Journalist identifies photographer who died after taking illegal photos of wartime Paris
MICHELLE MARTIN, HOST:
In some cases, taking a photo can be an act of resistance. This is the story of hundreds of photographs taken by an unknown amateur photographer in Nazi-occupied Paris, and one journalist’s quest to determine his identity 80 years later. NPR’s Eleanor Beardsley reports.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: It all started with an old scrapbook I found at a flea market in the South of France.
Stephanie Corrow: Please pass.
Beardsley: (Speaks French.)
Corot: (laughs).
Beardsley: Nice to meet you.
Corot: (in French).
BEARDSLEY: Stephanie Corrow discovered this album in the summer of 2020. A documentary maker’s kitchen table in Paris is cluttered with shoeboxes filled with old photographs. She remembers opening her tattered scrapbook that day because she couldn’t find anything else.
Corot: (Through interpreter) I turned the page and realized, lo and behold, this is all scenes from occupied Paris. I immediately knew I had found a treasure and read the small note in front of it. It was written that if you find this album, please treasure it and muster up the courage to look at it. I thought someone had sent me a message in a bottle, and then I found it.
BEARDSLEY: Inside the album were 377 small black-and-white photographs taken between 1940 and 1942. This is a street scene of civilians and German soldiers everywhere, and there is no mention of who took it. However, during the German occupation of France, the Nazis strictly prohibited outdoor photography, and taking pictures could lead to imprisonment or death. Ms. Corot wanted to know who had taken them, so she called her best friend Philippe Broussard, an investigative journalist at Le Monde.
Philippe Broussard: It’s clear that they were taken by amateurs, not professionals, and by some shadowy figure behind the Germans. And you have to imagine the risk he was taking.
BEARDSLEY: The caption on the back of the photo made it even more interesting. In addition to marking locations, dates, and exact times, they often included sarcastic captions about a German soldier whom the photographer pejoratively referred to as Fritz.
Broussard: That’s very ironic. There’s a certain irony. For example, he says, our guardians.
BEARDSLEY: Broussard started looking into archives and talking to historians. Julien Blanc is an expert on occupation and resistance. He says he has other photos of occupied Paris.
Julien Blanc: (Through interpreter) But those are propaganda photos by Nazi-approved photographers. These are very different. It’s a secret photo. They showed us the real city – not glamorous, but deserted streets, no cars. They are hard, gray, and sad.
BEARDSLEY: Broussard found the same photo in two other locations. One is the National Resistance Museum in Champigny-sur-Marne, east of Paris.
Manuel Mango Nicaise: Alorz.
BEARDSLEY: Museum curator Manuel Mangot Nicaise carefully uses gloves to open some of the boxed prints. One shows a German soldier looking at a map on the street. What’s the caption? Mr. Fritz wonders where his corpse will one day rot. The photographs were donated to the museum 25 years ago by a man whose father owned them. He didn’t know the photographer either.
Nikais: (in French)
BEARDSLEY: “Taking these photos, developing them, and writing derisive comments was an act of resistance,” says Mangot Nicaise. “They showed us what the profession is really like.” As the investigation entered its fourth year, Broussard said he was at once discouraged and obsessed, like a cop faced with a cold case. speak
Broussard: There were moments when I thought, “It’s time to give up.” You’ll never find it. But I continued.
BEARDSLEY: He discovered a second, smaller collection of photographs. These items belonged to a woman who worked in the perfume section of the Le Printemps department store during the war. The store’s archivist then discovered a 1960s company newsletter that included one of the photos and the photographer’s name.
Broussard: So I discovered that the man who took the photo on the famous Friday, April 12th, which I will remember for the rest of my life, was Raoul Minott. He was an employee of Le Printemps. Since he was not a professional photographer, he decided to take his camera and go out into the streets of Paris to take as many pictures as possible.
BEARDSLEY: Raoul Minott is pictured with his wife, Marthe, who also worked at Le Printemps. They printed the paper in the shop’s specialized studio, which explains how they obtained the paper during wartime rationing. However, there were also traitors among the resistance forces. In early 1943, someone criticized the couple. Broussard has a copy of what he says is a terrifying anonymous letter.
Broussard: Oh, it says you should look at the couple working at Le Printemps. they are taking pictures. They are developing film inside a department store.
BEARDSLEY: Police arrested Raul and Marthe Minott in their apartment and seized hundreds of photos, a camera and a small Kodak brownie that Minott was carrying on his chest under his coat. He was interrogated by the Gestapo and deported to a Nazi concentration camp. He never returned. After the war, Marto searched for him in vain. History has forgotten him until now. Broussard says this story is about more than World War II. It’s a universal story.
Broussard: This is the story of an ordinary man willing to fight, even in front of the greatest army of his time, even in front of a colleague who could be a traitor. This is a story of courage and the love of a wife who wanted to know what happened to him.
BEARDSLEY: Broussard’s four-year investigation was published as a five-part series in Le Monde this fall. This led to Minot being recognized by the French government as a resister who testified to the realities of German occupation and died for France. The discovery of another photograph, one of himself. In the ID photo, Minott is wearing a tie, with a proud expression and a slight smile. Broussard says it’s a face that oozes goodness.
Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris.
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