Le Procés Eichmann, 1961 by Annette Wieviorka

The First World War marked the beginning of testimonies en masse from a fully literate population, together with a focus on this form of writing from researchers like Jean Norton Cru, with his book Témoins (Witnesses), published in 1929. © Jean-Pierre Courderc/Roger-Violletįrom then on, eyewitnesses were encouraged to say what the press could not say, what only those who had been there could express, about bravery in battle and anguish in the face of disaster. Simone Veil and Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier during a televised debate following the screening of the American film Holocaust, 6 March 1979. The official birth date of the eyewitness is perhaps Napoleon’s proclamation of 3 December 1805 to the soldiers of the Great Army: “It will be enough for you to say ‘I was at the Battle of Austerlitz’ and people will look at you and say: ‘Now there’s a brave man!’” The French Revolution signalled the end of the chroniclers and the emergence of a new figure, the eyewitness, in particular the private soldier of the Revolutionary and Imperial Wars, who in principle stuck to what he himself had seen, to his own personal participation in the collective epic. The modern press competed with the chronicle in the 18th century, ultimately killing it off. “Immediate memory” is found in these chronicles, which was intended to be used for the subsequent writing of history. He compiled the information he could gather around him. The chronicler, usually a low-ranking dignitary, became the established scribe of community life, both locally and nationally. How and why did eyewitnesses and their testimonies take up this place at the heart of commemorations? Is it possible to pinpoint the emergence of historical eyewitnesses, if we take that term to mean those who recount what they have seen or experienced? Philippe Lejeune, an expert on all forms of autobiographical writing, points to the shift, in the late 18th century, from the role of the chronicler to that of the witness. Many ask the question: how can we remember, when the last remaining witnesses, whose role was fundamental in passing on that memory, are no longer with us? The birth of the witness

In 2020, a great many heads of State and government, among them French president Emmanuel Macron, gathered at the Yad Vashem memorial in Israel, to reflect on the theme of “Remembering the Holocaust, Fighting Antisemitism”.

Since 2005, that date has been UN International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The year in which the surrender of Nazi Germany is commemorated began in January with the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army, on 27 January 1945. 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

Le Procés Eichmann, 1961 by Annette Wieviorka