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Déposition: Extraits de journal 1940-1944
Historians agree: the diary of Léon Werth (1878-1955) is one of the most precious--and readable--pieces of testimony ever written about life in France under Nazi occupation and the Vichy regime. Werth was a free-spirited and unclassifiable writer. He is the author of eleven novels, art and dance criticism, acerbic political reporting, and memorable personal essays. He was Jewish, and left Paris in June 1940 to hide out in his wife's country house in Saint-Amour, a small village in the Jura Mountains. His short memoir 33 Days recounts his struggle to get there. Deposition tells of daily life in the village, on nearby farms and towns, and finally back in Paris, where he draws the portrait of a Resistance network in his apartment and writes an eyewitness report of the insurrection that freed the city in August, 1944.
From Saint-Amour, we see both the Resistance in the countryside, derailing troop trains, punishing notorious collaborators--and growing repression: arrests, torture, deportation, and executions. Above all, we see how Vichy and the Occupation affect the lives of farmers and villagers and how their often contradictory attitudes evolve from 1940-1944. Werth's ear for dialogue and novelist's gift for creating characters animate the diary: in the markets and in town, we meet real French peasants and shopkeepers, railroad men and the patronne of the cafe at the station, schoolteachers and gendarmes. They come off the page alive, and the countryside and villages come alive with them.
With biting irony, Werth records, almost daily, what Vichy-German propaganda was saying on the radio and in the press. We follow the progress of the war as people did then, day by day. These entries make interesting, often amusing reading, a stark contrast with his gripping entries on the persecution and deportation of the Jews. Deposition is a varied and complex piece of living history, and a pleasure to read.
From Saint-Amour, we see both the Resistance in the countryside, derailing troop trains, punishing notorious collaborators--and growing repression: arrests, torture, deportation, and executions. Above all, we see how Vichy and the Occupation affect the lives of farmers and villagers and how their often contradictory attitudes evolve from 1940-1944. Werth's ear for dialogue and novelist's gift for creating characters animate the diary: in the markets and in town, we meet real French peasants and shopkeepers, railroad men and the patronne of the cafe at the station, schoolteachers and gendarmes. They come off the page alive, and the countryside and villages come alive with them.
With biting irony, Werth records, almost daily, what Vichy-German propaganda was saying on the radio and in the press. We follow the progress of the war as people did then, day by day. These entries make interesting, often amusing reading, a stark contrast with his gripping entries on the persecution and deportation of the Jews. Deposition is a varied and complex piece of living history, and a pleasure to read.
352 pages, Pocket Book
First published January 1, 1946
About the author
Léon Werth
40 books6 followersLéon Werth was a French writer and art critic, a friend of Octave Mirbeau and a close friend and confidant of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
Werth wrote critically and with great precision on French society through World War I, colonization, and on French "collaboration" during World War II.
Werth wrote critically and with great precision on French society through World War I, colonization, and on French "collaboration" during World War II.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 20, 2018
I enjoyed this very much. A diary is not a genre I read very often. It is particularly effective at portraying the tragedy of the Fench occupation and life in Vichy France through the eyes of one man. Werth suffers much - not in a physical sense - but his great humanity is shown in the last couple of pages when he describes his reaction on seeing captured German soldiers during Paris’s liberation. There is also the sense portrayed of one man living through enormous historical events he cannot control - rather like living through Brexit in 2018.
January 9, 2026
A haunting, sublime gaze at one of the most atrocious period of history. At times it makes you smile, you often have a lump in your throat, you despair and hope along with Werth as he sees his country collapsing in body and soul, yet holds on to an invincible faith in Victory.
Some samples from his diary entries:
“America takes the French fleet off Alexandria. Nobody's fooled by the "firm attitude of Vichy." Vichy barks at the enemies of Germany but can only bite France.”
—
“I ask myself once again what happened to the pure pacifists, the ones for whom pacifism was an essential source. Gliding over the massacres, do they make wishes for none of the warring parties?”
"Peace, nothing but peace," they say. They make me think of a doctor at the bedside of a patient who refuses to examine him or make a diagnosis or prognosis, but repeats tirelessly: "Health, nothing but health."
—
“Vichy forces French workers to go work in Germany.
What would Lenin say—he of the union of proletariats over and above national borders-if he saw French workers going to Germany to make tanks against Russia?”
Poignant till the end.
Some samples from his diary entries:
“America takes the French fleet off Alexandria. Nobody's fooled by the "firm attitude of Vichy." Vichy barks at the enemies of Germany but can only bite France.”
—
“I ask myself once again what happened to the pure pacifists, the ones for whom pacifism was an essential source. Gliding over the massacres, do they make wishes for none of the warring parties?”
"Peace, nothing but peace," they say. They make me think of a doctor at the bedside of a patient who refuses to examine him or make a diagnosis or prognosis, but repeats tirelessly: "Health, nothing but health."
—
“Vichy forces French workers to go work in Germany.
What would Lenin say—he of the union of proletariats over and above national borders-if he saw French workers going to Germany to make tanks against Russia?”
Poignant till the end.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews