Article by Philippe Mesnard

What’s in a name ? (On the Pléiade’s “The Human Race” and Other Writings from the Camps’)

A new volume has recently been published in the prestigious French Pléiade: “L’Espèce humaine et autres écrits des camps”. Philippe Mesnard questions the nature of the proposed grouping, where Robert Antelme’s seminal work shares space with everyone from Piotr Rawicz and Charlotte Delbo to Elie Wiesel. In doing so, Mesnard argues–taking special issue with the generic and all-encompassing use of “camps” in the volume–this new Pléiade does not succeed in clearly highlighting the difference between the concentration camp system and the policy of extermination of the Jews.

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