In Arolsen, Germany, there is the world’s largest center documenting Nazi persecution, which is also responsible for the return of personal belongings to the descendants of the deportees. Around this place, Gael Nohant has woven an exciting fiction, Destinies Clarification Office, RTL-Lire Grand Prize.
In Office of Clarification of Destinies(Grand Prix RTL-Lire), novelist Gael Nohant plays Irene, who works at the Arolsen Archive Center in Germany, documenting Nazi persecution. Responsible for returning the belongings of the exiles to their heirs, he begins with the fabric Piero or medallion to go back in time… An interview with the cinematic visionary who never stopped, Part of the flames To: The Woman Revealed to weave a small and big story.
In the video, an excerpt from Marcel Loridan-Ivens’ testimony regarding his deportation
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Miss Figaro.– Tell us about the origin of this novel…
Gael Nohant. – I discovered in the winter of 2020 the existence of the Arolsen Archive Center, which was established by the Allies at the end of the war in Germany to shed light on the fate of the victims of Nazi persecution. These archivists are “detectives” and that fascinated me. But it was when I learned that they were investigating small items found in the camps to return them to the descendants of their owners that the idea for the novel came to me. Because I find this mission very special and magnificent. It is also very romantic that the descendants did not ask for anything. One day the past knocks on their door. I immediately visualized these queries as arrows going from objects to descendants.
How much have you played with the form of the detective novel?
In a sense, my novel is a “reverse detective novel” because we know from the beginning who the killers are. The goal is to find out what happened to the victims, find out who they are and, if possible, find descendants. I used the tension and tension of the investigation. But in a thriller, we are mainly interested in the investigator and the killer, the victims are random. Here I wanted the victims to be in the light, so that the reader could connect with them and remember them. And that he identifies with Irene, my archivist, who is our guide and brings her gentleness and peaceful manner to this journey, especially in her encounters with posterity.
Most of your books take place in the past, but here you start in the present…
I wanted to write a contemporary novel about the traces of this war in our lives today. To show how the crimes committed against our humanity continued to haunt us like a trauma passed down from generation to generation. But also to bring life back into this story, embody it through the powerful means of the novel, while being concerned with historical accuracy. It is a book anchored in the history of the present and our memory, directed, I hope, to the younger generations. Not just to shed light on the levels of inhumanity crucified (and which have not stopped since), but above all on all forms of resistance, love, life force. I hoped it would resonate especially with young people, who instinctively associate this story with the current struggle against discrimination, the environment, freedom and democracy.
Source: Le Figaro
