Dawn of Evil by Stéphane Leneuf is a novel that spans the 20th century and recounts the destiny of Marie. Through the story of his life, the history of France takes shape. A historical novel as much as a love story and quest for identity, from Alsace to Burgundy, the reader follows this life made of despair, separation but also resistance and courage. Published by Michel Lafon, Dawn of Evil has been in bookstores since May 2, 2024.
As its author, a journalist at France Inter, told us, “Marie is idealistic. On November 11, 1918, she believed in peace and newfound happiness, but by dint of suffering nationalist violence she became a resistance fighter and a freedom fighter. Dawn of Evil is also a tribute to all these anonymous women who fought in the maquis so that we are free today and that we do not plunge back into the horrors of the past”. In this period of rise of European populism, literature sheds light on History.
The story : November 11, 1918, in Strasbourg was a day of jubilation and joy. Jubilation for the Alsatians who are celebrating the end of the Great War which left 9 million dead and missing on both sides of the border. “Strasbourg has been in joy for several days. We are celebrating the end of the war, the end of this dictatorship which imprisoned us. The end of the horror.”
Personal joy also for Marie, the heroine of the novel because she has just given birth to twins. The joy of a fulfilled mother. His twins are called Klaus and Nicolas. Nicolas for France. Klaus for Germany. Because their father is a German soldier. Marie fell head over heels for Bernhard, December 6, 1917, Saint Nicholas Day. The future should be that of a happy family, of a woman in love. The course of the world decides otherwise. It will not be good for a German to live in liberated Alsace.
Stéphane Leneuf makes us discover through the life of Marie a little-known and inglorious episode in the History of France. He was a correspondent in Strabourg for Radio France for four years and on this occasion, many Alsatians often told him the tragic story of a population caught between two cultures, French and Rhine. “It is the tragedy of border region that Germany and France disputed, two countries also both nationalists. Some of my friends explained to me that their parents had changed nationality four times in thirty years! It’s astonishing!”
In a few pages, the jubilation of the Liberation turns into a hunt for the “Boche”. The friends of yesteryear, the neighbors next door, the strangers in the street become informers, scales and the French administration sets out to list and expel Alsatians of German ancestry. “The republic has practiced at the time a real policy of ethnic purification of the Alsatians of German ancestry, that is to say those who arrived after the defeat of 1870 when Alsace became German. They did not have a choice. In the name of the “decorative” and a vengeful nationalism, they were unceremoniously expelled. It is from this historical fact that I constructed the main framework of Dawn of Evil“, the author explains.
In this climate which resembles the years of the Collaboration, the portraits drawn by the author are full of this hatred of others and the lure of gain on the back of fear. Marie seeks to save her children because their father wants to take them with him to Germany. One solution: false papers. His neighbor, Anja”who helped her so often during her pregnancy”, married to Mathias, this small zealot official, offers her for the modest sum of 1000 marks, half of Marie’s savings.
Another scene concerning these Germans expelled from Strasbourg resonates with the hunt for Jews which, a few years later, some French accomplices will participate. “Mr and Mrs Siegfried were dressed as if they were going on a trip (…) Two suitcases were placed at their feet. Not a word. Not a tear. (…) then suddenly, two gendarmes standing behind them in the store gave them a violent blow on the shoulders with the rifle butt, as one can do to cattle that are reluctant to take the final straight to the slaughterhouse.” writes Stéphane Leneuf in The dawn of evil.
:quality(50)/2024/06/13/043-fa-arp2038908-666b0c7cda943837435850.jpg)
The Siegfrieds were the neighborhood bakers, until those days popular with the neighborhood. Their bread was so tasty, but their families had arrived in Strasbourg after the defeat of 1870. Times change quickly.
It was a purge, Stéphane Leneuf explained to us: “this can also be analyzed as the beginnings of what the Vichy regime would do with the Jews a few years later. Let us not be afraid of comparisons. When we exclude populations from the republican field because of their ethnicity, we acts from the same sources of hatred of the other”.
The rest of the novel is full of twists and turns. Marie leaves Strasbourg for Burgundy, with her son Nicolas, the father goes to Germany with Klaus. Marie changes her name but a new war is on the horizon. Marie will be resistant. Arrested by the Nazis and imprisoned, Alsace returns to her thoughts: “II will be a German Alsatian who will have doubly betrayed the Aryan race by having left her nourishing land and chosen France. The Nazis don’t respect their enemies.”
Dawn of Evila topical novel for its author: “It reminds us how much nationalism has ravaged Europe, caused two world wars and caused at least twenty to thirty million deaths! Dawn of Evil doesn’t talk about today’s nationalists and populists. It is a fiction which fits into a past nationalist context which recalls those of today. I do not hesitate to say that my novel is a whistleblower of memory so as not to forget the horrors of the past so as not to relive them. In this way my novel is terribly current, unfortunately.”
Through their exchanges of letters which never cease despite the heartbreaking choices of each, Dawn of Evil also tells that a love story, even if it ends badly, is anchored in the hearts of the lovers. And the two brothers will meet again… But for that it’s up to you to read. The dawn of evil, the novel of a torn family, of a courageous mother, and of a Europe still torn apart today.
:quality(50)/2024/06/13/couv-hd-l-aube-du-mal-666ac23a174d0144722283.jpg)
Extract : She tapped the edge of the bed to invite me to sit down. She fixed me with her hard gaze. At times like this, his eyes would turn steel blue and could cause a feeling of fear in anyone around him. I didn’t know what to think. This old woman on the verge of death had always been very distant with us, and today she established a late intimacy that I instinctively rejected, while feeling an obligation of respect that forced me to accept the situation.
“Listen to me,” she said, squeezing my arm very tightly. In this box there is a story that you must know, but not now, when you grow up, because it is a story of men. You’re not a man yet, but you’re going to become one. You have to learn to know. You have to make me a promise, though: keep the box, and open it when you turn eighteen. Eighteen ! You hear ? Eighteen ! That’s the number! You must never forget it! You hear ?
She shook me even more violently as if her most ardent desire was for me to remember that number.
– It’s a Grail that will allow you to open the doors of the past!
I did not understand. I did not understand anything ! I didn’t want to understand! This box was old, it was ugly, and it was going to be in my way. But above all, at that moment, I felt intense fear. I had only one idea in mind: to run away and push this face and these eyes away from me and from my world of a teenager who had not asked for his life to be disrupted with events.