kershaw notes, "the novel entered The Bookseller's Top 20 orig-inal fiction chart at number 13 in the week ending 4 March 2006.It remained there until the week ending 20 May, hitting its highestposition (number 2) in the week ending 1 April."''^ Moreover, theFrench editions have sold more than 582,000 copies since 2004.'*''It seems doubtful that Suitefrançaise would have become such abestseller without the skillful marketing campaign. But manyreviewers have also emphasized the uterary quality of Némirovsky'slast novel. Despite the absence of persecuted Jews, Suitefrançaisedoes not shy away from violence and injustice. The first chapter,entitied "War," describes the terror of an air raid in Paris: "StiU atsome distance, great guns were firing; they drew nearer, and everywindow shuddered in reply. In hot rooms with blacked-out win-dows, children were born, and their cries made the women forget

42. Irène Némirovsky, Suitefrançaise, trans. Sandra Smith (New York: Knopf: 2006),377. Hereafter cited parenthedcally as SF, Knopf.

43. Angela Kershaw, "Sociology of Literature, Sociologj' of Translation: The Recep-don of Irène Némirovsky's Suitefrançaise in France and Britain," Transtation Studies 3.1(2010): 6.

44. The Denoël hardback edidon and the Folio paperback edition have sold morethan 334,000 copies since September 2004 for the former, and more than 248,000 copiessince March 2005 for the latter. Edistat, http://www.edistat.com/ (accessed April 10,2010).

Lisejaiüant 373

the sound of sirens and war" {SF, Knopf, 4). Although the Englishtranslation does not convey the same mannered style—"des chambreschaudes où on avait calfeutré les fenêtres afin qu'aucune lumière ne filtrât au-dehors"is translated as the more efficient "hot rooms with blacked-out windows"—the antagonisms between destruction and horroron the one side, and life and beauty on the other, give a sense of acivilization in chaos. Considering tbat SuitefiançaisevjAS publishedin the United States a few months after the 2005 urban riots inFrance, it is hardly surprising that The New York Times chose thisextract to ulustrate a review enfided "As France Burned.'"*^

Like Suite française, Berr's journal has been marketed as a tragicHolocaust story, with Berr often compared with Anne Frank, whoalso died at Bergen-Belsen in 1945. The photo on the cover of theEnglish language edition shows a smiling young woman at the top,contrasting with a picture of German troops at the bottom. Thiscoüage frames our reading of the diary, suggesting a conflictbetween good and evü, between a defenseless girl and an army ofbrutes. The paraüel with Anne Frank is particularly obvious in theFrench edition, with the insert of photos and extracts referring tohappy moments. The vocabulary conveys a sense of a youngwoman fuü of life: "irreal beauty of this summer day atAubergenvüle," "I feel enchanted," "everyone was happy.'"*"̂Therefore, many commentators have defined the diary as "anuplifting book" (Caüü).

The comparison with Anne Frank's diary is enlightening,considering that Otto Frank and the first pubUshers edited thediary "to create a girl who was in many ways the perfect 'victim.'Not only was she young and female, but also 'innocent,'"

45. Paul Gray, "As France Burned," The New York Times, April 9, 2006,http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/books/review/09gray.html?ex=1302235200&en=efa79839c42f4089&ei=5088 (accessed November 1,2010). Hereafter cited parenthet-ically as Gray. The image of France burning was a leitmotif in the English-speaking pressin late 2005. See Doug Ireland, "Why Is France Burning?" The Nation, November 9,2005,http://www.thenation.com/article/why-france-buming (accessed November 1,2010); orDavid Ignatius, "Why France Is Burning," The Washington Post, November 9, 2005,http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/ll/08/AR2005110801106.html (accessed November 1, 2010).

46. Hélène Berr,Jí)»n;a/(Paris: Tallandier, 2008), insert. Hereafter dted parentheticallyas Journal, Tallandier.

374 A Masterpiece Ripped from ObHvion

maintains Tim Cole.'*^ Although Berr's original manuscript is notavailable to researchers, I was able to consult a scanned copy at theCDJC. This digital copy shows few correcfions or crossing-outs. Itis almost idendcal to the pubHshed version. It seems that theTaHandier edidon was, as Mariette Job claims, an unedited copy ofthe original. But as the manuscript is composed of separate pages,it is impossible to be sure that the version available for pubHcadonrepresents aH of Berr's wrifings during the Occupafion.

A close reading of the journal shows us a complex youngwoman, far from the image of a "perfect 'vicfim.'" The first part ofthe diary reads as the naive confession of a marriageable girl. HerHfe seems untouched by the war, as she leads the leisurely Hfe of aprivileged Parisian student. A change occurs in June 1942 whenshe is forced to wear the yeHow star.̂ ^ In this frequendy quotedextract, she teHs of her sense of humiHafion: "This morning I wentout with Maman. In the street two boys pointed at us and said:'Eh? You seen that? Jew.' Otherwise things went normaHy. . . . Iset off again for the Sorbonne. Another working-class womansmiled at me on the métro. It brought tears to my eyes" {Joumal,MacLehose, 54).

For this upper middle-class young woman, wearing the yeHowstar is conceived of as an exclusion from her comfortable socialbackground. Meedng with friends at the Sorbonne, she describestheir embarrassment and her own "crucifixion": "I suffered there,in the sunHt Sorbonne courtyard, among my comrades" {Joumal,MacLehose, 56). The Chrisfian references are omnipresent in thejournal,'*^ which refiects her lack of self-consciousness as a Jew.Like Anne Frank, Berr seems barely aware of her Jewish idendtybefore being sfigmafized by the anfi-Semific laws. As Margaret-Anne Hutton argues, "this imposifion of idenfity" "served tostrengthen, and in some case create, an imagined

47. Tim Cole, Selling the Holocaust (New York: Roudedge, 1999), 29.48. "Ordinance no. eight from the German military command in France was signed

on May 29, 1942, and announced on June 1. It ordered all Jews over the age of six tohave a Jewish star sewn solidly to their clothing" (Poznanski, 238).

49. For instance, "the great law of Christ saying that all men are brothers and allshould share and relieve the suffering of their feUow-men was ignored" {Journal,MacLehose, 260).

50. Margaret-Anne Hutton, Testimony from the Na^ Camps: French Women's Voices

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Slowly awaking to her new pariah status, Berr makes thecontroversial choice of working for the Union Générale desIsraéUtes de France (UGIF). This Jewish organization was createdin 1941 at the initiative of Xavier VaUat, the Vichy Commissionerfor Jewish Affairs (Poznanski, 132).5* As aU Jews were required tobelong to it, the UGIF acted as legal intermediary between theGerman Occupation authorities, the Vichy government, and theJewish population. Employees of the UGIF were, at least at thebeginning, protected from arrests and deportations.^^ But thisprivUeged status was soon brought to an end. In November 1943,after describing the arrest of aU her coUeagues, Berr reflects on herchoice of being involved in the UGIF: "People caUed us coUab-orators, because those who came to see us had just had a relativearrested, and it was natural that they should react that way whenthey saw us sitting behind desks. . . . Why did I accept the job? Tobe able to do something, to come as close as I could to misfortune.We did aU we could to assist the internees" {Journal, MacLehose,210-11).

Here, Berr seems to have grown into a mature young womanwho rationaUy defends her choice pf working for an ambiguousinstitution. She speaks as a representative of her coUeagues, manyof whom have been süenced by deportation. But neither thepubUsher of her journal nor the media have been wiUing to discussthis controversial choice. Instead, Berr appears as an innocentvictim, who volunteered to help the chUdren of internees and evenmanaged to rescue some of them. Indeed, Berr, who initiaUyworked as a volunteer social worker at the UGIF to assistinternees and their famiUes, then became secretary of the Entr'aideTemporaire. This clandestine organization created in February1941 helped to save some Jewish children by sending them to thefree zone (Laffitte,/»^ 239-40). However, Berr and her mother.

(]:.ondon: Roudedge, 2005), 177, 208.51. For further discussion on the role of the UGIF, see Michel Laffitte, Un engrenage

fatal {Paris: Liana l.xvi, 2003).52. The first cards, which protected against arrests, were distributed to UGIF

employees in the occupied zone on July 6,1942. The same day, Berr became a volunteerfor the UGIF. Michel Laffitte, Juif dans la France allemande: Institutions, dirigeants etcommunautés au temps de la Shoah (Paris: Tallandier, 2006), 154. Hereafter citedparenthetically as Laffitte, JAJ/^

376 A Masterpiece Ripped from ObUvion

Antoinette seem to have played only a modest role in thisorganization.53 j ^ jier journal, Berr does not mention anyclandestine activities—perhaps to protect her coUeagues at theEntr'aide Temporaire.

Both Berr and Némirovsky are therefore defined first by theirJewishness and second by their defenseless status as huntedwomen. I have shown how this Jewish labeUng is problematic,considering Berr and Némirovsky's ambiguity toward their Jewish-ness.^'' Yet, members of the second generation have often memor-iaUzed their parents as unambiguously Jewish. The fact that Jobdeposited her aunt's manuscript with the Mémorial de la Shoahhas subsumed her famüy's memories under the coUective memoryof the "Holocaust in France."

Némirovsky and Berr are also defined by their gender, anessential part of their victimized status. Indeed, the deportation ofwomen seems even more unbearable than the persecution of men.After Némirovsky's arrest in July 1942, Michel Epstein was sodesperate that he planned to volunteer for deportation in exchangefor the release of his wife.̂ ^ According to Rousso, "no society canaccept without extraordinary transgressions an attack on the prin-ciple of fiUation."56 Whereas it was usual to see men beingarrested, sent to war, or interned in prisoners of war camps, athreshold was reached in June 1942 when Jewish women andchildren started being arrested. Thus, the identities of Berr andNémirovsky are constructed, in Zoë Waxman's phrase, "on thebasis of roles such as 'mother,' 'caregiver,' 'daughter.'"" Theassociation with chudren is especially important: Whereas Berr

53. Antoinette Berr collected funds for the Entr'aide temporaire. But she and herdaughter do not seem to have accompanied children to the free zone. See Céline Marrot,"Les enfants cachés pendant la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale" (master's thesis. Universitéde Versailles Saint Quentin en YveUnes, 1998).

54. Berr and Némirovsky did not define themselves as Jews. However, their attitudestoward Jewishness were different. Berr was not religious, but unlike Némirovsky, she didnot criticize Jews. Némirovsky converted to Catholicism in 1939 (see Weiss, 171).

55. Epstein to André Sabatier, letter dated September 19, 1942, qtd. in Weiss, 166.56. Denis M. Provencher, "Entretien avec Henr}' Rousso: Un regard actuel sur

l'importance de la Shoah en France," Contemporary French Civilisation 31.2 (2007): 298.57. Zoë Vania Waxman, Writingthe Holocaust: Identity, Testimony, Representation {

Oxford UP, 2006), 150.

Lise Jaillant : 377

"saved children," Némirovsky had two young girls who were leftbehind after their mother's deportation.^^ Similarly, Anne Frank ismemorialized as a daughter and as an innocent child victim.

The success of rediscovered manuscripts is due not only to therevival of interest for female victims of the Holocaust and to theactive role of the second generation, but also to the way publishedversions have been positioned within the uterary field. PierreBourdieu has famously distinguished between the "field of large-scale production," profit-motivated cultural production, and the"field of restricted production," in which a work of art is defined byaesthetic and intellectual characteristics as opposed to commercialones.^' Drawing on Bourdieu, Kershaw contends that Némirovskycan be located around the midpoint of the axis that opposes thetwo fields (Before Auschwit;^ 28). A commerciaUy successful writerwhose novels were serialized in mass market reviews, Némirovskywas also viewed as a writer of serious fiction.

Némirovsky's position in the French literary field of the 1930s isparalleled by her current position in the global field of culturalproduction—more than sixty years after her death. On the onehand. Suite française aims at an inteUectual audience eager forsymboUc capital and, on the otiier, to a mass audience wiUing tobuy a tragic Holocaust story. Random House issued the novelunder two imprints, Chatto and Windus in the United Kingdomand Knopf in North America. Botii are literary publishing housesweU known for tiieir finely translated fiction. Furthermore, theKnopf version is printed on quality paper with trimmed pages,using a type designed by "Pierre Simon Fournier lefeune," whopublished "his Manuel typographique" in 1764 and 1766 {SF, Knopf,colophon). The retention of the French—in the tide as weU as inthe colophon—gives prestige to Némirovsky's last writings. Mostimportantiy, the endpapers reproduce the tiny handwriting ofNémirovsky's manuscript. The published version, therefore, draws

58. Appendix II of ..W/«/ra«fawe includes several postwar letters fromJulieDumot, theguardian of the two girls, asking Albin Michel for money. Once again, the tragicbackstory is incorporated into the book.

