Georges AUCLAIR
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Journalist, writer and professor of literature.
A Resistance fighter, then a journalist in Germany in 1945, he received the Prix Interallié at thirty for Un amour allemand. A researcher at the CNRS, he published in 1970 Le Mana quotidien, an essay on crime news that became a classic. His stone also bears the name of a brother who died at Buchenwald.
The story
Georges Auclair was born on 27 May 1920. He joined the Resistance under the Occupation, and then spent fifteen months in Germany, in 1945 and 1946, as a journalist accredited to the military government.
On 9 January 1949 he founded, with Pierre Loquet and J. Le Bihen, the Breton circle Bro Gwenrann at Guérande. The following year his first novel, “Un amour allemand”, came out at Gallimard and took the Prix Interallié.
He did not settle into a literary career. A professor of literature in the United States, a researcher at the CNRS, a teacher of sociology, he also had a hand in founding the newspaper Le Parisien libéré.
In 1970 he published “Le Mana quotidien”, an essay in social anthropology on the news-in-brief column and on what the press manufactures as sacred. The book is now a classic of media studies.
He died on 4 April 2004 and lies in Division 42. On the stone, under his name and the words “écrivain et sociologue” — writer and sociologist — a line recalls Jacques Auclair, who died for France at Buchenwald in 1944.
The grave
A sober stone, without ornament, whose inscription falls in two movements. First the man: “Georges Auclair, 1920-2004, writer and sociologist” — the prize-winning novelist gives himself the title of the researcher. Then an absent one: “In memoriam Jacques Auclair, 1921-1944, died for France at Buchenwald”. The second is not buried there; this is one of those lines families had engraved, for want of a grave, for the dead of the camps.
On site, do not miss
The two lines of the stone: “writer and sociologist”, then the in memoriam for Jacques Auclair, who died at Buchenwald at twenty-three.
Visitors' questions
Where is Georges Auclair's grave?
In Division 42, Chemin des Anglais, fourth row, on the eastern slope of the cemetery. The stone is plain: only two inscriptions, his own and that of a Jacques Auclair, who died at Buchenwald in 1944.
Guillaume ApollinaireWho was Georges Auclair?
A Resistance fighter who became a novelist and then a sociologist. His first book, “Un amour allemand”, won the Prix Interallié in 1950; he went on to teach literature in the United States and sociology in France, and worked as a researcher at the CNRS.
Edmond AboutWhat is “Le Mana quotidien”?
An essay in social anthropology published in 1970, examining crime reporting and the sense of the sacred that the press manufactures every day. It is the book that secured Georges Auclair's lasting reputation, more than any of his novels.
Marie d'AgoultWho was the Jacques Auclair named on the stone?
A relative, most likely his brother, born in 1921 and who died for France at Buchenwald in 1944. He is not buried there: the line is an in memoriam, as there are many at Père-Lachaise for those who died in the camps.
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