Michel Debeauvais
(Crancé)
As far back as I can remember
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Copyright Michel Debeauvais 2010
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I.
Biographical
DEBEAUVAIS Michel, professor emeritus at the University of Paris 8
born in Saint Quentin (France) 1922
Higher education in the humanities, economics and political science
Ecole Normale Superieure (1942)
Ecole Nationale d'Administration (1945-47)
Lecturer at the Institute for Policy Studies (Sorbonne), 1948-1952)
Deputy Director of the Institute for the Study of Economic and Social Development (IEDES, Sorbonne) 1959-1965
Director of Studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (1965-1970)
Professor of Science Education at the University of Paris 8 (1969-1977 and 1982-1987). Professor Emeritus since 1987.
Other
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1947-1959): Cultural relations, and technical cooperation.
Head of Division in the Directorate for Scientific Affairs of the OECD (1965-1969), Adviser at the Development Centre of OECD (1969-1975)
Director of the International Institute for Educational Planning (UNESCO) 1977-1982
Technical Advisor to the Directorate General of Cultural Relations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1985-1987)
President of the Association of Teachers and Researchers in Science Education (1970 - 1976)
President of the French Association of Comparative Education (1973-1978), Honorary President of the AFDC since 1978.
President of the World Council of Comparative Education Associations (1983-1988). Member of the Executive Committee from 1988 to 1996. World Council Delegate to UNESCO and the Permanent Committee of NGOs from 1988 to 1998.
Co-founder and coordinator of the Task Africa (GRETAF) since 1995
Member Group Bureau ONG-EPT/NGO-EFA to UNESCO since 1995
Honorary Member of the European Society of Comparative Education (EESC) 1990
Member of the Academia Europaea (emeritus since 1992)
Honorary Member of the Faculty of Education of Charles University (Prague) 1993
Member of Steering Committee of International Council for Education Preparation (ICET) 1993-1996. ICET Delegate to UNESCO (1993-1996). Vice-President for Europe (1994-1995)
International Missions (missions expert technical cooperation, organization of symposia, courses and conferences):
Sub-Saharan Africa: South Africa (1997), Burundi (1991), Burkina Faso (1995), Cameroon (1978, 1980), Central (1991), Guinea (1991, 1998), Nigeria (1979), Senegal (1969, 1978 , 1990, 1998), Tanzania (1980, 1991), Zimbabwe (1981, 1990)
Asia: Bangla Desh (1979, 1980, 1987), Brunei (1985), Cambodia (1955), China (1980, 1988), India (1950, 1971, 1978, 1979, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1992), Indonesia (1979, 1980), Iran (1972), Laos (1955), Nepal (1971), Pakistan (1976), Philippines (1976, 1979), Sri Lanka (1978, 1979, 1981), Taiwan (1991), Thailand ( 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1984), Vietnam (1955).
Oceania: New Caledonia (1986), Vanuatu (1986), Fiji (1986),
Moyen-Orient/Monde Arabic: Algeria (1969, 1974), Bahrain (1989), Egypt (1966, 1969, 1979, 1980), Lebanon (1966, 1969, 1974, 1975), Morocco (1982), Oman (1979) , Qatar (1978), Sudan, Syria (1969, 1979), Tunisia (1963)
Europe: Germany (1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1995), Belgium (1991), Spain (1977, 1978, 1979, 1982, 1989, 1990, 1991), Great Britain, Greece (1975, 1985, 1986), Hungary (1988, 1990), Italy (1989, 2000), Norway (1981), Poland (1972, 1978, 1987), Portugal (1980, 1990), GDR (1978), Sweden (1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1990, 1991), Czechoslovakia (1979, 1989, 1990, 1992), Turkey (1969), USSR (1978, 1980), Yugoslavia (1978, 1984)
North America: Canada (1979, 1988, 1989, 1994), USA (1974, 1979, 1980, 1985, 1986, 1987), Mexico (1970, 1978, 1980)
South America: Argentina (1970), Brazil (1979, 1986, 1987, 1989), Chile (1968, 1970), Colombia (1982), Ecuador (1970), Peru (1970, 1975, 1978), Dominican Republic (1985 ), Venezuela (1979, 1980, 1989)
Central America and Caribbean: Cuba (1970), Jamaica (1980), Haiti, Nicaragua (1981), Dominican Republic (1985), Trinidad (1979)
II.
Memories of war.
Let's start with my arrest in October 1943, trapped in the 'trap' that the Gestapo had put at 10, rue Emile Zola, a room that we had abandoned in the wake of several recent arrests. We wanted to find Lucile Royanet, and we decided to go back and see that day ... I was with Pierre Suzor, we had just received from the Grenoble team while an e-paper skin, I wanted to hand without having yet unfolded. What unconsciousness ...
No sooner had we come to the first floor as the door opened suddenly, a man was pointing us with his revolver while another emerged suddenly from the concierge's room for us retreat. That moment was the sudden entry into the other world that we had so often imagined. Plated wall, searched and beaten, I had the sense to put the leaves into a ball, passing them to the upright with the method of empalmage I had learned in a book of magic . I enjoyed the confusion of a hail of blows to swallow it, hide it with the language, and finally finishing by swallowing. This, I think the best contribution in my brief career as resistant WWII ...
We began by declaring bravely (and foolishly) that 'we will not talk', which sparked their sarcasm. We also argued, against all likelihood, that we do not know, and we met by chance in both ringing at the door.
Soon, we were pushed in front wheel drive, revolvers in the ribs. Crossing the Place Bellecour, one who spoke French said "look at the good, you do not see her again." We arrived at the barracks Avenue Berthelot, we knew the sinister reputation.
I found Pierre Suzor delighted to Compiegne (end December 43) that I had not seen since the early interrogations. We immediately prepared an escape during transport in Germany. Our attempt was aborted before they could finish the wall to open the car with the file that we could take to jump into the side of Chalons (where it was said that the train was slowing down). We then lost sight of until the end of the war.
The arrival at Buchenwald a few days after we brought in another world, where the No. 43986 began its existence insect.
