In the course of reviewing an exhibit on the Dreyfuss case now appearing at the Yeshiva University Museum Edward Rothstein gives an excellent overview of its history in “A century old court case that still resonates.”
The Affair begins with seemingly simple facts. In 1894, when France’s 1870 defeat by Germany in the Franco-Prussian War still rankled, a document was discovered showing that a highly placed French officer had been passing military secrets to the Germans. The traitor was identified as Alfred Dreyfus. He was convicted, using the testimony of handwriting experts, along with assertions by military officers who boasted confidential proof. He was publicly stripped of his military ribbons, his sword was broken in two, and he was exiled to the rocky hell of Devil’s Island.In 1899, after fresh discoveries, Dreyfus was returned to France for a retrial. He was again convicted.
The problem, though, was that Dreyfus was innocent. The evidence was circumstantial at best. His accusers in the War Ministry ignored exculpatory evidence and contradictory testimony. They ultimately forged incriminating documents and prevented another officer from revealing Dreyfus’s innocence.
In addition, of course, Dreyfus was Jewish. From the start this was essential to the ways his accusers shaped the evidence and judged his character. Right-wing newspapers featured anti-Semitic caricatures. The public greeted Dreyfus’s humiliation with cries of “Death to the Jews!†In the French colony of Algeria, there were pogroms and the destruction of Jewish property. (Some photographs of those acts are on display here.)
In the end Dreyfuss was cleared.
In his book Mr. Burns points out that the very notion of an “intellectual†grew out of the Dreyfusard alliance of writers and politicians on the left. There are photographs here of such figures, ranging from Anatole France to Genevieve Straus (Bizet’s widow). Their political agitation eventually led to Dreyfus’s pardon in 1899 and to the annulment of his guilty verdict in 1906.In 1906 Dreyfus was also awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honor, on display here, citing “a soldier who has endured an unparalleled martyrdom†— modest recompense for having a golden braid and red ribbon publicly ripped from his uniform in 1895. (The pieces are shown here as well.) There is also a reproduction of the document used to convict Dreyfus; the original is lost.
After quoting from some of Dreyfuss’s letters, Rothstein concludes:
The strange thing about Dreyfus is that he did not seem to suffer the crisis of faith that scarred so many others who took up his cause, and with which we still live — a skepticism that turns nearly every trial into a potential Dreyfus Affair. His self-effacing idealism at times seems inspiring, at other times woefully naïve.
Finally Rothstein leaves us with this footnote.
At least some of his ideals were apparently passed on, though without comforting consequences. One of his granddaughters, Madeleine Lévy, shown here in a photograph, joined the French Resistance in the 1940s, along with her sister and two brothers. She was captured and in 1944 died of typhus before she could be murdered — in Auschwitz.
The article is accompanied by a slideshow of some of the artifacts at the exhibit.
Crossposted at Soccer Dad.
