ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the transmission of memories of the Second World War in French comic books from the immediate post-war period to the present day, focussing on the experiences of those who were deported as prisoners of war, and more particularly the intergenerational dynamics of communicating those experiences and memories to future generations. It starts by exploring graphic narratives by Raymond Henry and Antoine de Roux, two French prisoners of war who published their war experiences in 1945. This is followed by an analysis of the issues raised by two recent autobiographical albums by authors dealing with the wartime experience of close relatives: Florent Silloray’s Le Carnet de Roger (2011), which scrutinises his grandfather’s time as a prisoner of war, and Jacques Tardi’s two albums, which examine his father’s time in a prison camp and his subsequent return to France following the war (2012, 2014). The chapter considers the specificity of the comic book as a means of recrafting and curating a violent past in an era of commemoration and of additionally recuperating wartime memories that continue to remain outside the standard historical accounts of the period.