The transition from one month to the "little camp" does not give me good memories. Days in the disciplinary Kommandos (Scheise Kommando Kommando Himmelfahrt, Eisenbahnbau where we build a railway track in the woods of beech frozen, etc..). When we left the camp, frozen by the long calls, we passed rows of five (zu fünf) through the gate of hell, with its inscription Tor sinister "Jedem das Seine" (to each his destiny). Near the exit, a large tree that I called the "Goethe Oak," which imagined the inscription "I would rather an injustice that a disorder," with hanging balanced by the icy wind as in the engravings Callot. In fact, were hanged on Sunday, the spectacle of the parade ground, ending Sunday the peroration of the camp commander, echoed by the speakers and screamed simultaneously in all languages by dollmetcher translating official camp. To try to forget the cold, trying to analyze the homilies Lagerführer with the methods of textual analysis khagne learned.
The speech followed Lagerführer order recommended by Cicero to a good argument: the good points first amid the worst and the best at the end: the exordium we incorporated into the Reich family by making us share some comforting news from the Russian front, then the tone became more worrisome warning us that we were not here in a 'sanatorium', but to make our contribution to the war effort, and I thought to locomotives which carried the catchy slogans "rollen für den Sieg Raeder." We also drove us to victory, he had to go faster, work with more zeal. He then came to the point: the 'sabotage' intolerable. There he was soon to understand where the danger would come one week, he was indignant to learn that unscrupulous inmates had cut up blankets to make "socks Russian. Imitating the elders who had already realized later he had to get rid of as quickly and as far as possible from what was becoming the threat of the day, before marching to the SS and the Kapos we scrutinized to select which offenders was hanged for example. As a scenario set properly, hapless 5-6 (phew! I've escaped!) Meekly allowed themselves to lead the center of the stage, climbed the stairs to get the halter while waiting to be pushed off the platform. Just a gesture, and soon the end of the call we drove back in our barracks where we were going to warm up a bit with the warm cup of black water.
On weekdays, he had to find himself in the hobby to support the length of appeals. It is poetry that was my best comfort. Below a certain temperature, few works resist. Song of the unloved, the singing Cossack Zaporozhian was only responding to the call, the resistance to the Sultan by the utter contempt, but it was Mallarme who resisted the most cold, swan frozen in ice, the Head of John the rising in the cold forever. Victor Hugo as 'if one remains ...'
In February, Crance (or rather the registration number 43986) is embedded in a convoy in Dora, whose reputation was bad. I spent one month in a tunnel in the noise, the screams and smoke of explosions our jackhammers breaking up blocks of limestone, and we loaded the debris in trucks on the face. A few yards behind us, others raised brick walls along the profile of the tunnel that had the size and shape of a subway station. Concrete was poured between the walls of chalk and brick walls, to strengthen the hill of limestone carved by the network of tunnels.
I have a vague memory of the day and endless nights where we worked and slept in the same tunnel, like the damned of Dante. I often thought while watching the shadows stirred in the cloud of white dust where the lights pale luminescence of a halo. I accumulated information with the hope to transmit as soon as opportunity arose: I learned in bits and pieces we already assembled in other tunnels huge steel tubes shaped like cigars, then left on two cars, probably rockets secret told me about Jacques Bergier in Montluc. I was talking as much as possible to my French friends (which I forgot everything) to increase the chances of passing the information to the outside they said there were French prisoners of war around, and Inmates who worked in radio SS; we also spoke of former camp who organized the resistance network.
But in March 44 I'm nominated for a convoy, before being able to contact former, I felt relieved to leave Dora, nothing could be worse than here. For the first time since we came out of the tunnel, I am blinded by the light of day. We are given a half-loaf of bread for the journey, unexpected treat! The van trip is long enough, the guards let us drowsy sleep this rest seemed the announcement of better times. I had not yet learned that it can always be worse than the worst.
Check peaceful day in a small camp, a French man who was sweeping the court tells us that the camp called Laura. We wonder anxiously for the call, contrary to our expectation, we respond so sad that we have no chance to get here, and we will not survive long. There are few people, but he says it happens all the time new convoys to fill the gaps. We are ..
The evening arrival of Kommandos, we understand better, to see mine returnees. The next day we leave at 6am. the site where we discover a beautiful landscape in black and white: a mountain of slate covered with snow. We do the "two twelve" of 6 hours. to 18h., and every week from 18 to 6am. The hardest part is the shift change, where every two weeks working time was 18 hours. The other week we have 18h. rest, the SS occupy our leisure with cleanups of the camp, sometimes with a movie which required the Kapos strike those who are trying to sleep.
From the beginning, a French prisoner tells me that there beneath our feet underground plant compressors giant manufacturer of liquid oxygen to be mixed with alcohol. The mystery of rockets (the Vergeltungswaffen, the V2 as I learn later) then gradually cleared, fate brought me to the heart of the two devices, but who to pass this information? We are isolated in the Harz mountains. Dora and Laura, they say, are the names of the daughters of the pattern of V2. They suspect of what places they are the godmothers? Humor Nazi ..
My usual job is to feed Concrete installed on the mountain, carrying bags of cement, shoveling gravel, pushing carts. Gradually I understand the meaning of this construction: concreting the mountain to protect the underground factory bombing. That is why the mountain is pierced with holes for the pillars of reinforced concrete to support the huge slabs of concrete. It is imposing. It is so cold that the skin sticks to the trucks, the bags are heavy, the dogs are all the time around us excited by the shouts of the SS barking and biting often for us to accelerate the pace. I can not forget the day when they attacked them killing a police commander named Clech, one of our best friends.
Another day, I walked in the line of ghosts on their bag of cement to the cement mixer on the path worn in the snow, ice, and he had to pass over a hole on a board and my foot slipped, the board turned around, falling into the hole, I raised my hands reflexively and I found myself clinging to the plank. I still hear the bag of cement that had slipped from my shoulders struck the bottom of the hole tens of meters below. Some comrades have recovered, but fortunately not for SS. I had not even had time to be afraid. But after I started I could not stop trembling, and a Kapo took me some time in his shack, everything happens ... I was surprised as to take life, whereas I was always swinging between continuing (but why, when it declines every day) or choose an end as I imagined in voluntary redemptive revenge (but how killing an SS? I had yet seen no possibility).
