A continuing preoccupation with the Occupation
In addition to a number of commemorative and traditional events and a steady stream of new publications, references and allusions to the period of the Occupation appear to have increased over the last few years. One basic reason, sometimes supported by evidence, is that after seventy years there is a danger that those years and their traumatic events will gradually be forgotten or remembered incorrectly. It may also be, however, that they are being recalled to help assuage a collective sense of guilt, or in some cases used more consciously for political and socio-political purposes with the result that they feed deep-rooted and sometimes unrealised prejudices with direct consequences for contemporary society. After rapidly rehearsing the ways in which the Occupation has hitherto been assessed, the article focuses precisely on some of this apparent modern development.1
Occupation, Liberation, Purges: the Changing Landscape of French Memory
The Second World War marked a double crisis for France. The defeat of 1940 provoked a crisis of national identity; the (temporary) death of democracy and the establishment of a regime of the far Right caused a crisis of political identity. The questions raised by the Liberation, and by the purges that went with it, lie at the heart of the efforts of the French people to cope with this twin crisis of identity.
When, catastrophe happens. Assessment and intervention after sudden traumatic death.
The goals of grief after sudden traumatic death is to acknowledge the loss, identify the changes the loss will have in the co-victim's life, and reinvest in life within the new structure. Although these goals seem simple, there is no definitive timeline for when these tasks will be engaged and completed by each of the family members. The pathway and time frame for each co-victim may differ.