Reflections on Crime and Punishment: Memories of the Holocaust in Recent French Crime Fiction

Abstract

In recent times, the French roman noir has gained a reputation as an influential narrative genre for investigating troubling periods in European history. German critics Elfriede Mfiller and Alexander Ruoff have noted the recurrence of crime intrigues predicated on a recuperation of traumatic episodes from the past, from the Spanish Civil War to May '68 and the Mitterrand years.' For Miller and Ruoff, what characterizes such novels is their critical stance, a politicization of crime that underscores the extent to which a sense of crisis in the present has its roots in unresolved crimes. Yet if Muiller and Ruoff provide a useful overview of the historical reference points of the French roman noir, they are less successful in analyzing the ways in which such events are mediated by the conventions of crime fiction and the impact of such conventions on representations of history. It is one of the commonplaces of critical work on the roman noir in France to state its leftwing, even gauchiste credentials,2 but this overarching label cannot do justice to the nuanced readings that a number of writers bring to memories of controversial and highly sensitive areas of collective experience, such as the Holocaust. This article will examine novels by two contemporary French roman noir writers that address memories of the Holocaust in French culture and society: Didier Daeninckx's Meurtres pour memoire (1984)