He left the mountain a huge windsock spitting from time to time a huge flame roaring down into the ravine. The uproar was such that even the guards were giving their guns to cover their ears, for us, one minute of rest. I remember an envelope of cement bag floating in the air like a dead leaf caught in the vortex, like our lives wandering ghosts. These scenes remind me so infernal that information on plant-Laura Ellrich would be valuable to the Allies, to complement the one on which rockets had been told that Dora had been sent to London by inmates employees at the camp radio, and I am circulating these bits of information to several friends safe, that it have a small chance of reaching England.
My fellow bench Montluc Jacques Bergier unlikely survivor found after the liberation, had been the first to talk to me in 43 German research on rockets and after the war he told me that the intelligence services had in fact received English information on giant rockets assembled in the tunnel of Dora, but experts agreed that such weapons would be a failure: no known thruster was powerful enough for such appliances, and even if the Germans had discovered no metal could not withstand the heat. Two arguments perfect, the Germans (von Braun?) Were avoided by using liquid oxygen deemed unstable, and a metal (aluminum) conductor of heat and dissipating rapidly. A lesson I have chosen the limitations of experts. I never found confirmation of his story, his imagination led him often to extrapolate from his knowledge and his insights. It also made me see the endless consequences of the domestication of the electron, which does not exceed the technical triode valve. He announced intelligent machines capable of performing all tasks repetitive and imitate the mental operations. I tried to think back often to fight against long hours of cold and hunger.
Towards the end of winter 43, I am lucky to be sent unusual camp near Harzungen recovering; by whom? Why? how? The improbable is sometimes beneficial. I find myself in the booth of "convalescent ward, where I spent a couple of weeks without work and without appeal. I understand that this camp has the function of storing the bricks for the building of tunnels and Dora Ellrich. They are stored in huge blocks covered with green paint as camouflage. I is an overview of all stages of manufacturing V2 tunneling which is the assembly of rockets and stiffening the sides by walls of brick and concrete (Dora), consolidation of underground factories by slabs of concrete (Laura) or brick walls (Dora), manufacturing (or development) of fuel (Laura Ellrich).
A shelter for the moment the cold and forced labor, I can concentrate what I have strength, regain some consciousness, and I begin to form some thoughts, still trembling.
I vaguely remember a passage in which Faust's Mephistopheles takes him into the air to show a landscape of hell, and I force myself to believe that one day I can find the text. After the Liberation, I discovered that it was precisely the Harz region and the vision I had.
Walpurgisnacht, Harzgebirg, Gegen von Schierke und Elend
Mephistopheles to Faust, he led through the air in the Hartz, above mine:
Faust, brought into the air by Mephistopheles:
Wie seltsam glimmert durch die Gründe
Ein morgenrötlich trüber schein !
Und selbst bis in die tiefen Schlünde
Des Abgrunds wittert er hinein.
Da steigt ein Dampf, dort ziehen Schwaden,
Hier leuchtet Glut aus Dunst und Flor,
Dann schleicht sie wie ein zarter Faden,
Dann bricht sie wie ein Quell hervor,
Hier schlingt sie eine ganze Strecke,
Mit hundert Adern, sich durchs Tal,
Und hier in der gedränkten Ecke
Vereinzelt sie sich auf
einmal.
Da
sprühen Funken in der Nähe,
Wie ausgestreuter goldner Sand.
Doch, schau ! in ihrer ganzen Höhe
Entzündet sich die felsen Sand.
« Une lueur crépusculaire vacille tristement au fond des vallées! elle se glisse jusqu’aux profondeurs des abîmes! Là monte une fumée. Plus loin filent des exhalaisons malsaines. Ici brille une flamme au sein de vapeurs sombres ; puis elle jaillit comme une source. Ailleurs, elle serpente en mille veines à travers la vallée. Là dans cet étroit espace, près de nous, elle se rassemble tout à coup. Près de nous jaillissent des étincelles comme une pluie de sable d’or. Mais, regarde, dans toute la hauteur s’enflamment les parois du rocher.
"A sad twilight flickers on valley! she slips to depths of the abyss! Here goes smoke. Further spin unhealthy exhalations. Here shines a torch in dark fumes, and then it flows as a source. Elsewhere, it winds into a thousand veins through the valley. Here in this narrow space near us, she suddenly comes together. Near us gush of sparks like a shower of golden sand. But, look, the full height of the rock walls are afire ».
Hexen (chör)
« Der Weg ist breit, der Weg ist lang,
Was ist das für ein toller Drang ?
Die Gabel sticht, der Besen kratzt...
Es schweigt der Wind, es flieht der Stern,
Der trübe Mond verbirgt sich gern,
Im Sausen sprüht das Zauber-Chor
Viel tausend Feuerfunken hervor. „
Choeur des sorcières :
La route est large, la route est longue :
Quelle est cette furieuse presse?
La fourche pique, le balai gratte...
Le vent se tait, l’étoile fuit,
La brume sombre s’arrête ;
Le mont magique, en bourdonnant,
Fait jaillir mille étincelles. »
Chorus of Witches:
The road is wide, the road is long:
What is this mad rush?
The fork spade, broom scratches ...
The wind dies, the star leaking
The dark mist stops;
Mount magic, buzzing,
Brought forth a thousand sparks. "
But the 'recovery' is already finished. Aufstehen! 43,986 Number announcement is that we must go back to Ellrich.
III.
Some memories of the ORA -
Lyon, scrub Grand Serre, Montluc.
These few memories, I wanted several times to drive them from my memory.
First the first time of my arrest in October 1943 by the Gestapo, improvising an explanation for my first visit to 10 rue Emile Zola in "Furstenberg". For several weeks, an examination to another, I invent the past of Michael Crance on my identity card, was born in Algiers, a student from Paris-Sorbonne to escape the STO and ringing at a student friend had given me, etc..
