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From historical investigation to the shaping of the story
Suppliques Stories are based on the investigation of historian Laurent Joly from 43 boxes containing thousands of recently inventoried unpublished letters. All of them, sent by Jews to the administration or to the Marshal, speak of the conditions experienced by their authors in order to improve their situation.
With the goal of bringing a generation of smartphone users to these supplications, Suppliques Stories offers a fictionalized adaptation of the letters as digital conversations. The chat reading is enriched with hyperlinks to clarify key notions, which bring to life precise and documented biographical elements. The conversation is the tool that leads to the handwritten letter, to understand and measure its importance in the historical narrative.
The letter can be manipulated digitally and as the story progresses, an audio playback is available. The supplication is also accessible in typed transcription for a comfortable reading. Moreover, in the context of the letter, a window proposes to discover what became of its author.
The supplications allow us to understand not only the fate of their authors but also the major stages of the anti-Semitic policy of the Vichy regime, the justifications of the State and French society (between mutual aid and denunciation).
"Suppliques Stories is necessary today in a context where the temptation to revisit history is very present. The digital device allows the creation of a digital grammar that reveals, makes live and amplifies the memory of these letters. Thanks to these conversations in the form of SMS, the user is closer to the protagonists, closer to their intimacy and daily life. Suppliques Stories is part of a 360° device at France Télévisions, with a linear documentary on air & platform and Lumni modules.
Using digital technology to create a physical relationship with archives
With Suppliques Stories, the objective is not to desecrate the archive. Here, each conversation has been worked on after extensive research on the characters, their history, as well as on historical details. The anachronism between the materiality of the paper and the immateriality of the digital support allows to serve the original letter.
"I would like that in each conversation, everything leads to the letter, that the fiction is an antechamber which serves us to better understand the logic of persecution of the Jews. We need to keep the power of the letter, its tone, its words, the stories it carries, but also its off-screen. Make it accessible with contemporary and digital means."
Suppliques Stories is deployed as part of the 80th anniversary of the commemoration of the Vel d'Hiv roundup. With this application, it is a question of looking at History in its complexity, without being in contrition, nor in rewriting.
The 80th anniversary of the Vel d'Hiv roundup, a global device to commemorate
The Vel d'Hiv roundup has become, in the collective memory, the most striking symbol of the tragedy of the Shoah in France and of the criminal consequences of the policy of collaboration conducted by the Vichy government. On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Vel d'Hiv roundup of July 16 and 17, 1942, Suppliques Stories is part of a global program deployed by France Télévisions to tell the story, bear witness and remember.
On July 11, experience the great documentary evening of France 3 during which two new films will be broadcast:
- La rafle du Vel d'Hiv, la honte et les larmes, directed by David Korn-Brzoza and co-written with the historian Laurent Joly.
- Les suppliques, directed by Jérôme Prieur and also co-written with Laurent Joly on the same theme of these letters sent to the French administration under the Vichy regime
Find also the educational contents and letters "LISTENING" deployed on Lumni to discover the petitions in their audio form.
And finally, discover the Suppliques Stories experience in a progressive web app directly on your mobile that offers an immersion in the context of the Second World War, while raising awareness of the consequences of hatred, rejection of the other and anti-Semitism.
Discover it here:
