FIDOVI

In order to contribute to the history of the genocidal and repressive inner workings of the French state, the project aims to list and study the personal files of individuals identified as ideological and racial enemies by the Vichy regime: census records on Jews, anti-Masonic files, files on Jewish children taken into custody by child protection services. Our objective is to understand how these documents were put together, and how they were used, from the Occupation period to the present day, when the issue of opening them to the public and to researchers is of major importance in terms of individual and collective memory. Supported by two history research centers, the IHTP (Université Paris 8, CNRS) and the CRH (EHESS, CNRS), the Archives nationales (AN) and the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), the project will bring together archivists and historians. Combining case studies and a global approach, it will focus on three aspects. It will shift the focus of enquiry, from Paris to the regions, by identifying and studying new records in departmental archives, as well as at the Archives nationales d'outre-mer (ANOM) for colonial Algeria. We want to understand the administrative life of these records, by analysing sources that have so far been neglected by researchers, and records that local census will help us identify. Finally, we want to understand their afterlife, by distinguishing between post-war administrative uses and uses for memorial purposes: reparation, commemoration, ego-history. Their consultation by the people concerned and their descendants will be the subject of an oral survey at the departmental archives, the ANOM and the AN. In addition to the publication of scientific articles and conference proceedings, a guide to sources and a database of those involved in the registration process will be developed. The results will be shared with a wide audience through conferences, virtual exhibitions and a web documentary.