A second time when I got back from Germany and it took me back to living. At least five years to bury the nightmares. I invested my new life in new activities, to the point of avoiding anything that could bring me back into the past, including friendships combat. Now I'm caught by the 'duty of memory'. With the possibility of false memories and many omissions, but with the desire to contribute, though belatedly, to recall what were the "teams Descour, are testimony to our place in the archives of the ORA.
In early May 1943 I left the Normal School with a small suitcase and the beautiful white blanket of my bed dorm that I 'borrowed' in anticipation of the "bush" I am joining via Lyon, 10 Rue Emile Zola, is the address given to me by Charles Ximenes to the ENS.
Lucile Royanet (Alice) welcomes me and put me a few days. I join in because the "Grand-Serre" (Drôme), where I contacted a young postman who served relay. He accompanies me to 'scrub' a few miles from town, in a grove of chestnut trees. I bring with pride the rifle that Alice had told me, and I swaddled in newsprint with a fishing rod. Roure, Saint-Cyr, a young, greeted me and began to initiate me into the first elements of military training, after one or two weeks he was recalled to Lyon, he entrusts me with the responsibility of a group of fifteen young farmers STO-averse, and leave me a 'manual officer in the infantry, I read every night to prepare my next day's lesson. We attach ourselves to symbolically "11e.Cuirassiers" which was the original body of Descour, no uniforms, some tent of the army's weapons are limited to five Lebel rifles, twenty cartridges, and an automatic rifle with three magazines.
In July (or June?) 43, we get a Marshal of Logis 11e.Cuir. Which brings us six Sten guns with a score of magazines (from a parachute). On July 14, 43, I am instructed (by whom) to convene the people of Grand Serre a "call to arms", announced with the arrival of Lt. Geyer (11e.Cuir.), Sometimes on horseback in full uniform .
After this display of patriotism, but a little flashy, we break camp for a place further away, towards the military camp Chambarrand (Isère) that left the Italian troops after the armistice of Badoglio, we expected to find weapons and equipment. We recover an old truck radio, we have tried in vain to put in working order.
End of July 43, a member of the Lyon team (Lucien Cholland?) Has given me the order of Descour (or Pérol?) To join the Lyon team, whom we called 'the staff'. I joined the team, who then held a street apartment 12 in Algeria, where I lived with Pierre Suzor. It was our place of work and meeting with Lucien Couraud (Cholland), Peter Muller. I assured links with officers of the Regional Offices, which were the remnants of the military armistice after the occupation of the southern zone. Descour was meant for me to contact the officers (part of), they handed me the envelopes of banknotes. I remember the tasks I do in Chambery, St Etienne, Toulouse, Vichy, Grenoble (where we had an office in an apartment run by Janine Ballini, near the Parc des Expositions). Nothing seemed so tightly structured, each of us took care of various tasks, one of our duties was the encoding and decoding messages with Radio London, we were asked to send monthly drop ten fields, our bush had great difficulty to find. The coding system was fairly primitive, a book and a page agreed, and we followed the alphabetical order to encode the alphabet. The siting of land parachuting, we used Michelin maps, we dedicate the Number of the card, square and rectangular coordinates in millimeters that we measure using a ruler to graduate school. We had to find posts for the land and our taste for poetry irritated to complete our radio operator who preferred the shorter pieces, less time consuming to transmit. When he began to pass, trucks gonio Germans were taking chase.
Jacques Perol Albert Street Strenna often came from Algeria to give us instructions. Descour was also talking familiarly with us. This camaraderie was far from what I imagined the military hierarchy and division of tasks.
The fear of the early days, when we imagine that everyone guessing you're an illegal immigrant, passes quickly. We were not very concerned with safety rules, although the risk of arrest and interrogation were constantly present in people's minds. In hindsight, I am struck that none of those who were arrested did not allow the Gestapo traced Descour, we all knew the name, role and addresses.
Almost all members of our team were arrested by the Gestapo at the end of October 43 in the mousetrap posted 10 rue Emile Zola, and Rene Ballini (Grenoble) and a young pupil of the Navy we called the 'little Foam '(Doumergue). We had been foolish enough to come back one after the other, and the same day in Room 10, Rue Emile Zola, who was nevertheless considered "burned" for several weeks. Led one after the other in the barracks Avenue Berthelot where interrogations took place, we were locked in prison Montluc. After a series of meetings to Avenue Berthelot, they left me in Montluc several months during which I imagined they checked the few statements that I made credible by the history of life since meditated the first evening, and repeated endlessly despite the blows. But one day we stopped calling me for questioning, until January 1944 when I was part of a convoy to Compiegne.
We have been fortunate enough-on - to be quickly considered young enough importance to justify prolonged interrogations, confrontations minute, as I was preparing myself every night to keep repeating history.
I still vividly remember the Montluc the long hours spent discussing with my two companions bench, Jean Ganeval and Jacques Bergier, I have told elsewhere. Colonel Ganeval was taken on the airfield where he was waiting for a plane that would bring him to London. He had been the headquarters of Gamelin, who admired his dedication was a difficult for us to understand he had been military attache in Moscow, told the microphones installed by the Russians at the Embassy, the Moscow trials, Soviet camps that made him more than we fear the German camps. Ganeval we explained why the landing that we expect every day could not take place until more than six months of preparation, and it would take place in Normandy and not in the Pas-de-Calais Bergier told us the preparation of the bomb Atomic, the future control of the electron, with his knowledge and imagination. Thanks to them both, I was probably better informed than most of those outside.
After a few days at Compiegne where I found joy with Pierre Suzor, we leave both in the convoy, with a file (or a serrated blade?) To dig the wall of the car before the coast of Chalons, where we were said the train was slowing down. Attempt interrupted prematurely; train brakes suddenly, we understand that in another car, an escape had occurred. The doors are unlocked by the soldiers screaming that we piled into another car already full. And it is the journey to Buchenwald, details of which have been often described.
