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By Arnie Greenberg, ultours@aol.com When we arrived at the main gate, they gave us a map. Smaller than the Père Lachase cemetery, the one in Montparnasse is impressive even if it's only because of the size, the cleanliness and the famous people who rest there. Just a list would be awesome. Start with writer/philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, who is buried with writer Simone de Beauvoir. Charles Baudelaire is there, as are Samuel Beckett, the author of Waiting For Godot, Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg the film stars, writers Eugene Ionesco and Guy de Maupassant, Man Ray the photographer, musician-composers Saint-Saens, Jean Pierre Rampal, and painters like Chaim Soutine. Even Tristan Tsara is there. He was the founder of the Dada movement. There are impressive monuments designed by Niki de Saint Phale, one by Brancussi, and others whose simplicity is worth noting. Here, in the middle of the city, one can get a French history lesson. I always learn something new at the Paris cemeteries. I am also amazed at the popularity of these places. The list goes on, but I had a lump in my throat when I came upon the tombstone of Lt. Col. Alfred Dreyfus and his family. Dreyfus, as most of you know, was falsely accused of offering military secrets to the Germans in the early 1890's. He seemed to many to be the perfect suspect. He was from a wealthy family when most of his accusers were rich. He was from an Alsatian family. The Germans occupied Alsace since 1791. He was also a Jew in a country that was anti-Semitic. Add to that the fact that the Dreyfus family was said to be supported by rich Jewish bankers like the Rothschilds. Some said it was the German banks that supported Dreyfus in a life of privilege. After a farce of a trial, Dreyfus was sent to Devil's Island off the northern coast of South America. There he withstood the most horrendous conditions in a small cabin without the companionship of other prisoners. Even his jailers did not
talk to him. After years of solitude, he did return for a new trial
because of the work of people like Emile Zola and Georges Clemenceau.
He was promoted and fought in World War I. He died in the 1930's, but the controversy lives on. For years, people debated his guilt or innocence. It was a dark side for Jews in France and in the end, with a new government led by Clemenceau, the army was discredited and weakened. Some say the Dreyfus Affair weakened the French army enough to change the course of World War I. Some say that Herzl's reporting of anti-Semitism in France led to the Zionist movement and the eventual creation of the state of Israel. But whatever the Dreyfus Affair did, it polarized public opinion in France for decades. Everyone had his own opinion. I found it interesting and moving that Dreyfus's lawyer was buried only yards away from the Dreyfus family tomb. Today, one walks down the rue de Raspail, where there is a rough-hewn and bigger-than-life replica of that great patriot with sword broken, standing as he once did, disgraced on the Champs de Mars. It took almost 100 years from his initial arrest for the government of Paris to allow the statue to be erected. It originally stood in the famous Tuillerie Gardens. Now it stands near a busy street for every passerby to see. I stand in the statue's shadow. I can still hear the cries of agony as Dreyfus was dishonored in a public ceremony. As his sword was broken and he was marched around the square with people calling him, traitor, he screamed at the top of his lungs, "Frenchmen, hear me. I am innocent."
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