Memories of the Algerian war: silences and unspoken words in families

Audio 29:00

A room of the Historical Service of the Army (SHAT) at the Château de Vincennes, shelves where historical documents collected on the Algerian war are archived.

© DANIEL JANIN / AFP

By: Chantal Lorho Follow

30 mins

Almost sixty years after the end of the Algerian war and while rape and torture are still taboo, a historian has reviewed the unspoken, the silences in the families who lived through the war and the consequences in family transmission.

Publicity

Guest: Rapha

ë

lle Branche,

 professor of contemporary history at the

University of Paris Nanterre

author of 

Papa, what did you do in Algeria 

Investigation into a silence

 (Éditions La Découverte).

She worked from written letters and diaries of those who lived through war.  

And the column Elsewhere in Brussels with Donald GEORGES, director of the 

Maison de la Francité.

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  • Algeria

  • History

  • France

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