The sequence (Buchenwald, Dora, Ellrich, etc..) Is another story that I started to mention elsewhere.
IV.
A brief stay at the ENS.
Michel Debeauvais (L.42) spent the few months he spent at the school to seek a path for a 'scrub'.
At school, I continued to participate in various activities (more symbolic qu'organisées) protesting the rejection of the Vichy regime and the German occupation. But my main concern was to achieve the plan I had set myself in 1940 from the shame that had inspired the defeat and flight on the road (the Vichy khagne Caen): Prepare the support of the School which seemed to me difficult to resume after the war, and to commit myself totally in the resistance upon admission to the ENS.
It was harder than I had thought to find a channel for the 'maquis', and I searched long contacts, while enjoying some of the facilities offered by the school to enter the "gay science": Conversations in the world of ideas, the Thurn and during meals, seminar Maurice Clavel (on time in Kant), Picart courses on Greek epigraphy, Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques seminars with John Renouvin, Reinhardt Course Halbwachs at the Sorbonne and also at the Institute of German, which I thought useful to keep ahead of the Gestapo interrogations, I was obsessed by the prospect of arrest and interrogation which were part of the imaginary patriot.
I tried to contact the lab Croland unsuccessfully, and finally is Join-Lambert, which put me in touch with Ximenes, and finally provided with an address in Lyon, I prepared my luggage: a small bag with some books, and especially my beautiful white blanket that I borrowed from the school, without much remorse. Marius-Francois Guyard (L.42) reminded me recently that I had spoken to my departure, saying that I was not concerned about whether this technology was Gaullist or Giraud, as he told me that it ' was in any way the resistance, I would have answered for me, this is not the same thing. " And only after I arrived in Lyon, 10 rue Emile Zola when Lucile Royanet greeted me as I realized that Descour, the officer who commanded this little group, depended on a network of loyal army Giraud. It did not matter, what drove me, like many others, was that we were first occupied by German armies and the Nazis, and it was felt to be unbearable. It was also the conviction that only an armed engagement on French soil could be to revive France as a place in the winning side against the Nazis. Support for de Gaulle was the only possible choice.
The following concerns more directly School: scrub in the Drôme (near the Grand Serre), where my anti-militarism before the war had not adequately prepared to improvise the military training of a group of young farmers refractory Compulsory Work Service, and then the headquarters of the Organization of Resistance Army in Lyon under the Commander Descour, arrested in October 1943, Montluc, then Buchenwald, Dora, Ellrich, etc..
After my return from Germany in June 1945, I am not returned to school as I had dreamed and as John Baillou encouraged me. I was too difficult to learn to live, and I felt that a more active lifestyle would help me. Jean-Louis Cremieux-Brilhac was kind enough to give me a temporary position of assistant technical "in the Ministry of Information where he created the" French Literature ". Virtual job as the military rank was conferred to me when I adjusted my latest military situation: 'tentative approval for the grade of cadet fictitious'.
Then there was the assistance of the NAS early in 1946, and a decade the Ministry of Foreign Affairs where I worked with Stéphane Hessel to create 'technical assistance to underdeveloped countries, as it was then.
I was more interested in research on economic and social development, and I'm back with pleasure at the Sorbonne in 1958 for a new experience, the creation of the Institute of Economic and Social Development IEDES, and the Third Review World, and other adventures: Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, the Directorate of Scientific Affairess OECD, the University of Vincennes, the International Institute for Educational Planning, NGOs ...
I sometimes regret not having experienced life at the school, where the world of ideas' sub specie aeternitatis has as much, or sometimes more important than the contingent world challenged by Spinoza.
Yet it was contingent that I chose to work, to try to give meaning to my life and my active retirement, prolonged survival by an unexpected.
V.
A lesson from Vilar.
The active non-violence.
I met Vilar for the first time in Antwerp where I was Consul of France. He presented Cinna and Dom Juan during a tour of the NPT. During his short stay, I held the band with great pleasure. I had the honor of being noticed by the time I felt between all and then having read this note in his diary: note the name of the young Consul of France ...
I followed with enthusiasm the revival of the theater which had been attended by him in France in the reconstruction. As an actor, he was particularly impressive in the double-sided roles and I keep a preference for his portrayal of Henri IV of Pirandello ...
Vilar said of himself that if he doubted his talents as an actor and director, he would recognize one: that of having managed to find. Whether the excellence of his company, its painters, musicians or his deputy, John Rouvet, his lighting designer, Peter Saveron, he rarely made a mistake! I had the honor to accompany him for a few years to serve, for a modest contribution to this wonderful adventure.
Our relationship has really started when he decided to transform the whole festival at Avignon. I have always admired in him his capacity for renewal and its sensitivity to air time, not following fashion, of course, it was foreign, but thanks to a unique intuitive intelligence that he has often foreshadows developments coming into the area that was his. Watch as his resignation from the NPT it has broadened its vision of the festival: in 1963, it is no longer the prisoner of a logic of personal production. While passing his hand to George Wilson, he knows, or at least he feels he can no longer be content with the ritual context that surrounded the courtyard, and that I must enjoy the support of his public venturing into new territories. What seems so obvious today required an unusual insight!
His company had initially attracted by the public concern, the essential role that it reserved. The example of this artist to abandon a career as a personal turn resolutely towards public affairs is exciting. He realized his dream of a festival without fee, without competition, open to all forms of entertainment and dedicated to the public.
Vilar knew that I was engaged actively Club Jean Moulin, who then appeared to him as the club thought it more interesting. He imagined so confused collaboration between the club and the Festival d'Avignon benefit of the gathering to address social issues that the club claimed to explore ...
