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Historian: “French Jewry was falsely accused of abandoning Dreyfus” |
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PARIS (EJP)--- In 1894 Captain Alfred Dreyfus, the highest ranking Jewish military officer in the French army at the time, was imprisoned after being accused of passing secrets to the German embasssy in Paris. The conviction was exposed as an anti-Semitic plot by activists such as writer Emile Zola, who wrote an open letter to the President Felix Faure with the famous headline J’accuse. Finally, in 1906, Dreyfuss was exonerated of his charges and allowed back in the army.
As France marks the 100th anniversary of the captain’s rehabilitation Professor Pascal Ory of the Sorbonne University discusses the Dreyfus affair.
EJP: Bernard Lazare and Emile Zola are celebrated as Dreyfus’s greatest defenders but Alfred Dreyfus was often accused of not fighting hard enough. Are these accusations justified?
Pascal Ory: Dreyfus was a symbol but the man himself didn’t interest many historians. It is only recently that we started studying his attitude. A biography of the captain by Vincent Duclert* was published this year and we learn by reading it that the captain was a pure product of the Republic. He was a rationalist; he battled against passion and was regarded as cold next to his passionate defenders.
Alfred Dreyfus was very affected by the affair but he avoided showing his feelings. He was criticised for his attitude but it was a pure product of his generation. He was secular, rationalist and when he became the victim of injustice he thought that the truth would impose itself naturally.
This reasoning may seem idealist today but when you look things through you realise that his expectations ended up happening. At the end of the affair and in a rather complicated way his innocence was finally recognised.
Dreyfus was alone at first. He was shocked and surprised by the accusations against him.
He proved he was purely rational when he refused to use the gun handed to him by an officer. The officer told him to commit suicide but the captain refused to do so. His personal battle started off there. We know today, after examining his letters to his wife and brother, that Dreyfus did fight for himself. This was unknown, even to many of those who fought for him. He was the best republican.
EJP: What did his battle consist of?
Pascal Ory: He refused to be defeated. He said clearly and continuously that he was innocent. He encouraged his family and friends to keep on defending him.
You have to remember that at the beginning he was all alone. No one imagined that the army headquarters forged documents and created false evidence to accuse him.
The civil justice was truly remarkable. Precisely a century ago the civil judges, some of which may have been anti-Semitic, made their decision. They rationally studied the evidence and decided to discharge him.
There is nothing remarkable in the fact that his family defended him but what is impressive is that many non-Jews battled for him. Many of them anti-Semitic but this didn’t keep them from defending him.
The Dreyfusards wouldn’t have triumphed without the gentiles that defended him, such as lieutenant colonel Geoges Picquart.
That’s the interesting part. It gives us important information on their society and on ours.
EJP: Several Jews were among those who defended Captain Dreyfus but some historians accuse French Jewry of remaining silent and not defending the Jewish officer. Did 19th century Jews stand up for him or did they stay mute?
Pascal Ory: French Jewry was falsely accused of abandoning Dreyfus. Mobilisation was progressive and it led to victory.
You can’t judge events and attitudes retrospectively, knowing what we know today, knowing what happened later with the Shoah. It’s easy to give moral lessons. In a hundred years people will judge us on what happened in 2006. What kind of judgement will they have on us? We have to keep our calm.
Some may say that French Jewry waited before it started battling for Dreyfus but you have to remember the context. France was a model of assimilation and Jews reacted as assimilated people. To them Zionism was certainly not the answer. They were discrete and trusted the authorities. They appealed to the Deputy Chairman of the Senate Scheurer-Kestner, which was originally from the Alsace region as was Dreyfus. They reasoned as inhabitants of Alsace rather than as Jews.
In a global way, the Jews defended Dreyfus by relying on the republic. This strategy was discrete but it was also efficient.
Those who opposed Dreyfus were opposed to the republic. They were looking for a profound reform. This led to an attempted coup in 1899.
In 19th century France there couldn’t be 10,000 people such as Bernard Lazare, his first advocate. Lazare was a man of a rare kind. He was an anarchist and even among anarchists he was isolated. France was obviously not filled with anarchists and the Jewish community wasn’t either.
Everyone fought at his own level.
I should remind you what a comedian said once: “There is an optimistic side of the Dreyfus affair: It reveals that in 19th century France there were Jewish captains in the high military authorities.” In many countries this was not the case.
EJP: Dreyfus became a symbol that many cite regularly in various cases and events.
Pascal Ory: That’s true, but it wasn’t the only important case of the kind. Remember Jean Calas who was not a Jew but a protestant, another minority, who was an innocent victim [accused of murdering his son and executed]. After his execution, Calas’s honour was defended by Voltaire, and declared innocent.
In our occidental individualistic world we tend to take the affairs of individuals, such as Dreyfus, that were wrongly accused. They were spare goats.
It’s important to tell children that this can happen again.
His defenders were few at the beginning but their number grew all along. To them, Dreyfus was a symbol although he was an assimilated bourgeois officer. Even to Jean Jaures he eventually became a sort of Jesus Christ, victim of the former regime.
Turning Dreyfus into a symbol is a myth but it has a certain legitimacy. Through this one victim all of the other victims are defended. The Human Rights League (Ligue des Droits de l’Homme) was created out of that. Today there are many victims like Dreyfus throughout the world and they’re obviously not all Jewish.
EJP: Jacques Chirac decided not to transfer Dreyfus’s remains to the Pantheon where some of the greatest French figures are buried. Do you think the President’s decision was wise?
Pascal Ory: I have no advice to give the head of our state. The Pantheon is reserved for our greatest men and women and I evaluate that someone like Marc Bloch, an immense Jewish historian who resisted, fought and paid for his battles, has his place in the Pantheon. Dreyfus was a victim but if he is moved to the Pantheon many demands will surge to move other victims to the Pantheon. We would have to accept this and the whole meaning of the Pantheon would then change.
Mary Curie has her place in the Pantheon but I don’t think Alfred Dreyfus has his.
I must also stress that Bertrand Delanoe said something important this week. He personally promised to do all he could to have Dreyfus’s statue moved to the honour court of the Military School, the exact same place where the Jewish officer was degraded more than a century ago.
Many soldiers wouldn’t appreciate that gesture. I will sign that petition today but I wouldn’t sign one in favour of Dreyfus’s transfer to the pantheon.
*Alfred Dreyfus, by Vincent Duclert Editions Fayard, 04/2006 |
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