Pierre Emmanuel Vidal-Naquet
French historian, July 23, 1930 – July 29, 2006
V.’s family belonged to the Sephardic Jewish community living in the Comtat Venaissin (Carpentras, Avignon), and he was raised in a Republican and secular environment. His father Lucien was a “Dreyfusard” lawyer, who quickly entered the Resistance in order to avoid exile. In June 1940, the family escaped to Marseille. Arrested on May 15, 1944,
V.’s father was deported, along with his wife, in June 1944. They were sent to Auschwitz, where they died. At 14 years old,
V. then hid in his grandmother’s house in the Drôme.
After his studies at the lycée Carnot in Paris, he specialized in the history of Ancient Greece, as well as in contemporary subjects such as the Algerian War (1954-1962) or the
'Holocaust'. He founded a review at 18 years old, along with Pierre Nora,
Imprudence. V. first taught history at Orléans’s high school (1955), before going to Caen’s university (1956-60) and then Lille (1961-62).
He then worked at the CNRS (1962-64) and was named maître de conférences at the University of Lyon (1964-66). He was then named professor at the École pratique des hautes études
EHESS. V. co-authored several books with Jean-Pierre Vernant, with whom he was friends. However, although Vernant was a “comrade” of the PCF,
V. never belonged to any political party, with the exception of the Unified Socialist Party
(PSU).
V. was married and the father of three children. He was also officer of the Légion d'honneur.
V. defined himself as an “activist historian”, and while pursuing his studies never ceased engaging in political struggles and taking part in political
committees. He was one of the best known opponents of the use of torture by the French Army during the Algerian War (1954-62).
He was also opposed to the Regime of the Colonels (1967-74) in Greece. He supported peace efforts in the Middle East as well as the Europalestine group. He thus declared: “I consider Sharon as a
criminal.”
V. tried to deconstruct historical revisionism. In 1981, he wrote that
Robert Faurisson, except in the case of "The Diary of Anne Frank",
would falsify history. On May 4, 1996, he wrote in "Le
Monde" that he would categorically refuse the proposal of Abbé Pierre
to convene a public discussion on the 'holocaust' between exterministical
and revisionistical historians. He argued, the day when such an open
discussion would take place, the revisionists would win the field.
V.
admitted that
there was testimony to the effect that there was a gas chamber at Buchenwald, a purely imaginary gas
chamber, however. Referring to the Auschwitz camp, V. stated that with the exception of the very few Sonderkommando survivors, the Auschwitz survivors who have testified for history tell us less about death in Auschwitz than about life
there. He continued: "Perhaps one day we will see a new migration of the Auschwitz story to Belzec or Treblinka?
- The history of the Shoah has been hypocritical. In particular, many historians have been insufficiently critical in evaluating their
sources. Memory is not necessary a memory of the truth. For example, it is absurd to talk about four million victims at Auschwitz, as the Poles did until recently, or even, as Claude Lanzmann has
done, of three million".
V. criticized the 1990 Gayssot Act which prohibits revisionist
discourse, claiming that the law shouldn’t interfere in historical matters. He was also opposed to the February 23, 2005 French law on colonialism voted by the conservative UMP, but which was finally repealed by president Jacques Chirac in the beginnings of 2006.
Werke von / Works of
V.: Homepage of Pierre Emmanuel Vidal-Naquet
Literatur über
/ Writings concerning V.:
Literatur
im Katalog der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek von und über
/
Writings
in the catalogue of Deutsche Nationalbibliothek of and about
:
Pierre Emmanuel Vidal-Naquet
Letzte Änderung / Last update: 23.10.2008
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