During our first discussion with him, street Estrapade, he suggested, in fact, in terms of rather vague and confused, a forum for the club during the festival. I do not see where this could lead us. Besides, it must be emphasized that other trait in Vilar's projects were more important, he expressed more obscure! I think I felt what many of his actors have appeared when directed them: we do not always understand his muttered soliloquy, yet we act according to what he understood and then prove the result of a large clarity. Strange alchemy probably due to a real charisma, an undeniable seductive power, even if sometimes the man was uncomfortable, and distant. I remember he gave the word a certain price collusion, which correlates well with the relationship he cultivated with people. He was a loner, very expansive, remote from others and himself (was there not a "Toto" who kept Vilar recalled to order or make fun of him? In his book, Claude Roy describes very well this duality). Over time, this practice alone will make him service by placing it above the fray.
Since it was so much to these meetings, I told myself I had it was the pivot. I was busy so planning education. We were at the time plans, and other five-year ..., economic development, industrial, office ... I think it's for the first meetings of Avignon that was coined the term cultural development. Decentralization dramatic booming was animated by a new generation of leaders of drama centers, the Department of Cultural Affairs Andre Malraux showed high ambitions, one percent was one of the cultural themes of the Communist Party ... Why not not also study the ways of cultural development in which Vilar had its place? Do not it became interesting to combine all these energies in a place and, especially, in a climate that could create one Vilar without turning to the usual confrontation?
In 1964, the idea of this project was to bring together people from very different backgrounds. I tell many people because it was clear that participants did not come as representatives of an organization or institution. It was therefore around the table as well as sociologists Edgar Morin or Dumazedier Joffre, theater people like Jean Daste and Gabriel Garran yet nearly unknown, municipal officials of diverse political, cultural movement leaders since Maurice Delarue ( Work and Culture) to Germaine Cambon responsible for Friendly secular Saint Gratien ... It was still experiencing foreign directors like Gianfranco di Bosio or Boudiaf (director of the Algerian National Theatre), and young union officials or political as Michel Rocard and Jack Ralite ... I remember the passionate and unexpected complicity knotted between Jean Daste and Bertrand Schwartz, director of the Ecole des Mines de Nancy and, especially, the pioneer of the concept of lifelong learning.
Vilar put then directed an opera at La Scala in Milan, but we wrote detailed letters of instruction. He had found time to go himself to Avignon to choose the meeting room that could, in his view, that lie in the palace of the popes. The room chosen was called the Chamber of Notaries, whose name delighted him ... He placed himself tables, essentially taking an order directing. Refusing any presidency, any rule, he attended these discussions in a studious and diligent, instead of an ordinary listener, taking extensive notes and rarely intervenes. His presence freed the words without the guide. He was not passive, but neutral. Once, I saw and heard impatient I can not remember which politician Lyons said with seriousness that the future belonged to the youth ... Yes, of course!
Sonia assured Debeauvais preparation, contacts, organization, reporting. The meetings were open, in limited places available, few auditors who acquitted a small fee. I played the role of what is now called the moderator, and each meeting was opened by a paper prepared by one of the participants to start the debate. For their first edition, these meetings took place every morning from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. for ten days. They were reduced to one week thereafter. It is difficult to describe the intellectual excitement that prevailed during the mornings studious. Participants will discover each other with great curiosity. I think it was the first symposium on cultural issues: there were many, perhaps too much, since children. They were a real summer school. They were extended in the afternoon by discussion of the Orchard, where, on a forum, some participants came from morning meetings to report on their deliberations to a wider public and even to a wider audience ... So, for example in 1964, Bertrand Schwartz treated vocational training and culture, Max-Pol Fouchet television, Gianfranco di Bosio Theatre Italian post-war, Joffre Dumazedier cultural development of cities.
The meetings continued every summer on different themes: in 1965, school, cultural institution? in 1966, the regional cultural development, in 1967 the cultural policies of cities.
Les Rencontres d'Avignon ended after 68, more exactly in 1969 after a final test in Grenoble with Hubert Dubedout. They were probably reached their natural end, and Vilar was not one to dwell. This is another highly distinctive character trait in him: he left things without regret and spent the next chapter of his life with absolute ease. Like Hugo, like the great artists who have several times in their work, he has had several lives by taking turns very dry: every ten years seems a new Vilar is freed from his own past, his routines ...
I have closely followed the case Oppenheimer. Vilar had bought the rights to a play based on the trial of the great American engineer at a German author, Heinar Kipphardt and as he asked my advice, I suggested that he focus instead on real minutes from the trial than they read who proposed a dramatized version obviously less dense. Get court documents? With the Americans we can do anything! Stephan Meldegg Sonia Debeauvais worked on a literal translation of which Vilar took a piece without rewriting, perhaps a sentence, but no more. It was the trial Oppenheimer in reality we allowed a disconcerting discovery: While we expected the hero Oppenheimer defend a just cause defeated by an odious conspiracy, so Thomas More's modern, it appeared to us in one day totally different. It was certainly superior intelligence, but in trying to prevent America from producing an atomic bomb to preserve the balance of power had actually lied. Gradually, we discover the unthinkable: Oppenheimer had been rightly accused and forced to retreat under the accumulation of evidence of his lies. This inevitable destruction of a building of noble appearance left no interest Vilar ... The room knew little success, which did not reach. The failures had no real effect on him: his detachment allowed him to quickly switch to something else. See how he managed to get rid of the person who had made the NPT acclaim: he could change time without regret, he agreed with the lucidity of things, not nostalgia for the living. Similarly, he never really considered that what was happening outside of him was against him. The sectarianism of the journal Brechtian Theatre People bothered him more than it annoyed: what could they understand the universality of Vilar? Later, it is possible that the events of 68 have contributed to the exhaust, but I do not think he has grown some bitterness whatsoever. And you can be sure he was much more disappointed by the selection of artists friends of Julian Beck in Avignon as their challenge! Yet he had appreciated the work of the Living Theatre and in particular his Antigone and The Brig, we had seen together.
