Memories of the Resistance

The city of Paris recently celebrated the 30th anniversary of its liberation from German occupation. It was the occasion for many commemorations of various kinds, some of them— like the Frenchwoman Beate Klarsfeld’s kidnapping of an alleged Nazi war criminal— of a purely impromptu nature. But a people may commemorate both its living and its dead past, and the wave of fascination with the occupation that has swept over France in the past few years has shown that the melancholy years ...