Armistice Day in France

One of the things that is so interesting about France is how seriously they take their history. This is of course true of most places, but somehow here it seems like history as a concept is more visible. Just look at the ongoing obsession with WWII. This is of course not to say that history here is less influenced by political machinations or anything like that, but rather that those kinds of discussions (the political uses of history) actually happen in mainstream magazines, etc. With that in mind, I was highly intrigued to attend the Armistice Day memorial program at the university today, and sure enough it didn't disappoint.

The school is decked out in French flags, here's the entrance:


And from there I went to the location of the memorial service, in a hallway that has all of their war memorials:
This is the WWI memorial, so the ceremony took place in front of it. There was also a poster of important events/people/documents from the war (and relating to the university):

Here's why I find France's engagement with history so fascinating: the ceremony began with the president of the alumni association giving a little intro in which he meditated on the fact that because the last WWI vet recently died, WWI has passed from memory into history. He proceeded to discuss the differences between memory and history and how this will change memorial services in the future. Although he was speaking to a large audience made up of a hodge-podge of people, he was fairly technical and got into the changing relationship to the war and what that means for the next generation in terms of how we engage with the heritage of such a dramatic event. He said that they had decided to change the format of the memorial service to reflect this generational shift and that they had thus invited the history department to participate. I was impressed.

But only for a minute, as the intervention by the historian (whose name I didn't catch, but I don't think it was a hot shot in the field or anything) was total mythologizing on the glory of the school in the war effort. This woman had apparently read a bunch of the letters written by students from the university who were stationed in the trenches, and she proceeded to go on and on about the glory of the school in the war effort--how the intellectual rigor allowed the soldiers to ask fundamental questions about academia and society, how the moral standards of the university meant that a vast majority of the youth were somehow involved, how the university opened its doors to the Red Cross to serve as a hospital, how the librarian (Lucien Herr, who is super famous for inspiring a whole generation of engaged intellectuals) challenged the students to think politically, etc. You would have thought it was a propaganda video for the school or something. Granted, the school suffered heavily during the war. From what I could tell based on some contradictory numbers that were floated around by different people, 239 alums died in the war, and only 23 went and came back (it's a small school). The cohort that finished in 1913 was obviously the heaviest hit, with 44 deaths, most of which happened right off the bat in August 1914 at the Battle of the Marne.

From there, they proceeded to a lengthy discussion of March Bloch (I KNEW he was coming when they started discussing the stakes of history), who fought in WWI and then enlisted in the resistance during WWII before he was captured, tortured, and killed in 1944. He's a very interesting person, in that he published reflections on WWII but also meditated on the role of the historian in contemporary politics, etc. He's a fascinating person to read (his famous book on WWII has been translated into English as "Strange Defeat"), and of course they glorified him as a hero of the school since he's also an alum. They presented a rather skewed image of him, though, focusing entirely on his exceptional commitment to the country (and how that made the school look good) without talking about his take on the war, which was actually much more nuanced. But again, this was history-making at its finest (by that I mean intentionally constructing a history).

I suppose this manipulation of historical memory isn't surprising in the sense that the people there were all old alums (most of whom I would guess had some sort of engagement in WWII), so the school was trying to valorize their nostalgia of both the school and the war effort. It was interesting to say the least. Equally interesting was the lady I sat next to, who graduated in math in 1930 (!) and who lost 10 friends in WWII. I got to ask her a bunch of questions, and she pointed out her friends on the WWII memorial. She also told me about what it was like being a woman in math at an elite school in the 1920s, which I thought was pretty awesome. She was one of only a handful of girls in the school at all, of course.

So yeah, there you have it, definitely a noteworthy cultural experience. It's a little more noble than the way the Alsatians I knew celebrated it back when I lived in Colmar (namely, everyone goes to Germany to shop, since it's not a national holiday there, for obvious reasons, haha). Oh, and some band of juvenile delinquents slashed all the tires of German cars that day, as my German roommate at the time found out the hard way. I'll take ENS mythologizing over that any day!