July 68, the mayor of Avignon, Henry Duffaut, awaited a green light from him to disperse the protesters from the Place de l'Horloge. He had blown in his ear: "I, in ten minutes, I solve the problem! But the admiration and respect he felt for Vilar prevented from committing this sin: the pattern of public affairs, at Avignon, it was not the mayor, was Vilar, and Henry has Duffaut accept at this moment, this second role: it is his honor. Perhaps he was more focused on performances of operetta, but nevertheless, he agreed to fund our meetings and at the time, it was not common! I remember he said Vilar: "Mr. Vilar, I've always trusted, and so far I've never had to repent. "Similarly, Paul Puaux declared the anger of CGT and the Communists who would have used the strong way forward for the challenge! As for me, the afternoon, I held the orchard which had become the place of free expression in extreme conditions. But Vilar inspired us a master's outfit. He taught us the art of extreme management problems.
In August 68, the dean of the Sorbonne, Las Vergnas, informs me that the minister responsible for creating an academic center trial. Thus I found myself embarked on the adventure of the University of Vincennes. I tried to practice what I had seen Vilar improvise through active non-violence, find ways of coexistence which, at first, was far from peaceful. Thus we were able to contain the excesses of those who wanted to continue May 68 and Edgar Faure, very cleverly, had placed well away from Paris ... The example of Vilar has allowed us to take, by standing firm our principles without ever resorting to repression. At Avignon, in fact, he had taken heed of the challenge, assimilate, understand, some will say it back ... Recovery is a word which prevents reflection! As insulted when Vilar qualifier ashamed humanist!
Vilar has always been very impressed by diplomas and degrees, which it lacked. As a former student of the Ecole Nationale d'Administration argued in his eyes, in my favor. So he asked me one day succeed Jean Rouvet as director of the NPT, but then I had other interests, especially the third world: I was creating the Institute of Economic and Social Development at the Sorbonne, I had no intention to change direction for a responsibility that I should not feel at ease. He tried his luck again at the Opera project: once again I refused to get involved in the administration of a company where I did not have jurisdiction. I participated in some meetings of work ... I remember Maurice Bejart swarmed with ideas he had known this house. He proposed to close for a lengthy fallow period, because he does not believe in the possibility of a smooth transition ... A little later, another small group met at Vilar around the question of the markets and beyond what would be the Pompidou Centre. That's what these meetings emerged a major success, without doubt, the project, I mean the public library for information.
During these years, all the cultural issues that may take a certain size in French society crystallized around the person of Vilar after the apostle of the theater public service, he became the guarantor of the public good.
(After a conversation with Jacques Téphany)
VI.
Some memories to contribute to a balance of the Rencontres d'Avignon.
Many participants of the Rencontres d'Avignon, Jean Vilar, the first, said they had learned a lot, I experienced myself. Less in foreground in personal reflections on the themes, and more as an inspiration for my future activities, including my participation in the creation of the University of Vincennes in 1968.
The design has been dating for me at first a bewildering experience. Vilar had first spoken to the Festival and its public service forum for reflection and debate ideas by opening the Club Jean Moulin. I could see it was for him an opening he wanted to give the Festival. In fifteen years, Vilar had continued to expand its project: open-air performances in 1947 became the first fortnight of the NPT in the courtyard of the Palace, the dialogues of the actors with the public had become the tradition of sessions of the Orchard, since his departure from the NPT in 1963, he began to also invite other troops, to encourage the development of new cultural spaces in the city, to make their way to dance with Béjart, film with Jacques Robert, cultural programs CEMEA (Training Centres for active educational methods, from the Freinet movement) and the International Meeting of Young. But I felt the contrast between the strength of its intention and the vagueness of his purpose, not to mention the obscurity of expression. I do not see myself implementing a Symposium in Avignon where Vilar would have been a host for discussions not directly related to his own work. Only gradually, over the talks when it convinced me of the importance he attached to his idea, I found meaning in the job he proposed: to translate his convictions into a project s integrating it in the spirit of the Festival as he wanted to develop it.
Until then, Vilar and admired his work, but as a spectator and friend, from my rather distant planet. I looked how I could take this unexpected opportunity he offered to work with him, contributing to his project from what I could bring it. I participated since 1959 in the creation of the Institute of Economic and Social Development (IEDES) at the Sorbonne and its journal Third World, I'd totally committed to this new experience in the administration for leaving the university. The field of economic development policy appeared in the 50s, and they began to teach "development economics". At the UN, we had added to the concept of economic development than social development, UNESCO adopted the planning of education as a complement to economic planning. Moreover, Joffre Dumazedier me involved in the creation of Universities Summer People and Culture and this experience had sensitized to this new dimension of public education.
In thinking about Vilar, it seemed to me we could retain the "cultural development" as a unifying theme of convergence of several trends: the "popular drama" widened decentralization in France with theatrical and houses of culture; social sciences began to study the cultural activities and their audiences, highlighting the social inequality and also cultural. Under Andre Malraux, Pierre Moinot Francis Reason Emile Biasini, the culture was in France a dynamic Ministry and the notion of cultural policy took shape, she was adopted at UNESCO who brought an international dimension.
So I prepared a first draft for Vilar, proposing a type of meeting where I thought it might hold a privileged position as "officer" of a debate between the various partners in the cultural policy. Thus you could hope to muster both innovative in the world of theater, social scientists, policy makers and state cultural cities, cultural associations, and individuals selected by Vilar. It was probably the only one who can inspire a style of debate for open dialogue and reflection, and have it accepted by all.
It would be difficult to specify the details of the dialogue that took hold to shape the project between March and July 1964. I sent drafts and notes for Vilar was mostly in Milan, where he staged Don Carlos, he noted in his comments to Sonia Debeauvais notes, which provided all the secretariat for the preparation and organization later in Avignon. During his visits to Paris, we had several meetings on the choice of guests, cutting themes into days, the modes of organization. These sessions were short of the hierarchical model which had been used in the administration, management and even a University. Little by little I had become familiarized with his leadership style. He encouraged me to move forward, intervening only by occasional comments, and yet it is through them that the project took its originality. He had managed to change my plan for a symposium (University strain) into a form of "Encounters" (he liked that term) where the emphasis was on listening to each other and the word he used to sharpen our collaboration was that complicity.
