#33 / Editorial

Leaving Bizerte, fleeing Tunisia… This was the fate, 60 years ago, of a Jewish community accused of treason after the conflict between General de Gaulle’s France and President Bourguiba’s Tunisia. The episode of the Bizerte crisis – told by Agnès Bensimon from numerous unpublished diplomatic telegrams – inaugurated the departure of Jews from Tunisia, many of whom settled in France. Against the backdrop of negotiations between the Mossad and the Quai d’Orsay, we read the story of a disappearance during decolonization, the brutal disconnection of a population from its land.

A new volume has recently been published in the prestigious Pléiade: L’Espèce humaine et autres écrits des camps[1]. 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.

In the coming weeks, twenty-six works (statuettes, thrones and other royal objects), taken as war booty by French troops from the palace of King Behanzin in 1892, will leave the Musée du Quai Branly and be returned to Benin. A change in French law has allowed this restitution of works taken by France in the colonial context. This news gives us the opportunity to republish the interview already published in K. with the art historian Horst Bredekamp, one of the founders of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin, whose vocation is the hosting of exhibitions of non-European cultures. This ethnographic museum is at the heart of a controversy concerning the ownership of artworks and objects obtained during the German colonial empire in Africa and Asia. Bredekamp responds to criticism from the decolonization movement of art and museums, and discusses his positions, explaining how it is a misnomer to say that the Humboldt Forum is part of a colonial or imperialist tradition.

Notes

1 Around L’Espèce humaine (1947) [Translation : The Human Race] by Robert Antelme, the volume brings together L’Univers concentrationnaire (1946) [Translation : The Other Kingdom] by David Rousset , La Peinture à Dora (1946) [not translated] by François Le Lionnais, Nuit et brouillard [Translation : Night and Fog] and De la mort à la vie [not translated] (1955) by Jean Cayrol, La Nuit (1958) [Translation : The Night] by Elie Wiesel, Le Sang du ciel (1961) [Translation : Blood from the Sky] by Piotr Rawicz, the trilogy Auschwitz et après (1970-1971) [Translation : Auschwitz and After] by Charlotte Delbo and L’Écriture ou la vie (1994) [Translation : Literature or Life] by Jorge Semprun.
History
Fleeing Bizerte, Leaving Tunisia

The departure of the Jews from Tunisia, generally associated with the consequences of the Six Day War, was in fact rooted in a Tunisian-French conflict known as the Bizerte Crisis, which took place five years earlier. The accusation of treason leveled against the Jews of Bizerte, and their consequent rescue by Israel, marked the beginning of the rapid disappearance of any Jewish presence in Tunisia. Writing for K., Agnès Bensimon, a specialist in the history of the Jews in North Africa, tells us about the last days of the Jewish community of Bizerte.

Culture
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.

Culture
The forgotten tradition – Interview with Horst Bredekamp

The Humboldt Forum’s vocation is to host exhibitions on non-European cultures. But this ethnographic museum is now at the center of a controversy over the ownership of artworks and objects obtained during the German colonial empire in Africa and Asia. In this interview with the art historian Horst Bredekamp, we wanted to learn more about a forgotten German ethnographic tradition – and in particular about the contribution of Jewish scholars and collectors within this tradition.

With the support of:

Thanks to the Paris office of the Heinrich Böll Foundation for their cooperation in the design of the magazine’s website.