Occupation Diary 1941–44

Abstract

One of the most fascinating aspects of César Fauxbras’s oeuvre is his unpublished diary written during the war.¹ This dates from 9 October 1939 to 4 April 1940 and April 1941 to 5 October 1944. From the historian’s perspective, diaries provide an invaluable source of evidence and local perspectives upon this complex period. Keeping diaries was relatively common amongst certain layers of French society. Those in high politics (Rist, De Monzie, Barthélemy, du Moulin de Labarthète), academia (Drouot) and the literary elite (Sartre, Fabre-Luce, Galtier-Boissière, Guéhenno, Drieu de la Rochelle) have provided fascinating insights into various geographies and social situations of wartime France.² Plebeian diarists are rare. Fauxbras is one of the most down-to-earth of the war. On his return from the POW camps, intent on avoiding conscription to the German factories, he scratched a living selling articles de Paris (cheap jewellery, buckles, and such like) at a kiosk by his flat near the Château de Vincennes.³ His father-in-law, an articles de Paris wholesaler, helped him in this respect. This job clearly assisted Fauxbras’s assessments of the popular mood, which are perhaps therefore more reliable than more elevated observers or those with outsider status in wartime France.