Límites y limitaciones de la historia: el affaire Aubrac

Abstract

On June 21, 1943 Jean Moulin, Charles de Gaulle's delegate in occupied France, was taken prisoner in Caluire, on the outskirts of Lyon. Eight other members of the southern Resistance were arrested with him, including Raymond Aubrac, founder of the Libération-Sud movement and one of the then leaders of the Armée secrète —a military organization created to coordinate the actions that Jean Moulin was trying to carry out. A historian from Lyon, Gérard Chauvy, published a work called Aubrac, Lyon 1943 in April 1997, which analyzes Raymond Aubrac and his wife Lucie's participation and alleged treason at Caluire. More than merely an account of the Aubracs' experiences in 1943, the author was interested in the Aubrac affair itself as an emblem of the current standpoints in regard to history at the present time —involving the status of the witness and the historian as well as the ideological use of the past— and as a way of showing the difficult and diffuse relationships between history, memory, justice, and the mass media.