Alan Riding - And the Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris

EVERYONE who has written a book about the occupation of France in recent decades owes a debt to Robert O. Paxton for his pioneering work on the subject. I owe a particular debt to Professor Paxton, who generously agreed to read my manuscript and, in doing so, corrected myriad errors and offered immensely useful ideas to improve the text. I was no less lucky that Robert Gottlieb, editor extraordinaire, was willing to read my manuscript at a stage where his erudite mind and sharp eyes could still shape the final result. My deepest thanks to these two Bobs.

I am also grateful to other experts and friends who read all or parts of this book and saved me from many pitfalls, among them Daphn Angls, Lenny Borger, Myriam Chimnes, Hector Feliciano, Debra Isaac, Karine Le Bail, Gisle Sapiro, Yannick Simone and C. K. Williams. As a journalist, I would have felt even more of an intruder in the world of historians had I not been able to interview many who had firsthand experience of the cultural life of Paris during the occupation. I am enormously appreciative of the time, memories and reflections of Claude Angls, Jean Babile, Hlna Bossi, Pierre Boulez, Leonora Carrington, Danielle Darrieux, Dominique Delouche, Michel Don, Dominique Desanti, Michel Francini, Franoise Gilot, Stphane Hessel, Elina Labourdette, Madeleine Malraux, Micheline Presle, Denise Ren, Jorge Semprun and Annie Ubersfeld, as well as those of the late Marcel Carn, Maurice Druon, Marguerite Duras and Willy Ronis.

I would also like to record my recognition of the academics and historians who, while too numerous to name outside my bibliography, have done much of the hard work that has made my overview possible. As well, the Institut dHistoire du Temps Prsent and the Institut Mmoires de ldition Contemporaine have supported research that has proved enormously useful to me. Without the work of these scholars and institutions, I would not have known where to start. I was also lucky to count on Ginny Power for help in finding the photographs accompanying this book.

I owe special thanks to Ashbel Green at Knopf, who not only planted the seed of this book fifteen years ago but who over the past thirty years has proved both a loyal friend and an immensely patient editor. Susanna Lea, a dear friend long before she became my agent, has never ceased to nudge me and encourage me. My mother, Ina, in her one hundredth year while I was writing this book, was, as always, an inspiration. Finally, my wife, Marlise Simons, has once again allowed me to disrupt our lives by devoting long hours to a book. My fondest gratitude for her patience, endurance and support.

Distant Neighbors: A Portrait of the Mexicans

For twelve years, Alan Riding was the Paris-based European cultural correspondent for The New York Times. He was previously bureau chief for the Times in Paris, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Mexico City. He is the author of Distant Neighbors: A Portrait of the Mexicans, as well as coauthor of Essential Shakespeare Handbook and Opera. He continues to live in Paris with his wife, Marlise Simons, a writer for the Times.

A number of books proved constantly useful to me during the preparation of this book. For general background, I counted on: Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 19401944 by Robert O. Paxton; France: The Dark Years, 19401944 by Julian Jackson; and France Under the Germans: Collaboration and Compromise by Philippe Burrin. For a cultural overview, I was helped by La Vie parisienne sous loccupation by Herv Le Boterf and La Vie culturelle sous loccupation by Stphanie Corcy. Books covering more detailed aspects of culture during the occupation are listed below.

Beauvoir, Simone de. La Force de lge. 1960. Paris: ditions Gallimard (Folio), 1986.

Bernier, Olivier. Fireworks at Dusk: Paris in the Thirties. Boston: Little, Brown, 1993.

Cline, Louis-Ferdinand. Bagatelles pour un massacre. Paris: ditions Denol, 1937.

Gide, Andr. Back from the U.S.S.R. Translated by Dorothy Bussy. London: Martin Secker and Warburg, 1937.

Guhenno, Jean. Journal des annes noires. Paris: ditions Gallimard, 1947.

Jackson, Julian. France: The Dark Years, 19401944. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Koch, Stephen. Stalin, Willi Mzenberg and the Seduction of the Intellectuals. New York: Free Press, 1994.

Mauriac, Claude. Le Temps immobile. Paris: ditions Grasset, 1993.

Paxton, Robert O. Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 19401944. New York: Knopf, 1972.

Rysselberghe, Maria van. Je ne sais si nous avons dit dimprissables choses: Une anthologie des Cahiers de la Petite Dame. Paris: ditions Gallimard, 2006.

Weber, Eugen. The Hollow Years: France in the 1930s. New York: Norton, 1994.

Jean-Louis Crmieux-Brilhac, Paris, April 4, 2008.

Guhenno, Journal, p. 205.

The Paris Review, The Art of Fiction No. 28, SummerFall 1962.

Weber, Hollow Years, p. 229.

Bernier, Fireworks, p. 164.

Interview with Crmieux-Brilhac, Paris, April 4, 2008.

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, p. 35 n. 2.

Cline, Bagatelles, p. 180.

Nouvelle Revue Franaise, No. 295, April 1938.

Letter to D. W. Strauss, 1937, cited by Lire Hors-Srie, No. 7, p. 75.

Bernier, Fireworks, p. 191.

Mauriac, Le Temps, p. 143.

Gide, Back from the U.S.S.R., p. 11.

Ibid., p. 16.

Ibid., p. 78.

Ibid., pp. 6263.

Beauvoir, La Force, p. 330.

Bernier, Fireworks, p. 311.

Beauvoir, Simone de. 1960. La Force de lge. Paris: ditions Gallimard (Folio), 1986.

Bernier, Olivier. Fireworks at Dusk: Paris in the Thirties. Boston: Little, Brown, 1993.

Carrington, Leonora. House of Fear: Notes from Down Below. London: Dutton, 1988.

Daix, Pierre, and Armand Isral. Pablo Picasso: Dossiers de la prfecture de police, 19011940. Paris: ditions Acatos, 2003.

Gerassi, John. Talking with Sartre: Conversations and Debates. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.

Gide, Andr. Journals. Vol. 4, 19391949. Translated by Justin OBrien. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000.

Giraudoux, Jean. Pleins pouvoirs. Paris: ditions Gallimard, 1939.

Guggenheim, Peggy. Out of This Century: The Informal Memoirs of Peggy Guggenheim. New York: Dial, 1946. All page references are to Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict. London: Andr Deutsch, 1997.

Huffington, Arianna Stassinopoulos. Picasso: Creator and Destroyer. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1988.

Jackson, Julian. France: The Dark Years, 19401944. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Jouhandeau, Marcel. Journal sous loccupation. Paris: ditions Gallimard, 1980.

Klarsfeld, Serge. Le Calendrier de la perscution des juifs en France, 19401944. Paris: Les Fils et Filles des Dports Juifs de France and the Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, 1993.

Koch, Stephen. Stalin, Willi Mzenberg and the Seduction of the Intellectuals. New York: Free Press, 1994.

Nmirovsky, Irne. Suite franaise. Paris: ditions Denol, 2004. (My page references are to the 2007 Vintage edition, translated from the French by Sandra Smith.)