![]() I saw all these material emblems of my honor fall at my feet. He tore off rapidly buttons, trousers stripes, the signs of my rank from cap and sleeves, and then broke my sword across his knee. ![]() Vive la France, vive l'armee!"Ī Sergeant of the Republican Guard came up to me. Soldiers, they are dishonoring an innocent man. "Soldiers, they are degrading an innocent man. To sustain me I called up the memory of my wife and children.Īs soon as the sentence had been read out, I cried aloud, addressing myself to the troops: I suffered agonizingly, but held myself erect with all my strength. General Darras, commanding the parade, gave the order to carry arms. If they had spoken to me about it before my departure from France, which did not take place until February, 1895, - that is, more than seven weeks after the degradation, - I should have tried to strangle this calumny in its infancy.Īfter this I was marched to the centre of the square, under a guard of four men and a corporal. It is by a travesty of these words that Lebrun-Renault, with singular lack of conscience, created or allowed to be created that legend of confession, of which I learned the existence only in January, 1899. I protested against the vile accusation which had been brought against me I recalled that I had written again to the Minister to tell him of my innocence. The memory of the dreadful months which I had just passed came back to me, and in broken sentences I recalled to the captain the last visit which Commandant du Paty de Clam had made me in my prison. During these long minutes I gathered up all the forces of my being. I underwent the horrible torture without weakness.īefore the ceremony, I waited for an hour in the hall of the garrison adjutant at the Ecole Militaire, guarded by the captain of gendarmes, Lebrun-Renault. THE DEGRADATION TOOK PLACE Saturday, the 5th of January. His course in electronics served him well, as he immigrated to America, and eventually founded a technology company.(Source: Five Years of My Life: The Diary of Captain Alfred Dreyfus)ĭreyfus marched out for his degradation on January 19, 1894 After years on the run without an education, Alfred was able to learn a trade in their last Swiss internment camp. ![]() Dreyfus remembers one of the camps feeling nearly as torturous as he imagined the German concentration camps to be, though without the threat of death. They were lucky to be among the 5% of refugees allowed to stay, but they were not free – they were housed in a succession of internment camps. Toward the end of the war, the family used the last of their savings to pay a smuggler to get them into Switzerland, where they were immediately arrested. Frequently, they narrowly avoided being discovered and sent “east” on trains with millions of other Jewish men, women and children, including close family members, who were killed during the Holocaust. At times they hid in a cave, found shelter with compassionate French citizens, and even bunked in a hayloft and an 8 x 10-foot former pig pen. Beginning in 1938, they moved often, including fleeing Paris with tens of thousands of others as the Germans approached in 1940. They knew if they stayed in one place for any length of time they would be killed immediately or sent to labor or concentration camps. ![]() The reality was bleak, however, and the family found themselves on the run because of their German-Jewish heritage. His father, a factory owner, saw the increasing antisemitism in Germany in the early 1930s, foresaw another war, and thought that in France he and his wife could raise their three sons safely. ![]() Alfred Dreyfus was born in Germany in 1923. ![]()
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