59. Pierre Bourdieu, The Fietd ofCutturat Production: Essays on Art and Literature, trans.Randal Johnson (New York: Columbia UP, 1993), 53. Hereafter cited parenthetically asBourdieu.

378 A Masterpiece Ripped from Oblivion

on die aura of the manuscript and on the backstory of therediscovered suitcase.'^''

The New York r//;??é'j-acknowledges this uneasy combination of aliterary work of fiction with a sensational background story: "Froma purely aesthetic standpoint, the back story of Suite française isirrelevant to the true business of criticism. But most readers don'tview books from such Olympian heights, and neither, for thatmatter, do most critics. . . . In truth. Suite française can stand up tothe most rigorous and objective analysis, whüe a knowledge of itshistory heightens the wonder and awe of'reading it" (Gray). Here,the journalist states that the literary work can impose itself throughits unique aesthetic qualities (what Bourdieu caüs the "work-of-art-as-fetish" [258]) and that the backstory is simply an interesting, butunessential, addition to an exceptional work.

Hélène Berr's journal occupies a simüar positioning, halfway onthe axis opposing symbolic capital (recognition of die literary qual-ities by a restricted audience) to temporal capital and mass-scalesuccess. The French edition contains a preface by Patrick Modiano,a renowned literary writer whose novels often highlight theambiguities of the Occupation. Modiano emphasizes the literarytalent of Berr: "She was deeply infiuenced by English poetry andliterature, and she would undoubtedly have become as delicate awriter as Kadierine Mansfield" {Journal, Taüandier, 8).^! Of course,nobody can know what Berr would have become had she survivedthe war. In her journal, she shows admiration for writers such asPaul Valéry, but she never expresses any ambition to publish herwork. In fact, presenting Berr as an exceptional writer participatesin die "'charismatic' ideology which is the ultimate basis of beliefin the value of a work of art" (Bourdieu, 76). As in the case oi Suitefrançaise, tiie story of the discovery of Berr's journal has contrib-uted to the mass-scale success of the book.

As far as writing is concerned, the young Hélène Berr had littlein common with the experienced woman of letters that was Irène

60. The Denoël edition also reproduces a page of Némirovsky's manuscript. Similarly,the Tallandier edition of Berr's journal contains a facsimile of her diary.

61. In the preface to the English version, d:ie translator David Bellos also notes thatBerr "wrote with a clear-headed, elegant and heartrendingly beautiful account of adescent to hell" (Journal, MacLehose, 5).

Lisejaülant 379

Némirovsky in the early 1940s. Yet, in the twenty-first century,their final wridngs have been posidoned as Holocaust-relatedbooks—appeaHng both to a highbrow audience and the massmarket. Without the fascinadng story of these manuscripts rippedfrom obHvion, it is doubtful that either Suite française or Berr'sjournal would have met with the same success. In January 2009,the French pubHsher Stock reedited the journal of JacqueHneMesnH-Amar, a Parisian Jewish woman who wrote about herdespair after the arrest and deportafion of her husband. Thisreedidon contains a preface by Pierre AssouHne, who occupies asimilar posifion in the Hterary field as Modiano.i^^ ̂ g t^g ^^^ ^j^jfirst been pubHshed in 1957 (without success), there was no back-story of a rediscovered manuscript. Despite the presfigious imprintand the preface by a renowned writer, die new edifion of MesnH-Amar's diary was a reladve failure.^^ SimHarly, the absence of asensadonal backstor)»^ might explain why the reedidons ofNémirovsky's novels in the 1980s and 1990s did not meet a largeaudience. The acfive role of the second generafion was enoughto get Némirovsky back into print—but insufficient to ensuremass-market appeal. In other words. Suite française and Berr'sjournal exemplify the importance of paratextual elements in theproducdon of internafional bestseHers.

University of British ColumbiaVancouver, British Columbia, Canada

62. Like Modiano, Assouline is published by Gallimard, and he has written aboutWorld War Two in France.

63. Around six thousand copies of Jacqueline Mesnil-Amar's diary have been soldsince January 2009. This should be compared to the success of Hélène Berr's joumal: TheTallandier edition has sold approximately 93,000 copies since January 2008, and thepaperback edition, around 51,000 copies since May 2009. These figures are for theFrench editions only. Edistat, http://www.edistat.com/ (accessed April 10, 2010).

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