L'affaire Annette Zelman ou les conséquences dramatiques de l'antisémitisme ordinaire

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The Annette Zelman Affair or the Dramatic Consequences of Ordinary AntisemitismThis article examines the emblematic yet unexceptional case of denunciations motivated by intimate and familial reasons, as well as their effects in memories. In occupied Paris, Annette Zelman and Jean Jausion loved each other and had planned on getting married, yet the young man’s father, Hubert Jausion, a brilliant doctor, could not tolerate this idea: he denounced Annette Zelman to the Gestapo in the spring of 1942. This led to dramatic consequences for Annette, who was arrested and deported, and for her fiancé, who, driven to despair by her disappearance and his father’s responsibility in this affair, committed suicide in 1945. After the war, the affair seemed to have been forgotten: the Zelman family did not suspect anything; Doctor Jausion, probably remorseful, showed empathy towards his Jewish collaborators and thus benefited from an untarnished reputation. Nonetheless, certain people knew what he had done, yet observed a tacit omerta. Such silence helps without doubt understand why the majority of analogous cases have been ignored.