MILAN – Winner Gaëlle Nohant: “I dig in the archives to pass on the memory”

Fonte originale: Pagine Ebraiche International Edition

“Writing a book gives you the opportunity to choose who you want to focus on, and for me, I wanted to focus on the victims of the Shoah. I wanted to do my part to give them back their names, their identities,” said French author Gaëlle Nohant as she sat among the pews of the Central Synagogue in Milan. A few minutes later, she was awarded the Adelina Della Pergola literary prize, now in its 25th year, for her novel L’archivio dei destini (The Archive of Destinies), published by Neri Pozza, a book that restores the dignity of those erased by history.

In her interview with Pagine Ebraiche, the author insisted on the role of literature as an ethical and informative tool: “We live in a world that demands simple answers to complex situations. Literature is a place where we have the freedom to explore this complexity without necessarily choosing sides”.

L’archivio dei destini tells the story of Irène, a French woman who works for the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen, Germany, a documentation center where the fates of the victims of the Nazi regime are researched after the Second World War.

In 2016, Irène is given a special task: to return thousands of objects found in concentration camps to their original owners or their families. They are objects of little value, but they hide stories and secrets. During her research, Irène will meets with people who will inspire and guide her from Lublin to Warsaw, from Berlin to Paris, to discover a past that concerns her personally.

“I had never thought of archives as a form of resistance, but they are. The archives of the Warsaw ghetto, for example, are as important to me as the armed resistance. Those who preserve these objects and traces act as a bridge between the dead and the living,” Nohant explained. “To return an object is to return a presence, to offer descendants a connection that was broken, to rekindle a flame of memory where there was only silence”.

Nohant did not limit herself to a literary reconstruction: before writing the novel, she personally participated in several restitution ceremonies organized by the Bad Arolsen Center. These were emotional events in which seemingly insignificant objects were returned to the families of the deportees, becoming symbols of remembrance and reconciliation.

“What I carry with me is the sweetness of these ceremonies. There is a kind of peace, as if you could repair something in that moment. Sometimes people who have not spoken for years reconcile. And the children who are brought there behave in a composed way, as if they realize the importance of what is happening,” the author emphasized.

On the significance of her literary commitment, Nohant reflects on the need to pass on the memory to the new generations: “I wanted to write a book that could serve as a tool of transmission, especially for young people. For those who may never read the direct testimonies. Fiction can build a bridge between the past and the present, allowing readers to perceive history as alive”.

di Daniel Reichel

(14 maggio 2025)