At the same time, he wanted the debate, necessarily limited to thirty participants, are passed on to a wider audience. At the first Meeting of Avignon in 1964, it had installed in the "Chamber of Notaries' Palace with seating for about fifty observers. Most importantly, the afternoons were reserved for discussions with the public Orchard Urban V: some conferences, but also panel discussions with 5-6 participants who introduced the topic discussed in the morning in the "Chamber of Notaries' Palace Popes before opening the dialogue with the public. The discussions were often lively, and my role as moderator was well accepted as a condition for the free expression of all in mutual respect.
Financially, the budget proposals Vilar (modest) were accepted without discussion by Mayor Henry Duffaut. I remember his words during his visit that we went to Avignon in May 64: "Mr. Vilar, we've always had confidence and we had no reason to regret." This describes well the type of relationship that existed between the two men, and also explains the loyalty of Vilar towards the mayor, she will not fail in July 68, although their views were quite different.
The themes of each of the meetings were chosen few months in advance, and guide the selection of guests. Without trying to be a representative sample, the test was the diversity of participants and their innovative work in their respective fields. There was also concern about balancing the 'old' and the new ones, just as there was continuity and renewal themes: cultural policy at national level cities in France and abroad. I suggested at the Vilar theme of this year, cutting its daily sessions, and suggestions about invitations to run, but it was he who made the decisions, which seemed essential to make him feel personally involved. I remember a note in the margins of a text where I used the phrase "long term", then in vogue: "No, short term, supported a pencil. The theme of the school (school and cultural development) took to heart in Vilar, and detained him for the second year. I think we managed to limit the conventional discourse seeking to invite innovative rather than institutional representatives.
He had to find a form of discussion that emphasizes listening, verbal and prevent abuses in a meeting without written text. Vilar set the tone: after the introduction of the first day when he read a prepared text in advance, he rarely interfered, but he was there every morning, diligently taking notes in a notebook, and his willingness to listen his influence was felt on the style of debate.
I interpreted the role he gave me playmaker (he wanted to avoid presiding officers) as that of a facilitator, a term that suited the Chamber of Notaries with delight that he had chosen as a symbol the seriousness of the debates. I sensed in advance of a participant to start the day's theme with a short introduction, and I inserted in turn those who asked to intervene. I tried, often with great difficulty, not to intervene on my behalf, but only according to the regulation of the discussion and progression. Maybe it was a bit formal, but I never felt that the quality of interventions has suffered. Waiting for his turn to speak may be interfered with spontaneity, but rather encouraged each time to meditate and enhance its intervention. I remember that the views expressed, very diverse and sometimes conflicting, were almost always in a positive mode. We had the impression of moving from one session to another and from one year to another.
The daily report that we had given to young scholars, which was distributed at the next meeting, was intended to fix some highlights interventions and facilitate the daily progress of collective thinking. It was understood, and it was often reminded that everyone was speaking in his own behalf and not as a spokesperson for an organization. It was clear to everyone that did not seek the unanimity that there would be no recommendation or motion, or final manifesto.
Many participants reported that their meetings had contributed much in their subsequent work. However, I regret that we have not taken care to record the proceedings for publication. I thought it might fix the position, thus undermining the freedom of the remarks. I also thought that the absence of written communications in advance, as is customary for an academic conference, would not matter for a printed book. I probably was wrong, because the quality of most interventions would have warranted, the Orchard and the public was not enough to broadcast that we wanted. But it would have been an important development work to move from oral to written. We left after a few attempts. France Culture recorded Dating from 1965 and 1966, but these records have not been used, to my knowledge.
We also sought to provide food for thought by creating several studies, with the assistance of the Office of Research of the Ministry of Culture. In 1967, an investigation of Jeanine Larue showed that the working classes were poorly represented in the audience who came to Avignon Festival, unlike the hearings that the NPT meetings organized in the Paris region with cultural associations and unions. But the Festival audience was not just the regulars at theaters and for many it was their first experience. We could learn a lesson: when you touch a new audience, it is primarily the closest that arise. Such was the experience of popular culture associations. I found this evidence in 1968 when we tried to open the University of Vincennes workers and non-graduates.
After exchanges on cultural policies of cities, studies were undertaken on seven cities to supply the following meetings. Another study has extended a theme that we discussed during the first meetings: culture is profitable? The survey on economic accounts Festival showed that direct spending (subsidies) and indirect were more than offset by direct benefits and indirect costs directly attributable to the public and tax revenues. We enriched and arguments based on immediate profitability. But the debate on the profitability of the crop was not closed because of similar or contrary results could be obtained for other shows. At the Paris Opera, the high price of tickets selecting the public, but the state budget paid a subsidy twice as high for each ticket sold. At a time when the slogan of "1% Cultural" (1% of the State Budget for the Ministry of Culture) mobilizing sympathy at the risk of limiting the discussion, debate Encounters also posed more questions than the only amount of a budget for culture that should be subsidized? how? who should decide? What are the payers, and what benefits?
We had to find these issues when Malraux Vilar charged in early 1968 to develop a project for the Paris Opera he would later be called upon to lead. Vilar increasingly interested in opera, and staged at La Scala since 1963 had clarified his ideas on the role of the director towards the conductor and singers . He devoted himself to this mission he had accepted with the same tenacity as the creation of the festival. The project began to take shape with a team-Vilar-Béjart Boulez would have reopened a renovated Opera House after a year of closure for renovation. Then came May 68. The tone of the radio speech by General de Gaulle announced the end of the interlude irritated to the point that immediately called Francis Reason (Deputy Peter Moinot the Ministry of Culture), to announce it was ending its mission, which he confirmed the same day by a letter explaining its decision in conscience, he mentioned the statement of the General and his call to civic action committees
May 1968 would also call into question the meetings that we had prepared on the theme of cultural policy in 7 cities. Vilar decided to postpone, but we had planned to replace the working groups that were deeper analysis commenced at the Odeon, and then in Villeurbanne, the seminar topics, with their leaders already named, were monitoring cultural The actor, new forms of theater, the actor training.
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